Tops and tails

I'm in the process of taking the tails off the teasels. The tops and tails will create two different pieces of work. I'm making up bags of 500 teasels heads which will be used for an installation (using several thousand teasels) as part of Quartz Festival at Queens College. This piece of work that will be created with help from the Junior School pupils.
The teasel tails are being wired together to make 'clothing'.
These teasels are very hard and I often prick my fingers and bleed everywhere.....memories of last year?

Mannequin, manakin, manikin, or mannikin ?

Well I now have one of the above......whatever the spelling......courtesy of Ebay. At the moment,  I perceive her as a sort of Lara Croft type individual, and I purchased her outfit from a charity shop.
She needs to be feisty, as my son is using her for target practice!

I have also started to slice up the teasels and experiment with ways of turning them into clothing. I've got hold of some coffee sacks (the cultivated teasels were sewn into sacks before been transported to the mills), so I was keen to try it as a possible backing material. But, I may just wire the teasels together.

Today, being a dry day with a good breeze blowing,  I've managed to dye a small amount of teasels using the remainder of the Indian ink. These teasels don't take up the stain as well as the wild teasels but I think the results are still interesting.

Hibernation over?

Now we're nearly in British Summer Time, I've decided to come out of hibernation. But working outside in the arctic wind this morning I may change my mind....

I've just taken delivery of 10,000 (40kgs) of teasels from a company in Yorkshire that imports them from Spain. This is Dipsacus sativus, the hooked teasel, which is still used by top-end clothing manufacturers, such as Johnston's of Elgin, to hand finish their garments.

I became fascinated by this humble teasel when researching it's history last year, and have several ideas for new work. The huge boxes are now taking up space in my hallway and blocking the daylight from our front door.

Winter weather takes it's toll

Driving past Somerset College today I saw what was left of my six foot six cube……notice the absence of the college sign, and further down the road several garden fence panels had been ripped apart.
Never underestimate the power of nature.

I wonder how long the college authorities will leave it before it becomes firewood!

Horn finds a New Home in Hillcommon

Thursday 17th October saw an early start at Little Yarford Farmhouse, with the artist,  garden owners,  new owner of the Horn, and ‘the removal men’  (a team from Mark Butterfield Furniture) on site at 08.30 , AND it wasn’t raining!

Paul Ridge of Hazelmere, Hillcommon, is the new owner of the Horn of Plenty, and plans to install it on his land.

Paul said; ‘ When I first saw the Horn of Plenty I loved its shape, scale and how it looks different from every angle.’

The removal proved to be surprisingly straightforward (from a non participant),  although we nearly lost a man in the pond!

Although some of these pictures are blurred, I like them, and I was walking backwards at speed on wet grass!

First impressions?

As Somerset Art Week 2013 ended, I arranged to be in the garden for 5pm, to ‘move’ the Horn of Plenty, so the grass could regrow. This was what I uncovered…..

Shaggy dog stories ?

A wet day, but at least the rain wasn’t torrential. A thick mist blanketed the Quantocks Hills obscuring our view from the tump. With the weather still being quite warm, the garden itself was steaming. The ‘Horn’ has now gone all shaggy in the rain, with the ends of the raffia hanging down vertically, and now resembles a wet, shaggy dog.

First day of Somerset Art Week 2013

First day of art week and it wasn’t raining!

I managed to get some more photos before any visitors arrived.

What I find interesting, is how different this sculpture looks depending on your viewing point/how trees and plants obscure or partially obscure your view. It was very difficult trying to get the best overall position for this work and I kept asking Denise to help me reposition it and then went wandering off into the garden to view it again from all angles. She was very patient with me…..This is when I could have done with a technical team to do the moving….communicating via our mobiles!

The more I look at this work, the more aquatic or possibly prehistoric it becomes……the slightly blurred picture with the Gunnera definitely looks vaguely like a giant sea-slug, slithering off into the undergrowth, or is this just me?