Transportation complete

We loaded part one and two of the ‘horn’ (joined),  on to the truck at 8pm on Friday night in the pouring rain. As soon as we had finished securing the load,  the rain stopped… We were all absolutely soaked through and my hair was plastered to my head as though I had been swimming!

We left the house at 7.15 the next morning en route for Kingston St Mary. A convoy of one truck and one car. David, Chris and myself were allocated the lifting whilst Peter’s role was as official photographer (and for a thirteen year old, I think he did a pretty good job).  Luckily it was not raining and although the garden was full of early morning wetness, the sun was shining and the trees and plants looked fantastic.

The first load was the most problematical but the second load was a complete doddle.

Tuesday is installation day and is everybody happy??? I shall be if it doesn’t rain!

The morning after the night before

Well we had the Private View last night at Cotley Tithe Barn near Chard. A busy evening but it seemed to go off well. I went in the morning to clean up and remove and recycle the rubbish and the empties......
I took the opportunity to get some decent photos of my work without the scaffolding. They still sometimes remind me of the seed sticks you give to budgies!!
It was good to see some of my locals including farming families and lots of people were interested in the origins of the hooked teasel, and I've now left a couple of hooked teasels in a jam jar on the window sill of the barn.

Kings, Queens and Buttons

Installation time......a bit traumatic but got there in the end with expertise from Tim and Ruth.
Six poles of teasels are now hung from the roof of the Tithe barn at Cotley Nr Chard. The title Kings, Queens, and Buttons represents the size of teasels that were cut. The harvest started with the biggest, then medium sized and finally the smallest teasels on the plant. The green teasels, on the pole which represents 1940s, form a significant curve (which happened because of the way the pole was lying at home, and the fact that the green teasels are much heavier as they are full of seeds), and appears to be very much a living thing.....growing and expanding. This pole is also shedding lots of teasel seeds all over the barn floor......the mice will have fun!

The end

The third and final part of the horn is complete. The rain has now started so too wet to attempt the reassembly....maybe tomorrow?

Horn of Plenty.....Two thirds completed

Using a curved 'leather' needle and raffia, I have been sewing the bundles of reeds on to the black (ground cover) background, and it is taking forever.......a very slow process. But two thirds are now completed and the smallest section yet to be done. I hope to finish it today and have a trial at putting it together over the weekend. Let's hope it fits!

Blood, sweat and tears

Can honestly say I'm absolutely exhausted as trying to finish off my other project. Short deadlines are not good at my age....Because of the late summer, the reed cutting was delayed (late nesting), so I did not manage to get the reeds from Ham Wall RSPB (http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/h/hamwall/) until 27th August and I've been hard at it ever since.
I've collected four car loads of reeds in total, cutting them down to the required length, to thatch the Horn of Plenty; see http://sawabundance.wordpress.com/category/gillian-widden/ for more details of the project.

The sixth and final teasel pole

I'm now half way through the final teasel pole using green teasels. I'm off to collect more teasels on Tuesday so should finish this work by the end of the week as long as it doesn't start raining again.

The green teasels look completely different, and I'm not sure just how long they will keep the green tinge...it would be nice if they stayed like this until the exhibition but that's unlikely. My room now contains 6 teasel poles and I have to climb underneath them to leave the room. I tried out the teasel 'cradles' today (made to transport the poles in a horizontal position in the back of a truck), and they seem to work well.