Behind the scenes, in my studio, my garden and my field, there’s a lot slowly going on right now. I’ve planted more flax and I’m growing plants for dyeing, and last  year’s alpaca fleece is at the mill being processed. In my work, though, I’ve put alpaca fleece to one side for the moment and, while I will definitely return to it shortly, the pieces that I’m working on currently are continuing in the same vein as my ‘Ian’s Waste’ project, using materials left over from the build of my new studio and other repurposed materials.

I’m really interested in different textures, different techniques, and using some of the materials in slightly unusual ways; I’m exploring, experimenting and playing, being free and getting away from convention. Whether I’m working with natural or manmade, modern or ancient materials, I always try to make something that I consider aesthetically beautiful. But it’s important to me that every piece goes beyond that and has a further depth that conveys a powerful message. These are four of the pieces that I’m beginning to work on at the moment.

The centre of this work is a metal wheel from the water tower  that forms part of my house. When the tower was in use there was a spring across the road that naturally fed to it, and the water was pumped by a generator up to the top of the tower, which is now my bedroom. This chunk of metal was a part of that process, possibly distilling and cleansing the water. I found it when I bought the property and have loved it and hung it on the wall for over 30 years. Now I’m finally putting it to good use, pairing it with long flax fibres in their raw, unspun state that I’ve grown and processed here and that hang in  such a wonderful, sculptural way, and bits of hemp insulation left over from the build of the new studio. The resulting work is very much about the heritage of this building, what it used to be and what’s happening here now and connecting forgotten times with the present.  

This detail is of a tapestry weaving that I’m working on. The warp that runs up and down is woven from some coconut twine fibre that I was given – I love the raw texture of it, it’s quite hard to handle, it’s tough and it’s quite edgy. For the weft I’m using commercially-grown flax, and the two different textures work so well together. It’s turning into a piece that reflects how I feel about what’s going on in the wider world at the moment: life is sometimes two steps forward and three back, and we’re in the middle of very difficult times. It’s going to be called Snakes and Ladders and might be displayed laid on the ground with other elements that were left over from creating the new studio added to it.

In building the new studio the old solar panels had to be removed and their supports couldn’t be reused, so I’ve used the discarded pieces of aluminium to construct big, square frames (left). I’ve drilled holes into each of the four sides and am weaving them up with old baler twine that I’ve collected from the hay bales that I use to feed my alpacas. The orange, pink and an occasional bit of blue look so beautiful, but it’s plastic twine that never, ever rots, and made from fossil fuels that we should all stop using and instead try to return to alternatives. The finished piece will be very large and there will be four of them so this will probably be an outdoor installation.

I’ve kept all of the offcuts of hemp insulation left over from the studio build and I’ll use all of them because I love the sponginess of it and the fact it’s very natural material. For this piece (right) I’ve wrapped a section of it with wire and pulled it tight. The wire arrived wrapped around the big electrical cables that connect the batteries to our solar panels, and was going to be thrown away, but it’s really malleable and easy to physically manipulate with your hands so it’s a useful material to work with. I think this is a small sample of something that I plan to scale up into a big installation. It’s about ancient, heritage fibres being used for modern purposes ,and  very modern, textural materials coming together and working together, and the way that they can be manipulated into sculptural forms.

Watch this space to see how each one of these explorations manifest themselves!