During the first COVID-19 Lockdown in 2020, I worked closely with the materials found in my garden, whilst also developing participatory resources for children and adults using natural objects as part of various art pack commissions
I started playing with nature paint brushes, to use for painting black ink nests, and tying long grass into knots, nests and wreath-like shapes. I let the grass nests dry outdoors over the Spring/Summer and in the Autumn, I stacked them up, back on the grassy mound, to rot down. Using the grass nests, I created a series of Cyanotypes in the Summer sunshine. These explorations formed a seasonal piece of work called NEST / WREATH / SCRIBBLE / CIRCLE, some of which no longer exists as it was returned to the earth
I worked in my garden to create this work with birds zipping across the garden making nests too, whilst the nation was on Lockdown at home. I was thinking about nests as a ‘home’, the wreath as a decorative signifier of a time, a chaotic scribble – how the home could be a distressing or trapping experience during this period, and the a circle form to reference cycles in nature
