News
Design process for Ilkley fountain
After the recent articles in The Observer, Guardian Online and Ilkley Gazette about the design for the Ilkley Fountain, we thought it might be helpful at this point for others and for ourselves if we write a note about how it is evolving. Our hope is that the design...
A kindliness of mosses
‘I felt the kindliness of the moss, which is all over everywhere once you get out of the made world. God’s flooring. All the kinds, pillowy, pin-cushiony, shag carpet. Gray sticks of moss with red heads like matchsticks. Some tiny dead part of me woke up to the moss...
New shapes with stones
Making some new shapes using stones which we have gathered.
Sphagnum and healing
Earlier this year, on behalf of Dovetailing with Clare Dearnaley, I received some seed funding from Bradford 2025 to develop a proposal for a project around sphagnum moss which is still in development. Valuable support has been given by Born in Bradford and Moors for...
Design chosen for new fountain
We are honoured that our design for the new Ilkley fountain has been selected through public vote, and that there will be a celebration of the moors, and more specifically sphagnum moss, at the centre of our town. We have been working with Improving Ilkley to adapt...
Woodland at Dove Cottage, responsive work
A small series of oak leaf mobiles responding to time spent at Dove Cottage and the woodland, using a quote from 'The Tables Turned'. 'The artworks look beautiful and the film is lovely; it made me stop and stare in the midst of a busy day – perfectly...
On Wordsworth and wake
After spending time at the Wordsworth Museum and reading more about Wordsworth, I wrote down some thoughts which resonated with the development of Breath Water Marks (which are exhibited at the museum). 'It was also beautiful on the calm, hot nights to...
Oak leaf mobile for jaggedart anniversary exhibition
For a special exhibition to celebrate twenty-one years of jaggedart, each gallery artist was invited to present a work which fits within 40cm x 40cm. We made an oak leaf mobile in oak wood and with pyrography, have used part of a quote by Sartre about the mobiles of...
Breathturn by Ian Duhig
Essay by Ian Duhig for an international anthology of Ekphrastic poetry (where poems are accompanied by a prose commentary) Breath Water Marks "To most people who look at a mobile, it's no more than a series of flat objects that move. To a few, though, it may be...
Wordsworth Museum
I went to the Wordsworth Museum for a meeting to explore the possibility of hanging the new mobiles inspired by wake in the 'pause space'. Afterwards, I spent time exploring the Museum, Dove Cottage, the garden, orchard and the woodlands.
Ilkley Fountain Competition
I knew nothing about moss until a couple of years ago when I read Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It’s a book which is both poetic and informative about the unique and transformative properties of moss, and since reading it the mosses on our local moorland have...
Other wake poems
A few other poems which have inspired me while thinking about the concept of wake.
Threaded by Mist, jaggedart 31 Jan – 24 Feb
A group show featuring textiles, sculpture, ceramics and etchings by artists Danielle Creenaune, Juliet and Jamie Gutch, Katherine Jones, Solange Leon, Tanya McCallin and Justine Randall. Visit the gallery Tuesday to Friday, 11 am to 5 pm. Other days by appointment...
Wake project: making the first shapes
Soaking and laminationDry, rough-sanded and ready to cut out the internal shapesCutting out, ready to fine sand
Wake project: finding the first shapes
Exploring lightness of lines and marks drawn from images of water boatmen skittering across the surface of water in the boathouse.
Wake project
Exhibiting Dovetailing at the Windermere Jetty Museum this year gave me the opportunity to spend time in the museum with its adjoining boatyard and conservation workshop, and to get a sense of fleeting movement, floating reflections, the forming of wood, and working...
‘It was a Cathedral of Power’
This mobile was made for an exhibition at Quay Arts to accompany a screening of the film FAWLEY, which explores the life and decommissioning of the landmark power station and its local connection with landscape and people. Made by Chu-Li Shewring and Adam Gutch,...
A few more images from Ellary. Visual notes for remembering what I have seen
Ellary, Scotland
We spent a week on the west coast of Scotland on the Ellary peninsular. I was absorbed both by the long, lone strands of seaweed which, given form by the water around them, looped and moved in meandering response to the currents and tide, and by the ephemeral traces...
Ruth Asawa, Citizen of the Universe, Modern Art Oxford
A very inspiring exhibition of the life and work of Ruth Asawa, which we visited at Modern Art Oxford on 13 August. Citizen of the Universe takes a unique look at the visionary artist, educator and activist Ruth Asawa (b. 1926, Norwalk, CA – d. 2013, San Francisco,...
Solace mobile
Mobile installed at Solace, Leeds
Gathered Notes
Gathered Notes book, telling the story of the first two Dovetailing exhibitions
Installation at Windermere Jetty Museum
Dovetailing at Windermere Jetty Museum
Tinker Gallery – new pieces
I really enjoyed installing seven new mobiles with Jo Tinker in her new gallery, The Tinker Gallery, on Friday. The seven mobiles make up a full window installation. The inspiration came from learning about sphagnum moss. A shape within each mobile wraps around (and...