clairemaloney

After chatting to Matt about my plans and discussing what clay would be best, he told me crank clay would be most suitable for making sculptures that are to be outdoors all year round as it is a heavily grogged stoneware (lots of ground up bisque fired particles in it), making it the most hardy, frostproof medium. Unfortunately the clay store was out of crank, so whilst I was waiting for it to be delivered I started practicing with buff stoneware, which should still be fine for outdoor sculpture, just not quite as hardy.

I started by shaping clay around a balloon as Claire Curneen showed us in the ceramics segment of Collaborate by pinching small balls of clay and making flat “oysters” and scalloping them together row by row to form a vessel. I would then be able to smooth the surface with a ceramics tool called a kidney once I had finished making my sphere.

I made a half sphere, but found that gravity fought the oysters after this point, so had to turn the piece upside down to continue working. This wasn’t as easy as I thought, as gravity also made the bowl I had created collapse as soon as I turned it upside down. I had to let it dry to leather hard before I could turn it upside down and continue making. In order to hold it steady, I found a bowl to sit it in.

I also found that even then it was impossible to carry on working up from the “equator” of my sphere – I would have to start from the top, working my way down again row by row, finally joining my two halves with a row in the middle. As the bottom was leather hard and the top wasn’t, I covered it with a plastic bag overnight to even out the moisture.

The next day the moisture had evened out, however I realised that I hadn’t made a level bottom, so luckily it was still soft enough to flatten on the base. I then tried smoothing the surface using a kidney but found it very difficult as it was a little too dry and I was using a smooth kidney – Clare Stephens kindly suggested I tried a kidney with a serrated edge, which made it much easier! I then made the top of the seed head and joined it by the cross hatching and slip method.

Many people had warned me that modelling clay around a balloon was risky as the clay would shrink as it dried and rather than popping the balloon, the clay would crack. I was therefore very conscious that I had to pop the balloon as soon as I thought the clay was hard enough to support itself. Unfortunately I misjudged this the first time and popped the balloon a little early. The sphere started to crack and collapse at a weak point on the base. Luckily I was able to support it sufficiently to stop it collapsing completely and the next morning, once it was dry, Matt showed me how to fix the crack with vinegar and thick clay slip. There was still a concern that the crack would worsen during firing, but again I was very lucky and it survived.

There were several things I was unhappy with on this first trial:

1. It was incredibly difficult, time consuming and tedious to make – I did not enjoy the process at all.
2. I wasn’t happy with the surface of the sphere – even though I had smoothed it, I could still see the disc shapes.
3. Poppy seed heads have vertical ribs which I needed to add.
4. I wasn’t happy with the top – it looked too much like a flower. It needed to be smaller, rougher and have more segments.

I decided I needed to make them sturdier and in a completely different way. I thought if I could start by making a cage around the balloon with extruded clay, this would not only give me a sturdier structure but also create the vertical ribs I needed. I also decided to add bases to make them more stable and avoid the cracking issue.

I remembered a beach ball cake I had made for a friend a few years ago and thought I could use the icing technique I had used for that with clay. I could roll sheets of clay and cut out each segment, laying it over the ribs and joining with the cross hatching and slip method. I just had to wait for the crank clay…

The crank clay was much harder to work with than I had anticipated. I knew that it was going to be crumblier because of the grog in it, but I couldn’t even get a 2cm thick band to go half way around the balloon without it tearing. I spoke to John about this as I thought a way around it might be to make it full scale – if I could increase the size, I could increase the thickness of the bands and maybe they wouldn’t tear so easily. He brought in Ingrid to ask her opinion as a ceramicist, who suggested I kept to the 1/4 scale, but used paper clay instead of crank clay as it was never going to be suitable for such an intricate, delicate, “diaphonous” structure.

I got Rosette Gault’s book ‘Paper Clay’ out of the library, had a read and then went to speak to Matt about it. He said I could make paper clay with the crank clay, so the finished sculpture would retain the strength and hardy qualities of the crank clay whilst being much lighter and it would be easier to work with as the cellulose in the paper pulp that would be added would make the clay much more plastic, and I could use it like papier mache – building up layers of slip, joining wet to leather hard or even dry clay without cross hatching. The thing to be wary of with paper clay is that it doesn’t keep – the paper pulp and moisture mean that it goes mouldy after about a week in a plastic bag, and the mould spores can be dangerous if inhaled. The cellulose will also deteriorate and you will lose the plasticity. As such, you have to either use it within a few days or dry it out completely on a plaster bat to re- constitute at a later date by soaking in water.

With Matt’s guidance I made the paper clay and it solved all of my problems – it was a joy to work with and I was able to make them as I had planned.

During the fortnight of 29th April to 10th May we were asked to help the 3rd years set up their degree show. For the first week it was general work filling in holes in the partition walls, sanding them down, taping seams and painting them with 2 coats of paint. I worked on this for 2 afternoons. I also helped Martin put up a panel, stacked some chairs, anything that he needed help with.

In the second week my third year buddy Rhi had been designated her space, so I was able to assist her on more specific tasks such as painting her table top and plinths and arranging her ceramic seeds in a neat grid. She had originally planned to have them randomly placed on the table top, however Ingrid suggested they would have more impact if they were in a neat grid. Rhi struggled with the maths of this, so I explained she just needed a ruler, some string and some tape to hold the string in place – work out how many rows and columns of seeds she needed, measure the side of the table in cm & divide it by the number of rows. That would give you the cm measurement of each row (5cm), so she could use the string and tape to measure her first row. Then do the same for the columns (also 5cm) once she had her first row laid out, just move the string forward another 5cm and repeat until the table was full. As I knew what to do she asked if I would set them out for her, making sure no 2 same glazes were next to each other, which I happily did.

I also helped her bring some of her work in to uni, picking her up in my car from her flat to save her trying to get it all in undamaged on the bus!

Having progressed with my research into the site, the Arts and Crafts movement and outdoor sculpture, it’s time to start thinking about making. I have decided on 8 poppy seed heads in 4 stages of decomposition, mirroring symetrically 4 either side of the path down to the octaganal pond. Having considered the various ideas I have had, I like this one best because of the link to the oriental poppies in the flower beds surrounding the columns, the stages of decomposition as Arts and Crafts works often have themes of the passing of time or natural cycles and the potential usefulness of the tops as bird feeders and bird baths – there’s the old familiar quote attributed to William Morris “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”.

Poppies are currently seen as a symbol of remembrance for the fallen in World Wars 1 and 2, however during the arts and crafts period this was not the case. In the Victorian and Edwardian Eras, Floriography or the ‘language of flowers’ was used as a means of coded communication through various flowers and floral arrangements, allowing people to express feelings which otherwise could not be spoken. Due to their association with opium, poppies were a symbol of deep sleep and imagination. Red poppies specifically were a symbol of pleasure. This seems to reflect what I have learned of H Avray Tipping suitably.

The Meaning of Flowers

Here are some primary source photos I took of a poppy seed head I found at my in-laws. Unfortunately it is the wrong time of year to find them in the garden as they don’t tend to survive the winter as they are so delicate. I have had to use secondary source photos for my sketches in my sketchbook, but this helped me understand their structure and made me think about how I could set about making my sculptures.

Humans

As previously stated, I am looking to revisit my foundation work on using plant migration as a metaphor for human migration.

It is a hot topic right now, and has been for several years as many British people are concerned about the influx of Eastern Europeans coming in search of work and Syrian refugees seeking asylum and a peaceful life away from the war zone at home.  Many British people are concerned about the effect of the increase in population of the UK – specifically employment opportunities, salaries, strain on the NHS and benefits systems.

The opinions and arguments go back and forth:

Eastern Europeans take all our jobs versus Eastern Europeans take all the manual labour jobs that British people aren’t prepared to do such as fruit picking and chambermaid work.

Syrians come over here and scrounge off our benefit system or are terrorists themselves versus Syrians who are coming over here are often doctors, university lecturers, lawyers etc…just looking to start a new life, contribute to society and live in peace.

Feelings are strong on both sides of the argument and emotions are running high, as was evidenced with the EU referendum. Immigration seemed to be the main focus of the debate, dividing the country – friends and families fell out over their leave or remain stance. It’s not just in the UK either – xenophobia and racism have become prominent once again in many countries that migrants aspire to reach.

I don’t mean to be a fence sitter – artists are supposed to be opinionated, right?!  But I can see both sides. I sympathise with immigrants – they have every right to make a better life for themselves, whatever their reasons for migration – economic, climatic, escape from war. On the other hand, population explosions do have a knock on effect on a countries economy, housing, health and benefits systems and employment.

The definition of migration is any change in spatial distribution of a species or other taxon through time.

The following statistics are from the Office of National Statistics:

Long-Term International Migration, UK, year ending December 2008 to year ending September 2018

Age distribution of the UK population, 1976 to 2046 (projected)

If immigration continues at a rate higher than emigration, and the population continues to rise and age, then the UK infrastructure may face difficulties as pressure is put on the country’s economy, housing, health and benefits systems and employment. It will probably still be a desirable destination for people living in warzones, extreme poverty, drought etc…though.

We are looking at a tiny moment in history, and whilst I appreciate the importance of looking at contemporary issues and current affairs for artists, for my project I want to step back from this and look at the bigger picture. I believe that the current preoccupation with controlling immigration is very short sighted and doesn’t take into account the social and economic benefits that can arise from  a diverse population, and how historically immigration has often proven to be a beneficial force.

Human migration is one of the great driving forces of world history, creating and destroying nations and empires for better or worse and spreading ideas and technology.

The first humans evolved in Africa, emigrating from Africa into Asia and eventually all continents (excepting Antarctica) around 125,000 – 100,000 years ago, so anyone living outside of Africa  has ancestrally migrated at some point.

We all carry in our genes a record of our ancestry, and in our teeth and bones a record of where we have lived in our own lifetimes – what we eat, the climate we live in and the air we breathe all makes its mark on us.

Whilst people migrate on an individual basis for many reasons, there have also been many mass migration events through history, a few notable examples include:Roman Colonialism, Jewish Diaspora, Viking Invasions, the African slave trade, the Irish during and after the potato famine and the aftermath of the second world war. These can be broadly divided into 2 groups – voluntary migrations or invasions and involuntary migrations/dispersions or diasporas. These are just a few examples of hundreds of events through history. Migration and immigration is nothing new, and not reserved for humans either – plants do it too.

Plants

There are many parallels between human and plant migration. The reasons for and methods of migration in humans and plants have a lot in common. They can be divided into similar groups – voluntary migrations or invasions and involuntary migrations/dispersions or diasporas.

The main difference is that humans generally migrate as an adult or in a family group. Plants generally migrate as seeds, except in the case of the Victorian plant hunters where adult plants were sometimes dug up and transported. The numbers would not have been sufficient to create a significant migration, however when they produced seeds, those who found their new climate and environment favourable, could reproduce and colonise areas.

There are around 250,000 living species of seed plants worldwide, each with a unique present geographical distribution and migrational history. There are a few plants which have attained a stable equilibrium – Canavalia Maritima, a pantropical seashore vine, hasn’t changed it’s range in over 200 years.

Just as when humans are in times of economic boom there is often a population explosion, the same can be said of plants – when the growing conditions are good, there will be an explosion in the plant population in that area.

When a new environment is created – such as the abandonment of a previously human inhabited area, an area of deforestation, the site of a natural disaster or bombing or a drained lake, plants will move in very quickly to establish themselves in this new environment, where they will have more space to grow and the potential for access to otherwise un-tapped resources. After the drainage of Northeast Polder in the Netherlands (48,000 hectares), seeds that had been at the bottom of the seafloor in sediment suddenly burst into life and the population explosion caused such quantities of wind borne seed that new colonies started, some over 300km away. (Bakker & Zweep  1957, Schroeder 1969 – Plant Migration – Jonathan D Sauer – University of California Press 1988)

A historical human equivalent would be the discovery of new lands, such as the development of the American West or the populating of Australia – the £10 Poms!

£10 Poms

We can consider the artificially controlled migrations of plants – plants cultivated by humans, taken from their natural environment and grown in new, foreign environments for our pleasure. Sometimes unsuccessfully – they die, sometimes artificially –  they have to be kept in artificial climates in glass houses with heat and steam to create a suitable environment for them to live. Sometimes too successfully – they thrive in the new environment and overpower the native species in the fight for resources such as light, water and nutrients.

An obvious comparison can be drawn here with human slavery.

Human intervention can be devastating – not only can invasive species be imported in such a way, but as with genocide where there is an attempt to destroy a certain group of people, we do the same with plants, attempting to eradicate a certain type of plants that we call weeds. This brings to mind Hitler and the Nazi’s desire to create the master race, which smarts of plant hybridisation.

General practise in botanical literature is to consider a species native wherever it is believed to have arrived and established itself without human ‘help’.

The word native or indigenous are often used to indicate the place of origin for humans and plants. In this sense, Britain would have almost no native flora or fauna, or indeed humans! Much of the natural flora of California, too, would have to be classed as immigrant. For many plant species, even the general region of origin is unknown – same with human families!

Parallels can even be drawn with the types of migrants. In plants and humans there are 3 distinguishable groups:

a reproductive core in which plants are producing seed, or young and thriving human families looking to improve their lifestyle,

a marginal establishment zone where plants are not reproducing, this brings to mind refugee camps and settlements where the future is unstable and uncertain.

an outer seed shadow where seed germination is suppressed or aborted. This brings to mind British OAP’s moving to Spain to enjoy the sun in their twilight years.

It’s such a huge topic that there is no way I can cover it all, all I want to do is remind people that migration is as natural to human beings as it is to plants – it is nothing to fear.

For the record, I think we should show compassion to refugees  – at some point the war will cease and many will return to their homeland. In the meantime, many are contributing to our society rather than taking benefits and adding further cultural diversity to our already varied society.

I also think we should be grateful that Eastern Europeans are willing to come over to do low paid work that British are loath to do – the employers are benefiting from getting their work done cheaply and as their home economy improves, at some point it will cease to be economically viable for them to come over so they will stop coming.

I wonder where the Arts and Crafts Movement would stand on this topic? We will never know for sure, but I would hope that they would agree with me.

Helena Gerrish, the owner of High Glanau Manor is the acknowledged expert on H Avray Tipping, the designer of High Glanau Manor & its gardens. She studied History of Architecture and Designed Landscapes at University of Bristol and based her masters degree on H Avray Tipping before writing her book ‘Edwardian Country Life’ on her research. I found a copy of this book at Monmouth library and have detailed information that I found useful or inspiring or that has informed my practice from this book below.

He was born in 1855 to parents who were wealthy philanthropists, believing in helping others to help themselves, improving living standards and noted for their unobtrusive good works. His father, William Tipping, was of Quaker descent and was squire of Brasted village. William was responsible for motivating and enabling the residents of the village to improve their living conditions, restoring cottages, widening roads, farming the land and ensuring a railway link was brought to the village, enabling trade in London. He provided wise counsel, moral and financial support in order to bring prosperity to the inhabitants. In adulthood, Henry was a respected academic, writer, collector and patron, working for Country Life magazine for over 40 years writing articles on important British country houses, detailing the social, historical and architectural development of each property. He was friends with Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens and acquainted with many other famous names of the time such as Oscar Wilde & Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson – the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland).

He bought Mathern Palace – the first of 3 Monmouthshire properties that he would purchase – in 1894, rebuilding the palace following the guidelines of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings – another expression of his arts and crafts ideology and his social and historical awareness. Next he bought Mounton Dene Farm and adjoining land in the Mounton valley, creating an elaborate water garden. His design ideal was to create more formal garden rooms and terraces close to the house, merging gradually into a natural garden, then into woodland – gradually blending into the natural surroundings.

He was commissioned to design the gardens at Chequers, Wyndcliffe Court, Buckland Hall and many more further to his work at Mathern and Mounton. He had High Glanau Manor built for him by architect Eric Francis in 1922 for his retirement, but then moved to London in 1930 and died in 1933, leaving the house to his head gardener.

Most of the rest of the book discusses his articles for Country Life Magazine, his glamorous lifestyle with his famous wealthy friends and detailed descriptions of the houses and gardens he restored and designed. There is only a hint in the conclusion pages to his social conscience, expressed in his concern for garden villages and quality housing for working families, carrying forward the ideals of his father before him.

This all helped give me an idea of who Henry was, his background and his aesthetic. Whilst he may not have been particularly philanthropical like his father before him, he did have a social conscience and I would like to take inspiration from the Arts and Crafts movement and give my piece meaning – make it stand for something. Whilst the Arts and Crafts movement was primarily interested in social reform and better living standards for the workers in the manufacturing factories, the current equivalent for me would be the treatment of immigrant workers. As such I would like to revisit my previous foundation work using plant migration as a metaphor for human migration. I will write a separate blog post about this.

One further piece of information I gleaned from the book I found very interesting and helped me choose a specific site for my sculpture was a paragraph explaining that there were originally large hand-carved stone boulders atop the 8 columns along the front terrace which had been stolen. It said in the book that Helena was speaking to CADW about obtaining a grant to replace the boulders.

As this was one of the sites I had picked out as potentially benefiting from new sculptures, as the box balls in place currently were too small and out of scale, I called and enquired as to whether they had been successful with the grant application and were planning to replace the boulders. Helena said they had applied, however even with the grant they couldn’t afford to replace them, as they had to meet the restoration guidelines and had to use the original local stone and all had to be hand carved. This meant that each ball was going to cost around £10,000 and even with the grant they couldn’t afford this. They had looked into alternatives, but even concrete made to look like the original stone was going to cost them £4,000 per ball. When I explained I was thinking of making sculptures to sit atop the columns, they asked to be kept informed of my project – you never know, they may be interested in them! So that decided me on the site.

Wow!

I heard back from Wyndcliff Court: “Sadly we are in the middle of garden refurbishment, repairing stone walls and steps etc.. and replanting the flower beds so it is not a good time for your project.”, so High Glanau Manor it is.

I arranged with the owner Helena Gerrish to visit this morning, have a wander around, take some photo’s, have a chat about the history of the garden, the flora and fauna, the existing and original sculpture, the vista from both inside the house and areas of the garden, the direction of the sun, scale of garden areas, everything I needed to take into consideration.

It was great to see the garden in its bare bones before the spring flowers distract from the structure of the garden. It was clear to see some areas where a sculpture would be perfect to draw the eye along a grassy terrace to a gate into a different garden, or to entice you nearer to a particularly fragrant shrub. There are also 8 dry wall stone columns, 4 of which are bare and 4 of which have little cube planters with box ball topiary in that are too small – the scale clearly wrong in the sparse winter growth when spring and summer vitality may hide this.

The colour of the house was fascinating to me – a mix of a warm pinky brown sandstone walls with greeny blue slates – in watercolour I would mix my favourite combination of burnt umber & prussian blue – more burnt umber for the stone & more prussian blue for the tiles. I was also taken by the intricate lace puddles of lichen on the stone in shades of ochre, lime, black & white.

As you stand on the main terrace in front of the house, looking out over the hazel and oak trees toward the Brecon Beacons, the sun rises behind you over your left shoulder and sets in front of you to your right, just over Skirrid (a mountain near where I live). As I stood looking at the view, I heard woodpeckers, buzzards, Kites and many garden birds. I asked what other wildlife visited the garden and was surprised to hear they have a lot of fallow deer, although these are a bit of a pest to a gardener so will leave them out of any designs I come up with! They also have a large frog population in the pool on the side terrace which are apparently very noisy at night lately as it’s mating season!

When walking down the steps to the octagonal pond, I felt like I had reached a dead-end. there was a long, shaded lawn to my left, and I felt a sculpture or a point of interest was needed at the far end to draw you along to the path down into the woodland gardens and walks.

They have recently acquired one of the original stone statues that had been sold by a previous owner which they were very excited to show me. It is of the grape picker – Bacchus – by Francisque Jospeh Duret. The original bronze is outside the Louvre in Paris. They are not sure where to put it at the moment, as although it weighs half a tonne, they are concerned it will be stolen if they return it to its original spot on a bank out of view of the house.

As the garden is open to the public in May and June, the planting is geared to look its best at that time. Lots of tulips, the original wisteria and clematis montana, rhododendrons, hydrangea, sedums, delphiniums, lupins, poppies, alliums, roses etc…Th e garden areas are divided by yew and box hedges as well as the original stone walls. They are very proud to have restored the original pergola with its stone columns at the end of the double herbaceous border.

Helena completed a Master’s Degree in Garden History at Bristol University and has written a book called Edwardian Country Life – The Story of H. Avray Tipping, who had the house built and designed the garden in 1922. I will find a copy of the book and write a further blog post on her research.

Warning: this post contains a LOT of photos – sorry – I need them all for my own personal reference! There is a separate ‘wordy’ post for my visit & research – no more words here, so if you are a tutor & don’t want to see all the photo’s, just my research, please head over to the other post!