I wanted to make an artwork for Stockroom using natural dyes. I make my own inks from food waste, foraged plants and minerals, so the colours I make have a real story to tell. For example, I can make infinite batches of minty green out of copper scraps I found in my dad’s garage after he died. He was a war baby who kept everything. So now, this amazing, vibrant turquoise represents resourcefulness to me. My dad’s resourcefulness is why it exists.
My pitch was to print a murmuration of starlings. A murmuration happens when huge numbers of birds fly in fluid formations. Even now, we still don’t really know why they do it, but one theory is that flying en masse helps ward off predators. I thought that was a pretty perfect metaphor for community in Stockport and how we’re more powerful when we work together. So the artwork is really about hope.
To make the ink I needed to find knopper oak galls. These are the knobbly growths you find underneath oak trees that baby wasps grow in. Galls have been used for centuries to make black ink; Jane Austen apparently wrote her books with it. I found mine under trees in Hollywood, Adswood, Vernon and Brookfields parks as well as from a tree on St. Elisabeth’s School playing fields, it overhangs the pavement.
I then spent all of Christmas making batches of ink from each park, which we used for workshops where people could learn about how natural inks are made as well as trying out drawing and printing with them.
There was a huge demand for tickets but I was lucky enough to use the spaces at Arc, an incredible arts charity inside Hat Works, and What If?, the ideas cafe in Edgeley. Both of those places are a really good example of what the artwork is ultimately about; they’re both run by progressive, brilliant, can-do women who just get stuff done.
At the public workshops and across 4 visits to St Elisabeth’s, I got children and adults to screen print their own bird. Every single one is made from a different paper stencil so they’re all unique, just like us.
