The ploughed field

This blog marks the beginning of the story of the ploughed field.
When I was driving home through Kings Forest in Suffolk I stopped by a field which still has the stubble from last years harvest and the farmer had started to plough ready for the new crop to be planted. It was the beginning of narrative in design which included aspects of my farming childhood.

The weather has been very wet and muddy puddles were transversed by the  marks left by a tractor and footmarks. The field is bordered by Breckland pines standing to attention and this land would have seen Anglo Saxon farmers tilling the land and using its plants for dye. Evidence of these activities can be found nearby at the West Stow Anglo Saxon village. It is a route I drive regularly and I often stop at this spot to watch the rotation of the year, the wildlife and collect material for my dyes. But I love the marks man makes on the land especially the ploughed furrows which give a sense of the past and the future. So I have started to use this spot as an inspiration for design and began to think of the evidence this field may hold to indicate how it has been worked.

Rust dyeing has been an eco technique I have been playing with for sometime. A visit to my family farm gave me the opportunity to look into what was my fathers' and my grandfathers' workshop to see if there were any potential objects for a rusty imprint. The bench was still there and shelves of Horlicks tins full of nails, screw, washers as well as parts from machinery. A bagful came home with me and I started to experiment with eco-print techniques. The results resonated with the field and some of the imprints related to the marks and colours I had seen.

This imprint makes me think of the furrows of a ploughed field and was made with the blades which were used by my father and grandfather to till the land.

So the next stage is to start sketching and recording what I see - this is always a  part of the process I often find challenging. Referring back to previous techniques of mark making and playing helps but I do like to understand structure by doing pen/pencil sketches first. The rust dyeing  technique needs to be developed by printing onto  coloured backgrounds made with natural dyes from plants some of which grow in Kings Forest.