Teasing and Carding Moorit: a lovely warm brown with sun-bleached tips that occurs naturally in some sheep breads. This is my chosen colour to work with for felting a shelter cover. I am buying my fleeces from the Evanton depot of the Scottish Wool Growers: first visit was really exciting, all those huge trolleys full…
Gathering Wood
Lovely long rods for building a Bender… Watch this space!
Very Wild Berry Mead
Raw local honey Blaeberries (Vaccinium myrtillus)Brambles (Rubus fruticosus)Geans (Prunus avium)Ling Heather flowers (Calluna vulgaris)WaterWild yeasts from all of the above The alchemy of wild fermentation transforming and interweaving these wild ingredients into The Blood of LifeThe smell wafting from the airlock is promising, the outcome utterly unpredictable and unrepeatable… Only time will tell if this…
Blaeberry Mead step 2
Straining off the must Fermentation is properly under way and I have strained the the juice out of the berries. It’s smelling good, looking good and bubbling through the airlock convincingly… First ferment with airlock
Blaeberry Mead
Fermentation slowly begins…Perhaps the wild yeast is shy? I will be patient, wait and watch, keep it warm and stir regularly.
Gathering Blaeberries
Testing birch polypore plaster Interesting to see how the polypore stood up to being worn in bed over night, wetted with blaeberry juice, scraped by heather twigs and generally coping with rough usage while I was out wild gathering. It’s looking a little ragged and has lost some of its width, but its still covering…
Fine Art Foraging
Expanding on my exploration of primitive ways, a new aspect of my art practice this term is foraging. As I found last year, it’s the Process that is the Art, any object is just evidence of the Work. My plan is to make a Blaeberry mead, using wild yeast off the berries to start the…
Warp-weighted loom
My warp-weighted driftwood loom has been part of my practice for ages now, but has been rather in the background for some time. On bringing it back into my studio after the summer away I decided to finish weaving the length of fabric as I no longer need it part done in my installation. I…
Fibre Alchemy 