An Ecology of Everything: Plants, Folklore, the Climate & Love (SAP)

Saturation Point was an 18 month project supported by ACE. Every month during 2022 I & a guest artist delivered foraging & art walk and talks in unmanaged woodland. The monthly forages had unifying themes, with ideas for future actions emerging through collaboration. We trod the same cross-country path on each visit, coming to welcome the last gate stile that enabled access to the woods. Once there, contact with our surroundings was a forensic multi-sensory investigation of taste, touch, observation, smell and sound. In the studio we documented the foraged plant material before adding it to the dye pot. The calendar of dyed material was made into a textile artwork using old cotton bedsheets and traditional rag rugging techniques referencing collective acts of female industry and notions of thrift. The artwork represents a data chart of rising temperatures in our region, recorded and analysed by environmental scientist Dr.Martin Lord. The project exhibition ‘An Ecology of Everything: Plants, Folklore, the Climate & Love’ consisted of the rag rug data chart, essay film, foraging ephemera & natural inks and was shown at Carnforth Civic Hall, Jwllers Morecambe & The Story, Lancaster 2023.