Breaking Ground

SEED NAMES

Been fascinated with the names given to vegetable seeds – they speak of close relationships with growing, of history, of handing on and handing down, of people and their experience on allotments over generations. The names are so different from the plain name, the official name, the latin botanical name.

Have screenprinted selected seed names for tomatoes, peas, broad beans, leeks, dwarf runner beans, climbing French beans, carrots.

MORE BACKGROUNDS

Spent ages setting up to print more backgrounds. Still getting small smears in the ink but some of them are ok. Want to finish some of these first ideas in a day or two and spend the last week trying out something new.

A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

I was beginning to feel I was going through the motions – days of printing so far had resulted in stiff and formal plans of the allotment, but I didn't really feel that anything was "happening". Perservering, I made up a stencil of "footprints" and printed up a muddy trail around the allotment plan, negotiating the carefully marked out plots.

Then, as I always do, I tried printing them on to a piece of blank paper, moving the paper in & out of registration, printing & over-printing & watching as my print appeared. The new print seems to move the work on beyond the allotment itself and link to the broader themes within my work, considering invisible, implied or understood boundaries, territory, paths and passages.

BAD DAY

Today everything went wrong. I stayed late on Monday setting things up – cutting paper, taping the screen, ready to go when I got in today.

However my first print went wrong, the tape lifted giving a curvy line where it should have been straight. Washed off and tried again. The paper stuck to screen. Washed off. Next black streaks appeared. I gave up. Turned the power hose on the screen and washed off the stencil. Started a new photostencil to have easy straight lines. Off to the dentist in the afternoon. Work meeting tomorrow, so not back at the screenbed until Thursday.

Stuffed a thrush with dead stems and moss – see image.

PRINTMAKING – DAY 4

Back in the print workshop today I've been printing a plan of the allotment showing its "boundaries" and the layout of the beds and paths. Of course, anyone who knows allotments will realise that this is not as simple as it sounds since allotment boundaries are often more "understood" than defined.

I've printed quite a number of the plans and will use them as a structure to work on to, recording some of the processes and activities which I actually carried out on the allotment.

Allotment – "a portion or thing allotted; a share granted."

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.