I'm really pleased to have been invited by artist and curator Tammy Woodrow to include new work in this art & poetry trail at the Victorian St Mary's Allotments on the bank of the River Leam in Leamington Spa.
I tend to think of stones as static things, but within a much larger scale of time they are not. The process of stone breaking down, wearing away and moving downwards is as old as the hills, older in fact. I've been litho-curious for as long as I can remember, and my current obsession with pebbles is fed whenever I go for a walk or visit a beach. I particularly drawn to fossil hunting, I am staggered by the scale of timeframes involved wherein life becomes preserved in stone.
The larger images show a fossil in a flint pebble I picked up on Rye Harbour beach on the South coast. The smaller images are of another flint I found in a local field local. Flint presents its breakages well, preserving its moment of fragmentation in the difference between its weathered, chalky shell and shiny silica interior.
I thought taking a moment to think about the stones would be approporiate in an allotment. It's my experience of gardening that much of it involves bending to pick up and chuck out pebbles - helping the drift.
I was inspired to name my work by a book I read this summer called 'The Pebbles on the Beach - A Spotter's Guide' by Clarence Ellis, in which he traces the movement of stone around our shores, a process of shifting sediment called longshore drift.
St Mary's Allotments Art & Poetry Trail 2021
11 - 19 September 2021
10am - 4pm during Heritage Open Days Visitor Information
12-4pm, free entry
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