Panel discussion, conference presentation, and exhibition.
Panel Title: An Intentional Material Practice.
As a smallholder and painter, I am interested in the educational value of working landscapes and lost traditions specifically here the Broomsquires of the heath who would live and work making besom brooms from the heather and birch found in the heathland at the Devils Punch Bowl, Surrey.
My practice led PhD research has seen me develop participatory activities picturing trees for wellbeing and education; ‘From Screen to Green, Re Connecting Children to Nature through the Picturing of Trees in the Narrative Non- Fiction Picturebook’.
Continuing to work in an autoethnographic approach working plein air through walks and large-scale painting. I hope to bring to life the immersive location and elements of ritual surrounding the Broomsquires. Making brushes and mark making devices through an attempt to rekindle the traditional besom broom craft. My current painting practice comes from a need and desire to reconnect with nature. As I have spent many years making images through a fractured process. Layered hand painted images compiled digitally due to the commercial requirements of freelance illustration work requiring changes and flexibility.
My research has led me to immerse myself in nature spending time to document specific places alongside the welcomed problem of creating more permanent images that are more ambitious in scale. I have found a liberation in this process of plein air/reportage documentation that picture the unique aspects and atmosphere of personal experiences moving away from more literal representations. The tools in which I use to further problematise this practice gives another rich sense of place.
By creating and facilitating an immersive experience I hope to counter the ‘nature deficit disorder’ outlined by Richard Louv in 2005 and practice what I preach ‘from screen to green.’
Establishing an experiential process ‘Painting the land.’
