Ending my 1 month Art Residency

The importance of a residency for me.

I love my full life, but every so often I get an intuitive nudge that I’m drifting — saying too few “no’s,” losing focus — and I need an environment that draws me back into my work. A residency offers exactly that: a space of stillness, framed by intention and investigation.

I came across The Hide while searching for places in England built upon limestone, and discovered this treasure in Pinfarthings, Gloucestershire — a forest of opportunities. A month is an ideal stretch: long enough to go deeper, short enough to push harder when the work resists. Without the usual distractions, I could focus and strengthen my confidence.

The opportunity for dialogue was invaluable. Having a “crit” a few days in — shaped my thinking. Alice was especially insightful in her feedback, offering perspectives that fuelled my time here. Conversations with another fellow artist, too, were a gift; our practices are often solitary, and finding a circle where ideas and processes can unfold doesn’t come easy.

It had been since 2022 — my last residency in Iceland — that I immersed myself in this way. That experience was magnificent, and this one has been equally rich. What I’ve gained here will flow into the work ahead. It has been one of the most creative and deeply personal experiences of recent years, and words can only reach so far.

The Hide itself is special: an artist’s family home, with studios harmonious to contemporary practice. Alice and Piers, both artists in their own right, root the residency in authenticity — Alice’s teaching, exhibitions, and membership in the Royal Society of Sculptors bring an added depth. 

The surrounding landscape, dramatic and generous, fed and motivated me daily.On my final days I walked — discovering Ruskin Mill College, a breathtaking path along the river, and lush experimental gardens. The wider area holds a strong ethos of environmental preservation: Dunkirk Mill Museum, Ruskin Mill College, and their commitment to biodiversity, ancient crafts, Steiner’s philosophy, Goethean enquiry, (interesting)!…and research into what we can contribute to the wider world.

This residency has been a gift of time, place, and perspective — one that will continue to resonate in my work long after leaving The Hide.

* Art Practice Rooted in Landscape and Geology. The Hide Art Residency Gloucestershire, UK

The Hide Residency: Notes from the Beginning

As I begin my residency at The Hide in the third week, I feel a loosening—an opening in approaching the work. Much of this shift comes from a recent critique and discussion with Alice, which helped me reframe where I’m heading.

Residencies always bring the environment into the work and shows up as if on its own accord, shaping how I work. This time, though, I’m merging that response with a project: exploring phytoremediation, the use of plants and trees to detoxify soil on abandoned mine and quarry sites. At first, I had no idea how to weave this scientific concept into my art practice. The challenge has been finding links between the way I naturally work—mark-making, layering, experimenting—and the research itself. It requires patience, which has not always been my strength, but I’m beginning to develop it through walking meditations and noticing their benefits.

Digging Beneath the Surface

My overarching interest has always been with what lies underneath: the hidden, the honest, the overlooked value of the earth. Mining and quarrying, after all, are about tearing geology from below and building with it above—an ancient yet strangely unsettling concept.

This curiosity runs deep. As a small child, I would bury small dead animals (birds and mice killed by the many cats most likely) in marked graves, later digging them up to see what had changed. What remained of feathers or fur? What did the bones look like? That same fascination with transformation, with what lies beneath, continues to inform my work.

Materials in Play

Paper, drawing, and painting are my familiar foundations, but here I’ve been drawn into more dimensional work using willow sticks readily available on site. Interestingly, willow itself is a plant known to aid phytoremediation, helping break down arsenic, cadmium, and lead in contaminated soils. Tall fescue, another phytoremediator, thrives around abandoned mine sites, working with underground mycelial networks to process toxic chemicals in water and soil.

So, in both research and practice, I’m working with ideas of buried becoming unburied, of transformation beneath the surface, led by roots, fungi, and time.

Process and Approach

How would I summarise my process? Perhaps like this:

• Investigation as practice—letting the work guide me, as much as I guide it.

• Mark-making as inquiry—each gesture exchanged for knowledge, information, or insight.

• Visual language as emotion—reaching into consciousness where words fall short.

There’s also a ritual element, a leaning into the “discovery & magic in the science” of what plants can do. It feels close to an Indigenous perspective—acknowledging and giving gratitude for what the earth and its systems offer—so that the work is not just mine, but part of something larger.

Looking Ahead

The question I hold now is how these thoughts and experiments can evolve into something visually clear without becoming overly complicated—something playful, engaging, and alive for me to work with and share.

August 18th 2025 Healing the Land: How Phytoremediation Uses Plants to Detoxify Polluted Soil

Geology—rock and stone, the very skeleton of the land we live on—has always inspired me. Beneath our feet lies not only a foundation but also a record of history: layers formed over millions of years, reshaped by human activity through mining and quarrying. When we bring what is buried to the surface, we often leave scars on the land. My work explores this tension—between what is hidden and revealed, stable and disrupted—and how these ideas can be expressed visually through mixed media while learning about abandoned mine remediation

My two artist residencies in Iceland were pivotal in connecting my practice to landscape in a deeper way. They also introduced me to biodesign, specifically the process of phytoremediation: using plants to detoxify polluted soil. This method has growing importance in the rehabilitation of abandoned mines and quarries worldwide.

I have explored several sites marked by extraction: silver mines in Nevada (USA), left as vast open pits on what are now government-issued Indian reservations; a lead mine in the Mendips (UK); a deserted copper mine in southern Ireland; and countless quarries that remain as empty voids, visible even through satellite images online. These places are not just industrial remnants—they also carry environmental legacies in the form of toxic tailings, where heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, and cadmium persist in the soil long after mining has ended.

Phytoremediation offers a promising, nature-based solution. Certain plants—including grasses, trees, and shrubs—can take up contaminants through their roots and either store, transform, or stabilize them. Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea), for example, is known for its ability to stabilize soil structure while absorbing pollutants. Even more compelling is its symbiotic relationship with mycelium, the underground fungal networks that extend root systems and enhance the breakdown and redistribution of toxins. Together, these living systems form a cooperative network that gradually restores ecological balance to damaged ground.

What fascinates me most is the hidden nature of this process: the cellular-level exchanges between roots, fungi, and soil chemistry. These invisible interactions represent both a scientific strategy for detoxifying landscapes and a metaphor for resilience—quiet systems working in collaboration to heal what has been poisoned and disturbed.

August 10 ( end of first week at residency )

The Hide, artist retreat

August 10, blog

Brilliant warm Sunday, quiet and peaceful as I walk to the village shop. Last night sat in the garden after a barbecue and talked into dark of night. Four Artists bringing worthy discussions, insights, humour and information to the table. 

This morning invited to look at work of the other resident artist who leaves today. 

Lots of generosity sharing, so important. Hugely grateful.

Moving on with the work three more weeks! Oh joy!

Organising drawings done so far and balancing between urgency, planning and spontaneous action onto surface. While a calm energy and stillness has a part to play, there are questions to ask of the work.

 While pursuing the ideas of phytoremediation, plants that detoxify soils on abandoned quarry sites, mining sites, industrial wastelands, I discover that Willow, which grows in the lane by me, is a good plant/ tree for breaking down arsenic and other toxins in the soil. The great thing is the more you prune it the more it grows back. As in basket making branches of various thickness can be cut and used in my artwork as linear “ drawing”as I work with this plant. 

Alice coming this afternoon for a input talk about my work in general and this work I’ve done so far.