Getting started

Post: Bernie: February 13, 2011
Note: To follow The Gathered Hedge from beginning to end, choose Introduction from the index at right.

Glazing Joey's plates for the exhibit.

Early in the spring of 2010 Joey and I began discussing how we could work on another project together.
We had collaborated on a exhibition the year before called, Imaging Bartholomew's Cobble, curated by Joanna Jenning, who was at that time working with The Sheffield Historical Society, in Sheffield, MA. Joey and I presented the Cobble idea and were chosen to mount a exhibition.

Plates and drawing from exhibit.

We had a great time visiting the Cobble and then creating art and designing the exhibit. Joey is a ceramic artist and I am a painter. It was here that I first exhibited works created with pigments and materials gathered locally. We thought maybe we could do something similar out in our yard here in Canaan, Connecticut. And we just so happened to have a newly cleared big empty space out by the road that we could work with.

What we planned an then started to construct was what we called The Gathered Hedge.

The concept was to build the hedge framework and then weave in gathered fabric and natural materials both living and gone-by that would over time be changed by the elements. I have begun calling this 'Change-Process Art'. Which i would simply define as an open ended process of creating art in partnership with nature.

Artists statement [READ]

All of the hedge framework materials came from our local building supply store. The fabric came from various sources like, M Designs Custom Sewing
in Sheffield, MA 01257, who after we explained what we were going to do with his donated fabric was very interested in the project. He then went and put together a big box of discontinued samples for us. Joey put a request out on FreeCycle.org for fabric and I picked up an old tent from a driveway in Bantan, CT. She also called Mahaiwe Tent and they donated this fabulous white tent that was going to be thrown out. Fabric came in from friends and family too as they heard about our idea. We did purchase some remnant fabric at Mill Fabrics in Colchester, Connecticut and at a few other places to get more variety of color and texture. Amy even contributed dried grape vines that they had made an arbor with for their wedding that we used as weaving material too.

Next: Building the framework [READ NEXT HEDGE POST]