My most recent artist statement reads: "My work is process led; I am often pleasantly surprised with the marks I have made. I prefer it this way because I am referencing our connection with the natural world, which, as we know is never consistent or rigid.
I started drawing flowers a few years back. I found a collection of pressed flowers at my old home, that my mother had made. I made a few monoprints referencing this collection and from there I started thinking about real, live flowers. Now I am excited about the allotment that I have recently acquired. It’s full of apple trees, it’s full of dappled light in the sunshine. Hopefully, it’s full of potential! I want my art to be joyful, which is how I feel when I go there. I hope people feel the same way when they look at my work.
At the heart of this, there is also the worry that this will not always be here, because of the lack of awareness of how we relate to the land. I wonder if people realise that if we had no worms or no bees, then we wouldn’t have food. Without plants, we wouldn’t survive."
Over the years, it hasn't changed much. My interests and concerns are very much the same, but obviously, my methods might have developed and my processes are expanding. I think the last paragraph is the crux of my beliefs and the sadness I feel that people are divorced from the food they eat, the way it grows, the good these plants do and how we are wasting our most precious resources.
Back in 2011 (Looking back on this blog) I see that my interest was examining my place in the world and my personal history. In context, I was looking at the things I had collected and trying to work out what and why I had collected them. Dried flowers, shells, spirograph etc. Now I think (is this because I'm now a grown ass woman- post menopausal?! ergo: a CRONE) I am looking outwards, thinking about how I can encourage a wider understanding of our place in the world. I think, to be fair, that attitudes are gradually changing ( New gsce Natural History) although I absolutely despair at the plastic lawns and plastic hedges that spring up around my area. Can't they ban plastic lawns ffs.
The hedgerows are calling! I have become interested in the old, the ancestors, the healer, the Wise Woman. Many books have inspired me but Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass and Sharon Blackie If Women Rose Rooted have really been inspiring.
Again from my blog "If you haven't read "Braiding Sweetgrass" I think you should. It's about the relationship we have with the earth, its ecology, the relationship the indigenous peoples of North America have with the living world and how plants and animals are our oldest teachers. She is a botanist and a poet. The writing is beautiful. "
https://goodreads.com/book/show/17465709-braiding-sweetgrass
In If Women Rose Rooted, Sharon Blackie is calling out for the "rewilding of womanhood; reclaiming our role as guardians of the land." Because from where I'm standing the men haven't made a brilliant job of it, have they?
https://www.waterstones.com/book/if-women-rose-rooted/sharon-blackie/9781912836017
I think I started realising that there must be another way, and that maybe a bit of old fashioned 'witch-craft' might be the way forward actually. We know, from history, that women were always the ones that dealt with birth and death and with healing and that this was knowingly forced away from them. Whether it was witch burnings in the past or belittling, shaming and abusing that we see now, we know that women have, historically, been the keepers of the Earth and should rise up and take control again. So I want to tell more stories of plants that have healed and that go on healing. Whether it's from the mindful joy of looking at them or making tinctures, ointments and oils, they all have stories to tell.
If you look back at this blog you will see some of these stories.
https://anitagwynn.blogspot.com/2018/01/updated-writings-about-plants-i-am.html
I am looking at new ways of printing and maybe making a book or a scroll but this is all to be worked out and I'm only on day 2 of this adventure. So onwards and upwards as I like to say.....