Q&A
How did you come to focus on the trug in your artistic practice, and what about them calls you back time and time again?
My mum had a traditional Sussex trug; she used it in the garden. Something fascinated me about how the wood bent, how the design was stripped back and fit for purpose, but also a beautiful, strong, light structure. As I carried dinner back to the house, I thought a lot about vessels and how much of a necessity they were to the hunter-gatherer, today and throughout evolution.
I come back to my trugs because they are a practice; there’s a certain intuitive feeling, a reading of the curves and how the timber is responding to processes, a refinement of my skills that all contribute to the overall energy of the piece. It’s something that never begins or ends, and, like wood, it’s a living, breathing practice. I need to come back to that feeling regularly to refine my craft and heal my mind.
You live and work in the Fenlands in England. Can you tell us a little bit about the area for those who might not know Fen country? How does its nature and mythologies feed into your practice?
The Fens is a vast, flat, rugged landscape and comes in at 20 feet below sea level. The clouds rest on the fields, and the Fenland winds rustle through the willow and reeds that line the banks. The rural agricultural land is home to some of the most beautiful rivers and wetlands in the UK. I moved here 20 years ago on a narrowboat and lived on the River Wissey. The single-track roads sink and fall away and are bumpy, linked by tiny crumbling humped-back bridges. Our local greeting is “What you say, boar?” and there’s a certain old-school community, make-do-and-mend spirit. The sky’s our scenery, and sunrise, sunset, and the night sky displays are spectacular. Here you are connected to and a part of the refreshing landscape, where our food comes from, nature, and the seasons.
What are your inspirations and guiding principles when it comes to the creation of your trugs?
Conceptually, inciting connotations or emotions that are comforting, familiar, and grounding to us by using a stripped-back traditional design language to execute a functional object in a direct way. I use natural materials that connect us to nature; round corners and the ergonomics of the piece are nice to touch and hold. I am interested in the relationships we build with objects and how those objects start to take on different meanings for us. How that brings joy to the viewer and also, on a physical plane, assists us in our most essential daily rituals as we interact with it.
The simplicity of the trug's form makes them feel subdued at first, but I hope, with time, the refined details will reveal themselves and some more of my insight will be revealed, prolonging the interest in the piece as you live with it. The form, proportions, and engineering make sense to the viewer and sit satisfyingly together in tension. By creating soft curves and by splitting the surface of the wood, I have created a rhythm, flow, or repetition of lines within the solid structure. Reading this rhythm and what that expresses is an instinctive feeling I have always had—an energy I try to instill into my work. The vessels physically rock, like a boat on the water, adding further to the sculptural language of the trugs and creating flow within a solid structure that rocks.
Your work combines elements of abstraction, minimalism, folk, and craft. Do you identify with one over another, or does the strength of your art come from the combination of these different identities (or something else entirely!)?
I don’t think I have ever identified with any particular style. My interest in functional objects comes from living a low-impact, minimal lifestyle on a boat and building things to help you live comfortably that way. My priorities were wood, water, and battery power, and my possessions consisted of essential kit. I observed nature and the forms of the long, slender reeds that line the riverbank; these later became the shapes of my trug components. I became interested in traditional boat-building skills and copper nail and rove fixings, as well as the tension in the hulls of clinker-built boats. The sculptural sensibilities and my love for wood have always been a part of me. When I studied at university, I found a way of understanding my creative urges and beliefs as a person and how to channel all the different influences to express something totally original through my art.
Trugs are historical objects of use. How is the way that people used to use them and currently use them different? Are there elements of use that have stayed the same?
Vessels truly fascinate me; they are something that everyone needs. Everyone has always needed a vessel; it’s one of the first tools we made. When I use my trugs on a daily basis for a huge variety of tasks around the house, garden, car, and life, I think about that. I think that they are the objects to assist you, help you, for you to use and learn to love, and that bring you joy. I think we still have a basic need for a vessel in exactly the same way as we always have had throughout evolution.
