Week Twenty-Seven: UK Native Plants

I have reached a point in my year of research and development where I feel ready to make some new commitments and set some new goals. The first being that I will only work with plants for natural colour making that are UK native. As a result of this I am learning that so many flowers, plants, vegetables and herbs are not UK native, which leads me to question how they got here in the first place? On a search for vegetables that were UK native, I found that pretty much none of the vegetables in a Sunday Roast Dinner are UK native. This leads me to question what a UK native diet may have once looked like? I’ve found it challenging to find alternative dye plants that could help me to produce the three primary colours of red, yellow and blue. I’ve found that madder and woad are not UK native. This leads me to question what colours were once used to naturally dye textiles and how this may have influenced the fashion trends of once upon a time. This decision is not just based on a question of ethics, but is also a journey of discovery into my own heritage. It’s helping me to learn more about the biodiversity of gardens, any endangered UK native plants, and question if the plant life on offer meets the needs of local pollinators. Suddenly this decision is opening up conversations around heritage and ecology. I feel that I am developing a practice that is based on research and could open up opportunities to collaborate with practitioners from a range of different fields including health, history and environmental science.

Primrose

I’m thinking a lot more seriously about how I can use the techniques that I am learning to develop an artistic practice of my own. How can I create work that could be exhibited within a gallery setting? This week I have been preparing fabric samples and it has been really nostalgic to return to working with textiles. I have been reflecting on the reasons why I stepped away from the fashion industry almost 15 years ago. The main reason being that I did not feel comfortable working within an industry that overlooked human rights issues and animal cruelty. In every step in my career path that followed, the same questions have come up around ethics and power. At times I have become my own worst enemy. Some say I may be an over thinker, but when I become aware of an unethical issue it can be hard for me to continue to overlook this for the sake of my own creativity. I have wanted to develop a practice within every aspect of my life that is centred around empowering and caring for others. I am often checking in with myself on my motivations and can ask myself questions that feel confronting or exposing. I find it difficult to sit with a practice where I am the only beneficiary. I feel that now is the right time to seek out support from a mentor to help keep me focused whilst I carve out a new creative practice of my own.