DEC 2024
I’ve started a new natural ink printmaking project which will involve making ink from oak trees situated in parks across Stockport. Although it’s a rubbish time of year to go foraging for galls (and I made the mistake of going the same weekend of Storm Darragh), I found knopper galls in Hollywood, Adswood, Vernon and Brookfields parks. I also have a very trusty, jackpot-sort-of-tree on the St. Elisabeth’s School playing fields (which overhangs the public footpath). The plan is to make a batch of ink from each oak tree, which I’ll then thicken for screen printing. Then, I’m making a huge collaborative textile print with people from Stockport using the inks.
At each drop in printmaking session, I’ll also have knopper oak gall ink to draw with. I am very, very pleased and honoured to be collaborating with Stockroom, What If? and Arc on this – the latter two of whom have very kindly let me use their venues to deliver the public sessions. I’ve also mapped the co-ordinates of all five trees, on a google map you can find here. If you want to collect your own galls, the best time to go is in September, but there are still – just! – some findable galls now, as long as you don’t mind side-stepping all the dog tods.
Anyway. There will be three public drop-in sessions, held in January/February 2025. At each one, you’ll be able to add a print to the huge oak gall artwork I’m making; so it’s a tiny wee screen printing taster, first of all.
You’ll then be able to do some mark-making and drawing with Stockport oak tree ink, using sticks gathered in the parks, dip pens and found tools. Along the way, you’ll learn how natural dyes and pigments can be made from food waste, foraged plants and native minerals. All activities are relaxing and mindful, so I hope you’ll swing by for a warm welcome.
FREE tickets for each drop in session are findable via my Linktr.ee here – though I recommend following me on Eventbrite here if you can, or signing up for my mailing list here, if you want to be the first to know about stuff like this!
JANUARY 2025
For most of December and January, I was busy making the inks in my kitchen. This involved a fair amount of patience on the part of my family; as I am often using the stick blender to grind up some foul-looking brown liquid whilst simultaneously making the tea. I can see the worried looks in their eyes; one wrong move and there’ll be ink in the pasta.
I also began to tell people a little about my plans for the work itself. It’s pretty weird trying to promote an art project when you can’t really tell people that much about it (I was sworn to secrecy), but I can tell you this; the work is a representation of a murmuration of starlings, with each bird being printed by a different person from Stockport, using ink made from Stockport oak trees.
Starling murmurations are still quite mysterious, but it seems to be generally agreed that the birds flock together in this way to deter predators; they are stronger and more powerful together, often seeming to mass into shapes which make them look like one huge bird (see here, if you don’t believe me). This seemed a pretty wonderful metaphor for the idea of community in Stockport. Since I moved here nearly ten years ago, I’ve been really struck by how much hands-on, ground level organising goes on by community groups, charities and just regular, can-do folk. I’m lucky enough to work for one of them in Arc, but it’s even more thrilling to commemorate the idea of strength and unity in a single artwork.
I also began to plan the print in earnest, using a sketchbook to play with graphic and simplified versions of the birds; messing about with etching plates and generally trying to find a way to ape the fluid, smoke-like way murmurations morph and lilt. Loads of artists have been inspired by murmurations for pretty obvious reasons, but if you want to be thoroughly caught short and have your breath taken away, these photographs by the Danish artists Søren Solkaer are a good place to start.
JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2025
Stockport arts and wellbeing charity ARC and What If? (an ideas cafe and community centre in Edgeley) were kind enough to respond to my call for venues to run a series of free workshops where we could print the artwork and run arts activities using various different kinds of natural dyes.
I also brought with me a wealth of information about making dyes, including a recipe card for all participants to make their own oak gall ink:
All participants were also given a QR code which would allow them to access the google map on which the trees were mapped, so they can make their own ink from the same trees if they wish.
I made 50 tickets available for each event, which sold out very fast. We also had a number of people turn up on the day – who were around What If? and Arc, and wanted to join in. Activities included:
- block printing murmurations with Adswood Park Ink (I made printing blocks from scrap wood and an old felt gift bag – to see how these were made, see instagram here)
- collage with avocado, indigo and oak gall-inked papers (I made thick cardboard templates in the shape of graphic birds for people to draw around)
- still life drawing with Vernon Park Ink (we used vintage illustrations of starlings for reference, as well as exotic dried flowers)
- trace and print a starling with Hollywood Park Ink (this is an incredible lo-fi blotted line technique that Andy Warhol used when he worked as an illustrator of shoes in the 1960s).
I was very lucky to have help at the workshops from David Brind, a wonderful artist and facilitator who donated his time and kindness for free. Here’s a few examples of the beautiful artwork produced in the workshops:
In between these public sessions, I also ran a series of all day printmaking sessions at St. Elisabeth’s School, Reddish. The school takes part in a scheme called Eco Schools, wherein each class appoints two Eco Monitors, who form a committee to spearhead their own environmental and sustainability initiatives. So I was lucky enough to turn all of the Eco Committee into natural dye printmakers, as well as the whole of Year 5 and a good many teachers.
It was wonderful to tell children about how it’s possible to make ink out of the buds that wasps grow in, though some were keen to make sure I had not inadvertently brought any wasps into school. In between adding birds to the artwork, the children wrote and drew in the sketchbook that I’d set aside to document the making of the artwork and printed their own A1-sized murmurations using the homemade blocks.
MARCH 2025
By March, there were only a few more birds to print, so I lay the huge piece of wool out on the floor at home, standing on my desk to get a better view for any obvious gaps. Around this time I also commissioned Tim Denton (who was already making some wonderful tables for Stockroom) to make me an enormous tapestry-style magnetic hanger.
MAY 2025
As Stockroom’s construction work drew to a close, I got a chance to look round the building and find a suitable spot for the murmuration. It was installed on Thursday 15th May, ready for Stockroom’s opening weekend (23/24 May 2025). And as part of the creative centre’s bonanza opening weekend, I ran another series of free natural dye screen printing sessions, using leftover Stockport Parks Ink.
In total, 155 adults and children printed birds – or a cluster of birds – on the final artwork. I was blown away by the response to the project, which could not have happened without the support of Stockroom, Gwen Riley Jones, Jacqui Wood, Harriet Wilson, Pauline Johnstone and Dave Brind. And my family – who helped me lug things around Stockport, set up the workshops and who turned a blind eye as I created increasingly stinky concoctions in the kitchen.
And guess what? We only got one splurge of ink on the whole artwork, despite it going through 155 pairs of hands. And that splurge became the artwork’s sole outrider – the bird about to join the murmuration; someone just moved to Stockport, looking for community.
This project was part funded by Stockroom and the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.