7 Days @ Solas Festival June 22

17th -19th June 2022 Errol Park, Perth.

The exhibition site at the festival was to be outdoors. I was invited to wander around the grounds and choose a mutually acceptable place to hang the installation. The choice was between a small clump of trees at the end of the busy, main festival site or a more spacious and tranquil area near the stable block venue some way off. I chose the latter knowing this would reduce the number of visitors to the installation but that it was more suited to the work. I hoped for those who did find it, that it would make sense, this was the case. Visitor numbers were low but for those that came there was an appreciation of both the work and its context. I had brought with me a 100 meters of white, cotton washing line, the panels were pegged on this between the trees. In this installation setting all the panels fly free. They are about the gift of creation and it only seems right that they should be out in amongst nature itself, free to move in the wind of the Spirit.

Day 1 .

At times, beautiful shadows were created by the sunlight hitting the fir tree on the left-hand side.

Day 2

Day 2 seemed to be a little more in the shade but as you can see some light came through the denser trees and caused a subtle dappled effect. For a brief time there also appeared a beautiful post box-like image of shadow and light capturing some of the surrounding foliage on the translucent muslin cloth sandwiched between the thicker calico pieces.

Day 3

The changes of light throughout the day showed up different elements of the panel, sometimes revealing the subtly stitched image of the tree/leaf and highlighting the differing shapes and cloths within the piece. At other times the cloths and shapes seem to disappear or blend into one. At one moment the light particularly caught and played with the satin cloth of the wedding dress fabric which seemed to almost sparkle in the sunlight. It was wonderful to find, on coming back to have my own lunch by the work, that two others had chosen not only the installation site but the space in front of Day 3 – that is about provision of the fruits of the earth – to have a picnic and conversation.

In contrast to its space in the allotment, fastened to a fence and in the previous exhibition mounted on a wall, the panels, as mentioned above, were able to fly freely from their washing lines. This meant that one could see the back of the panels and in this case the shopping list of ‘provisions’ that could now be clearly seen, as well as the shadows captured on both sides.

Day 4

Here again, flying freely the light highlights the variation in cloth and enables the light to shine through the more translucent areas where the wax is. The panel was fixed to a wooden fence in its garden space.