The Wealth of The Nation

As Langdyke Countryside Trust's Artists in Residence, Sarah Lambert and I started dyeing wool in 2023 - as a way to tell of the land, its social history and ecology. Sarah chose to work with fleece and created beautiful felt based on her photography, while I used thread.

Sheep are used for conservation grazing on several of Langdyke's nature reserves. They help restrain the more vigorous grasses and so encourage more wildflowers to grow. Sheep have been grazed on many of these locations in past times, right back to the Neolithic farmers who worked the land that's now Langdyke's Etton-Maxey Nature Reserve. So there are very old links between sheep and the Langdyke reserves!

We used very slow processes rather than lots of heat to coax the colour from the plants, in order to reduce the environmental impacts of the project. Some colours took weeks for the colour to develop!



The title of this piece comes from a Medieval saying - that the wealth of the nation was carried on the backs of the sheep. It was said because wool was hugely significant to the country's economy at that time. For me, in these times of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss, I perceive the wealth of the land to be in the ecosystems, plants and animals, and the natural processes that support that life. And so this new sculpture is in the form of a richly 'jewelled' necklace. Created using using found 'treasures' from Langdyke's nature reserves, it is a comment on where we perceive our wealth to be, and references the work of Langdyke's volunteers to support and encourage biodiversity in our local area.



The necklace is studded with natural objects representing different forms of life found on Langdyke's nature reserves - leaves, fungi, shells, feathers and a tiny moth* (found in one of the bird hides). The tangle of threads represents the interwoven, interdependent, interconnected ecology and lives.






With thanks to Studio One, Peterborough, for photographic services.
*the moth had died some time before