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Polly Bennett
I was invited by artist and producer of ArtHouse Jersey, Laura Hudson, to be Artist in Residence alongside the art space’s exhibition, the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize. The residency objective was to collect material to make into pigments, teach about said pigments, and share how to use them.
16th March 2023
Personal favourites from the show
After the shortest flight of my life, I made it to Greve De Lecq, made myself at home in my amazing accommodation and had a cuppa ☕️ My evening was spent searching locally for samples and researching the best sites to visit.
Most amazing
accommodation
ever!
17th March 2023
Jersey is predominantly made of granite, an igneous rock - one of the hardest rock types - and I wouldn't recommend grinding it. Instead, I was searching for sedimentary rocks, which I found at St. Ouen's Bay. Jersey’s Brioverian sedimentary
I did a lot of
geology research
before visiting Jersey,
as I wanted to find the
best locations for
pigment hunting.
rocks were formed between 900 and 700 MYA, and constitute the Jersey Shale Formation.
I took advantage of the lush weather and took a bus to Le Pulec, the northernmost part of St. Ouen’s Bay on the North-West coast of Jersey, to do a recky for my Pigment Making Workshop on the Sunday.
Unfortunately, the tide was in, so I didn't manage to see the peat beds 😭
That evening I held my Artist Talk, which I was a tad nervous for, but really enjoyed. The
team were lovely, especially
Catherine and Eliza who were on hand to help.
18th March 2023
Day 3 of my Residency was spent learning about the characteristics of the island of Jersey, and seemed to revolve around the sea, unsurprisingly.
A trip to the Maritime Museum and Occupation Tapestry taught me all
The Botanic Gardens at Samares Manor were idyllic. A particular highlight was their wild meadow where they celebrate the floral weeds of the island, as well as explaining each weeds significance.
about the local geography, weather, social and political history, and stories of the sea.
19th March 2023
Field Trip & Pigment Making Workshop day!
We foraged for earth, metal and bone-based material and touched on techniques that help identify more pigment-friendly specimens. After lunch we headed back to The Barracks to process our finds into paint.
Mulling watercolour paint
"To mull over" - traces back to the 1800s where it related to the physical mulling of grinding a powder
20th March 2023
La Hougue Bie with Laura.
The site is super surreal as it homes monuments from very different eras; the Neolithic La Hougue Bie and replica longhouse, a 16th–century Norman Christian chapel, a fascinating exhibition about a Celtic coin hoard ‘Le Catillon II’, and a German bunker from the Occupation.
La Hougue Bie was built in a specific location so that on the days of the
equinoxes, it’s
ancient passage
grave is
illuminated as
the sun rises.
16th–century Norman Christian chapel built atop
Entrance to La Hougue Bie
Mortar found
in La Hougue Bie, believed to be used for rituals
Replica Neolithic Longhouse
Volunteers creating/using bone pigments I advised them on, to paint the Longhouse with!
Celtic coin hoard ‘Le Câtillon II’
My afternoon was spent processing collected pigments and having fun in Tim Le Breuilly's printmaking studio Luddite Press using said pigments as printmaking ink!
The largest hoard of Iron Age gold and silver coins, jewellery and ingots ever found in Western Europe (Jersey).
My own Roman coins
LETTERPRESS
Mixing Jersey pigment with oil-based printmaking ink
21st March 2023
Thanks to the advice of local geologist Ralph Nichols, I caught low tide at La Rocque to walk along the track from Seymour Slipway to Seymour Tower in search of clay.
Lucky me, I found what I was looking for! Blue, green and ochre clays!
Found loads of yellow periwinkles too!
22nd March 2023
My day was spent processing my finds into pigment. This included, but was not limited to; brick, charcoal, rust and clay from St. Ouen’s Bay, blue, green and ochre clay from Seymour Slipway, and ochres from all over the place.
That evening was my Natural Drawing Workshop was all about using natural and collected materials in an experimental manner, to coincide with The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize Exhibition. Techniques and materials, we used, included water pens, sponges, putty rubbers, our fingers, carved sticks, beeswax, sandpaper, spray bottles, brick, charcoal, various pigments, wet clay, rust and oak gall ink. The faves of the day were the files and the feather pens!
23rd March 2023
I took a trip to Hamptonne Country Life Museum to experience historic rural living in Jersey.
Jersey was famous for its textile crafts and therefore had very strict laws. For example, the length of a stocking had to be 27 inches, and in 1608, Jersey was overproducing knitwear on such a scale, that a law was passed restricting anyone over the age of 15 from knitting at harvest time.
We spoke about the types of wool and dyes used, including the use of lichen and fermented urine (ammonia) to create pink.
In the Langlois House, I had a fascinating chat with the spinner. She demonstrated wool spinning on the drop spindle and Jersey spindle wheel, and explained how, in Jersey, historically anything else than 3-ply yarn was illegal.
Cute things in the house.
According to legend, if a sailor’s body washed up on shore, he would be identified by his knitted ‘jersey’ and his body returned to his parish. In fact, it was the fisherman's sweater that gave the island its name.
The findings from my ArtHouse Jersey Artist Residency resulted in a colour map of the island with 10 corresponding raw pigments and watercolour paints in ceramic palettes made by Laura. The ‘COLOURS’ was printed by Tim from Luddite Press with a letterpress.
The ‘COLOURS’ was hand printed by Tim from Luddite Press with a letterpress.
I am using Bionic Reading - traditionally used by neurodivergent folk, or more specifically people with ADHD, and those with reading difficulties - created by Swiss typographic designer Renato Casutt. It bolds a small number of letters at the beginning of a word allowing your memory to fill in the rest, creating a more visually stimulating font.
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