A Year in Drawings 2020 - 2022

Exhibition with Davina Barber at Hurdle Lane Studio, Glandford, Norfolk

Below are a selection of drawings done over one year in a field in Norfolk. It’s a field I have been looking at and drawing for 30 years. I first drew it as barley stubble in 1991, the year it was taken out of arable production, and I’ve been drawing the succession of plants that have found their way here, and mainly thrived, ever since. Through drawing, I’ve learnt the names and habits of the now complex community of plants. Through drawing the plants and seeing what grows where, I’ve learnt about the patchwork of soil beneath my feet. The plants clearly show me where the stream used to meander before it was straightened 150 years ago.

Crackpot as it sounds, I think of the plants on this field as friends - I can’t find a better way of describing it. I care about what happens to them, and I like their company - that’s what a friend is, isn’t it? For instance, I have known each thorn since it first became distinct from the sward. I know the late and early blossomers - I’ve traced their unique shapes onto my paper year after year, including the little stunted one that has never recovered from an attack of oak eggar moth caterpillars about 15 years ago. And I’ve drawn the crabapple that grew up in a jumble of thorn - until the livestock noticed (and wanted) its apples, that is. The animals have steadily cleared the ground around it so it now stands in the centre of a sort of roundabout - follow any of the animal tracks on the field and you will end up at the crabapple at some point. These drawings are just a snapshot - one year in a ceaselessly changing place.