England's Green & Pleasant Land

Here we feature a piece of work that has yet to be resolved but interestingly was in production as lockdown was imposed on March 19th 2020. The whole project stems from a table of natural meadow grasses taken from the book below.

The book was part of a set of agricultural cyclopedia from the Edwardian era - 1901 -1910. That short, often romanticised and tranquil period, sandwiched between the end of the Victorian era and just before the social upheaval and trauma of the Great War of 1914 -1918.

Stage 1 - Turn the list on its side to symbolically mimic grass.

I personally found this list of meadow grasses intriguing, as it listed the recommended combination of grass varieties when sowing one acre of virgin pasture (the numerals indicate the lbs per acre of seeds need for each grass).

The word pastoral came to mind, that idealised version of a long lost country life, lost now to mass consumption and the need for intensive ranch farming. This true English meadow, listed above, now only exists in small pockets, scattered across our national landscape. However the tables would appear to be turning once more, as our nations environment(s) and eco systems take on an increasingly more important role in the fight against climate change.

Here we see the grasses listed in the book, some you may recognise?

Stage 2 - Choosing appropriate typefaces to use for each grass.

The second stage of the design process was to source a series of condensed typefaces and fonts that were Edwardian or Edwardian in look and feel. These were all taken from large type display books and then photocopied several times in order to have enough letters to work with.

This process was necessary, as I was using the old school cut and past method, in order to create each strand of grass. So it was spray mount, a cutting mat and a sharp scalpel initially. Once I had created an aesthetically pleasing grass strand I then took to the machine and scanned them in.

Stage 3 - The composition takes shape as each grass strand is considered and positioned.

As I noted at the start of this article, the project has yet to be resolved. The intension was and still is, to finally silk screen the composition onto a large format and an appropriate paper stock.

Stage 4 - Considering colour and fine tuning the auxiliary information.

The weight of seeds needed to plant one acre, is positioned under each stalk of grass, see below.

Detail

Looking back over the past few months and the on going national trauma that is Covid 19, I can’t help but ponder on the parallel’s that his piece of work raises?

‘England’s Green & Pleasant Land’ silk screen prints will be available… one sunny day in the future.