Juliet Mootz
Artist, Reparative Land Art, collaboration
River Fall
Living circles
Materials:
Willow Wands, eco cellophane, water, Basket - Red and Green flanders willow.
Book - 19 pages of paper and tracing paper, liquid gold, natural card.
River Fall is a return.
Twenty dry winter stems of willow, salvaged from their heavy heap of winter pruning waste, due for chipping. Carried across Worcester in batches, they found a new home at the Art House, where stood in water, an opportunity for continuation was given, survival was offered.
Within the dry studio walls, steeped in their reservoir of water, swollen buds began to form, bright green caterpillar like growth began to emerge, leaves unfurled and blossoms grew. As Worcester streets flooded around the Art House in February, the willow searched for water thirstily stretching fine new white roots, drinking for growth. As Worcester became isolated and inaccessible, I learned how to make a willow basket, taught by local craftsman Jon White and his partner Becky @basketmakingmalvern.weebly.com
Coppiced wands of Flanders willow, woven and manipulated, into a sustainable option, an opposition to our plastic bag usage.
Unlike the tissue paper bags used in Forest Distribution, this option is a circle, grow, nurture, coppice, craft, treasure.
A new way of looking; an old way of working.
Within the basket is an artists book; on each page of tracing paper there is the growth circle of a year, drawn in liquid gold, layers of life, as the page leaves fall.
