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Sophie Mason is an artist and gardener exploring our relationship with the natural world.

Landscape (London, Autumn)

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Various small interactions with my canvas and the environment over the last week for a new series of Blanket Landscapes.
I’m curious about the intersection of a city’s wildness and human behaviour. The wild parts are commonly found on the edges of the city or deep in the undergrowth of parks. By edges I mean places such as train tracks or undeveloped, overgrown land. They are places of surprising natural richness and are often beautiful, peaceful spaces.
When I venture to these places however there is a sense of uncertainty about what I will find. Where there is a pocket of wildness in the city there will often be signs of socially unacceptable behaviour: public sex, defecation, needles, rough sleeping. Contrarily there might also be children at play: a den, the remnants of games and shouts of glee from bushes.
Children and the unaccepted parts run to the woods to hide from prying eyes. Both of these things are in all of us! They are our wild aspects. The untamed, unruly side of our psyche. The rough and tumble, howl like a wolf, dance till you fall side of our psyche. The place where we may try to hide our pain, shame and anger. I also strongly suspect that creativity, joy, play, exuberance, wonder lie in wait here, hiding under a pile of leaves ready to jump you!

Whatever it all means these little patches in the city are helpful to me. I like to squeeze into an old den or the crook of a tree, burrow down and rest for a bit. Feel like an outlaw, an animal and breathe in the earth.
#blanketlandscape #urbanwildness #art #process #citywildness #wildness #animalpsyche

Starting slowly on my next series of Blanket landscapes. I have been working a lot on this one with Frida. It has put even more of an emphasis on the play aspect of creativity which has been so fun!

We first dyed this canvas with pomegranate skins collected over the autumn. The canvas came out a pale yellow colour that doesn’t really show in these photos.
Once it was dry we made a little fire and then scratched the ash and coal into it.
After this we rubbed calendula, rose, chamomile and red clover in it. These herbs are all gentle, calming herbs that are very easy to find growing around us. Once we had rubbed the herbs into the canvas I bundled them into the canvas and wrapped it up to infuse for a few weeks.
#process #art #canvas #blanketlandscape #artandkids #play #painting

This is my family! We have started a wee project @somerubbishphotos We are going to post one photo a week of a piece of rubbish washed up on the beach with some possible sustainable alternatives. Follow us and let’s try reduce our plastic consumption together! :)