Homersfield Quarry, Suffolk
Vanstone initiated my locational research for stone. I built up a relationship with a local gravel pit over my 3 years at UAL. The 35 acres of land, previously farmed for cereal production was further exploited to a scarred version of itself. When no more gravel and sand could be viably excavated, this open mine was 20m deep and 5 acres wide, having had a million tonnes of aggregate removed. Whereupon, it then filled naturally to local water table level creating a man-made lake, later to be ‘landscaped’ and trees planted.
Before the diggers moved in 2019, compulsory archeological excavated test pits (2 x 6m) were hand dug. The most significant find was a circular Roman Kiln for baking local clay in to stoneware pottery. The archaeologists had no interest in the kilns preservation. Norfolk Museum also declined, which was personally difficult to understand and accept it’s seemingly insignificant cultural importance.
Flint tools, hide scrapers and remnants of their production were also found and lost again, bar their historical record and referencing. This personal exposure to the longevity and local cultural history of ceramic, had profound implications for my own involvement with clay in the Hannah Peschar Garden project.
The groundsman who manned the excavator kept aside material of interest on my request. An array of large sandstones were unearthed, some of which were later identified by Norwich Museum to be good examples of Septarian Nodules. These stones were formed West East Anglia by glacial action, a mixture of glacial tilt and meltwaters.They contain crystalline calcite mineral seams of yellow brown septi. When polished they are called ‘Dragon Eggs’.
Art curator, contemporary art writer and art activist, Lucy Lippard’s, ‘Undermining’, discusses in-depth landscape and place in terms of cultural geography and the development of detrimental anthropocentric subterranean economies. She aims to raise consciousness of industrial intrusion and pollution often within dramatic natural locations, alongside the politics of land ‘ownership’ from indigenous sacred sites to “mineral rights’ clauses, often overlooked on land sales.
The Church of England owned 50% mineral rights on Homersfield Quarry, technically 50% of the retrieved large flints, sandstones and septarian nodules in my work. These would have been ground to gravel, lost to place and time.
Extended Material Research - Flint
Flint, a natural resource of East Anglia’s chalky ‘Marl’ soil layer defines the ‘Stone Age’. It’s cultural value is exemplified by known flint mines and trade routes of that time, across the breadth of Great Britain from East Anglia. Flint is a mineral quartz and like glass is hard but brittle, sharp splinters called flakes or blades create a razor sharp edge when the stone is struck correctly for weapons, cutting and scraping tools and to aid to starting fire. The craft of flint knapping is still alive today and used in regional house builds and historically constructing churches and farm buildings. Flint nodules are still used to grind glazes and other raw materials for the ceramics industry.
Material for future art works
