Twenty five years ago we acquired an acre of agricultural farm land adjoining our garden, for many decades treated with artificial chemicals. Planted with wildflower seeds it has been transformed into a wildflower meadow of flowers, grasses, fungi, native hedges and trees in a wonder of regeneration. It now supports a rich biodiversity of plant and wildlife and has been awarded private nature reserve status by Suffolk Wildlife Trust. It remains an oasis surrounded by the vast chemically treated wastelands of East Anglia and represents a strong statement of chromatic variation in contrast to the ‘fertiliser green’ of industrially managed  earth.

During the last few years I’ve used creative documenting to record these colours using distilled pigments made from seasonal growth in the meadow. Initially working with silk and paper, I discovered I can also use the pigments on fired ceramic. By challenging conventional processes associated with textiles I have opened out exiting new possibilities of working with colour and clay. Having worked in monochrome for many years I wanted to re-explore colour without the use of commercially formulated chemicals.