‘Earth’ Workshop at Timber Festival
The willow Earth and workshops based around it, initially part of the May 27th ‘Sculpture in the Woods day’, were successfully staged at the Timber festival over the 5th-7th July. We were able to rebuild the earth structure at Timber and run an extended set of workshops there. Visitors were encouraged to write positive healing thoughts on ribbons of muslin to hang in the ‘Earth” – these became symbolic roots to protect the Earth as well as acting like prayer flags to take these messages away on the wind. Adults and children took part in this, writing, then tying their message in the Earth. Over the weekend more strips were added to the installation, a space where visitors could go inside, read positive thoughts and contemplate our place in nature.
It became particularly beautiful in the evening as the sun set through the willow, illuminating the colours in the muslin, as they moved in the wind. We installed some of the tree spheres from the outwoods in adjacent trees, and ran 2 drop in workshops to make small willow earths. These ran over both afternoons and proved very popular. In the mornings we held sewing workshops, sewing meditative words on prayer flags to take away. Both these were for adults and older children, or families working together. Around 130 people wrote on muslin, 60 people made a willow sphere and 10 people sewed prayer flags.
