Gather-ing - Somerset Art Works

The Priory tithe barn

Contemporary craft commissions

The large tithe barn at Stoke Sub Hamdon Priory, Somerset, is amongst a rare and unique group of medieval domestic and agricultural buildings. This was the focus of a contemporary craft project in 2015. The commissioned artworks was exhibited as part of Somerset Art Weeks 2017 at the Somerset Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury.

The title ‘Gather-ing’ references the function of a barn as a space to collect/bring/gather people, animals and crops, as well as a symbolic meeting place to gather for ritual celebration.

In 2015 artists Stewart Easton and associates, Jacky Oliver, Helen Snell, Gillian Widden and Christopher Jelley were commissioned to make new work in response to the large tithe barn at Stoke Sub Hamdon Priory. Curated by Craftspace, initiated by Somerset Art Works in partnership with the National Trust.

The project showcases contemporary craft: makers, skills, materials and thinking. The aspiration of Somerset Art Works was to ‘inspire and challenge’ audiences and ‘raise the quality of craft made and seen in Somerset’ by engaging craft practitioners with a track record of excellence and ability to make creative, imaginative and innovative responses to the site and brief.

‘WOW, I love the ethereal atmosphere and the natural materials shaped into thought provoking words. Beautiful detailed work and a nice place to be’

About the Artists

Stewart Easton

‘His piety knows knows no bounds’
Hand and machine stitched interactive quilt
Produced in collaboration with locally based group The Quirky Quilters, composer Michael Tanner and sound artist Gawain Hewitt.

Drawing upon The Priory’s links with the chapel of St Nicholas, I have created an interactive quilt depicting four major life events of St Nicholas. I wanted to make a work which reversed the concept of ‘taking’ (i.e. a tithe) and created instead something in celebration of giving.

With special thanks to The Quirky Quilters for their expertise and enthusiasm.

Jacky Oliver

Winnowing basket, Flail, Breast Plough. Etched, hand-pierced and forged metals
History has been etched onto the tools, illustrating different aspects of the geography and, equally as important, individual agricultural workers whose labours brought the harvest to the barn. Each piece culminates in a linear structure taken from a particular map of the area. The patchwork of fields create a biography of The Priory and Stoke sub Hamdon, a snap shot of different eras, giving an added identity to the tools. Details reference various documents including the Domesday book, book of hours, census records, birth and marriage records, newspapers, maps and folk songs.
With appreciation and thanks to David Walker at Somerset Archives and Lesley Strutt for their generous help with research.

Helen Snell

Stigmata Forks
Water jet cut mild steel and ash wood

I wanted to explore the underlying tensions and contradictions between pagan and Christian rituals surrounding fertility, sex, birth and harvest. The relationship between the ten forks is inspired by notions of social and moral hierarchies, each farm giving a tenth of their produce to the Church in a material and spiritual exchange.

With grateful thanks to blacksmith James Deane at Taplow Forge in Devon for his unstinting support and patience.

Gillian Widden

A series of woven forms based on the proportions, mass and capacity of a bushel

Made using traditional weaving techniques with a contemporary twist and contemporary materials. Following the Norman conquest, the bushel basket was introduced as a form of measurement for dry goods such as grain or peas, and so would have been in frequent use during the early life of the tithe barn.

With thanks to Richard Hann and his team at Montacute for use of a bandsaw machine in their workshop.

Christopher Jelley

For me the tithe barn is the hero of this story and I needed to design a way for visitors to engage with artist, space and place beyond the passive.

The posts, charged and etched with each artist’s key words are scanned not read, so every visitor’s experience is different. But in order to close the loop between the tithe barn, artists and visitor I created the Word Hoard sheet.

Through the physicality of rubbing you extract the words which are pertinent and resonate for you, which in itself continues the ancient crafting tradition of harvesting, sorting and gathering.