Guest blog by Arabella Marshall, Suffolk Craft Society
Connecting with nature through craft
Minsmere is a magnet for people who love birds and wildlife. It also carries a rich and complex human narrative stretching back over centuries. This compelling combination has inspired a group of eight makers from the Suffolk Craft Society to find new approaches to their own work resulting in sculpture, prints, hangings and a mosaic panel being installed in various locations around Minsmere.
Cormorants: mosaic in ceramics and glass by Joy Holden
The project, known as Spreading Our Wings, emerged from the installation of “A Wing and A Prayer” (October 2020) - the colourful, soaring, glass “window” now residing in the ruins of the original Leiston Abbey Chapel, near the sluice in the southern region of the reserve . Generously welcomed and supported by RSPB staff and volunteers, members of the group have spent time becoming familiar with the diverse environment - allowing it to get under their skin - and for this to affect and often change their own creative practices.
The intention of the group is to communicate - using art and craft as a potent and often beautiful way of drawing people’s attention to the abundance and fragility of the natural environment and to our connection with it. To this end Spreading Our Wings held a “Meet the Makers” day on site in 2022 and is also mounting an exhibition of work called “Beyond the Reeds” at Snape Maltings in May 2023 - bringing the project to a wider audience -(https://www.suffolkcraftsociety.org/spreading-our-wings/.
A time of harmony, print by Terry Bryan
A new partnership is developing between Suffolk Craft Society and RSPB Minsmere enabling more projects like this to take place and potentially leading to work being commissioned that will enhance the visitor experience in a variety of ways.
Print by Helen Maxfield
Look out for these art installations around the reserve, or why not visit Leiston Abbey Chapel to see "A Wing and a Prayer." Please ask for more details from reception.