Susie Needham
5 Silver Street
Milverton
TA4 1LA
(01823) 400 470
(07790) 397 151
susie@pencilofnature.co.uk
www.pencilofnature.co.uk
‘herbfield’

Susie Needham submitted a proposal to SAW in order to continue and expand work she had been developing in 2002 in collaboration with the Organic Herb Trading Company in Milverton, a Soil Association member.  Susie lives in Milverton and is a photographer specialising in the innovative development of sun-print photograms.   As part of her initial work, Susie had recorded the herb flowers grown at the Farm and had also researched the early sun-print photograms made by Fox-Tabot and the first woman photographer, Anna Atkins.

Susie’s successful proposal for the Landmarks Project included:

• The continuation of her work at the Farm during one season recording the growth of the herbs and their transformation into tinctures and essential oils.
• The creation of a series of sun prints using herbs collected in the fields.
• The development of a three-day participatory workshop for the children at Milverton School that would have artistic, scientific, environmental and historical content.
   the success of this project was made possible through the commitment of  the lead artist, Susie Needham, whose inclusive approach, clear artistic focus and open management style gave the project its distinctive flavour.

The short term outcomes were:

• The consolidation of excellent working relationships between the artist, the Herb Farm and the school
• The creation of a mobile dark room
• The development of a 3-day photogram workshop with schoolchildren in Milverton.
• The development of the artist’s work and practice eg: the creation of a new series of much larger photograms by Susie Needham, including a set of innovative “pink” photograms.
• The creation of a set of sun-prints by children at Milverton School, some of which will be used for promotional purposes by the Herb Farm.
• A promotional exhibition of photographic work by Susie and the workshop participants at the Brewhouse and at Milverton School. About 100 people visited the exhibition at the School.
• A collaborative presentation about the project by Gaye, James and Susie at the Brewhouse.  This demonstrates the Herb Farm’s commitment to the project and their ownership of it.
• A promotional workshop in Pilton, Somerset which created a relationship with the Soil Association and the consolidation of this relationship through a Soil Association exhibition of Susie’s sun-prints in Cirencester in 2003.
• Sales of Susie’s work to St Barts Hospital.

The longer-term outcomes of the project include:

• The development of a workshop model which the NT to use in their educational programmes at Lacock and elsewhere.  Susie was asked to run a sun-print workshop for the NT at Lacock in 2004. This project emerged initially out of the NT’s work with the Exmoor residency and indicates that the Landmarks project provides opportunities for Somerset artists outside the county.
• Further partnership work with the Soil
  Association eg: The Soil Association mounted a show of Susie’s work in
  Edinburgh in 2004 as part of their launch of a new branch.
• Further sales for Susie’s photograms, and particularly her innovative new “pink” sun-prints.  In Summer 2003 Susie sold about 30 prints to Ralph Lauren.

‘Herbfield’

'Through early photographic methodology I visually recorded some of the details of the botanical procession of the seasons, unfolded at the Organic Herb Company's established herbfield at Milverton, the people working in the landscape with the seasonal development of growth, colour, texture and form as a land art canvas, the changes that happen visibly on a daily basis, to arrive at harvest and the transmutation into final products.

Entering into this landscape I find a world of vitality and abundance that projects the healing properties of landscape for the human spirit.
Through the marriage of art and science I visually describe this energy by using the simple methods of Fox Talbot's early photographic sun prints. I record the botanical qualities and elements of the specimen through the impression of light on photosensitive paper as in a carefully studied drawing; the patterns of nature emerge as an ever-unfolding display of form and matter. The cultivation of this landscape through its manifestation of a positive approach to a sustainable future inspires a rich sketchbook of images'.