Frederick Hubble
The Wyre Waters: Of Saints, Soothsayers, and Charlatans
Following on from his residency in the Wyre Forest, Fred Hubble will host a number of events and workshops where he can share some of the research he has been undertaking. The events are co-hosted by a range of creative collaborators will share their expertise and provide new ways of engaging with the natural world.
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Water Vessel Workshop with Mark Essen
Saturday 15th October , 11 – 3pm
Venue
Ruskin Studio, Uncylls Farm, Tanner’s Hill, Bewdley, Worcestershire, DY12 2LR.
WHAT3WORDS: castle.themes.maddening
Join Fred Hubble and Mark Essen for this hands-on clay workshop.
During the workshop participants will have the opportunity to make watering bells that can be used in practical and sustainable gardening. We’ll be learning about watering bells as the pre-cursor to the watering can, and how they may help us rethink our relationships to how we use water in our day to day lives.
The workshop will include an introduction to slab building and coil making techniques. The workshop is ideally suited for families (children aged 5 years+), each will create an individually unique watering bell for use in their homes and gardens. Vessels made during this workshop will be fired in Birmingham and returned to participants.
Vegetarian light refreshments will be available as part of the workshop.
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Listening to the Wyre. Field Recording with Olly Romoff
Saturday 15th October
4 – 7pm
Venue
Ruskin Studio, Uncylls Farm, Tanner’s Hill, Bewdley, Worcestershire, DY12 2LR.
WHAT3WORDS: castle.themes.maddening
Join Fred Hubble and Olly Romoff to explore Ruskin Land through sound.
This directed walk will introduce participants on how to capture field recordings and use them creatively. Olly Romoff will demonstrate how to use professional sound recording equipment and lead a walk with Fred Hubble where you can capture your own recordings on your mobile devices. The workshop will conclude with a sharing of material gathered and how this could contribute to a new sound-work being developed by the artists.
This event will include a woodland walk with uneven terrain. Please dress for the weather, with suitable footwear.
Olly Romoff is a sound artist, musician and instrument tutor, living and working in the West Midlands. Their arts practice explores the psychogeography of an eclectic range of environments to create immersive pieces of work using a combination of field recordings, sampling and live instruments."
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Storyting the Seasons. Lino printing and storytelling with Luke Sewell
Sunday 16th October, 2 – 5pm
Venue
Ruskin Studio, Uncylls Farm, Tanner’s Hill, Bewdley, Worcestershire, DY12 2LR.
WHAT3WORDS: castle.themes.maddening
The event will provide the opportunity for participants to design and carve a relief-print block inspired by the natural surroundings of the Wyre Forest. During the designing and carving process, there will be time to reflect on some of the themes, traditions and images related to Saint Swithun and to Fred Hubble’s research in the Wyre Forest. Participants will test-print their blocks during the session and take home the finished block and any prints.
Luke Sewell is an artist making traditional relief prints exploring themes connected to land,
mythology, sacramentality and the beauty in discarded or forgotten things. He lives in Erdington, North Birmingham.
Instagram: @lukeprints
Website: lukeprints.co.uk
Patreon: patreon.com/lukeprints
The fifteenth of July to those who follow the Catholic faith, the folklorists, the mythologists, and the meta-meteorologically minded is known as Saint Swithun’s day. According to folklore, from this day, if it rains it will do so for forty days and nights. Should it be fair, then fair weather will continue.
Cultures are full of different prognosticators, from the human to the non-human, stories form around phenomena, or they get attached to them retrospectively, as in the case of Saint Swithun/Swithin.
Saint Swithun’s myth can at least in part be explained today by the patterns of the wind currents bringing weather fronts across the British Isles, known as the jet stream. When the jet stream falls to the north of Britain, high pressure systems (usually associated with clear skies and calm weather) can move in. In contrast, when the jet stream lies over or beneath the British Isles, arctic air and low-pressure weather systems are more common, bringing cloudy, rainy and windy weather. Similarly, across Europe there are Saints who are believed to exert a similar influence over the weather, such as Saint Medard, Saint Gervase and Saint Protais in France and Saint Godelieve in Flanders.
The seasons are storied and stories have seasons.
Following the wrath, benevolence or indifference of Saint Swithun on fifteenth of July, artist Frederick Hubble will be in residence within the Wyre Forest for forty days and forty nights. He will explore the weathers and stories of the Wyre Forest by seeking out, following, and uncovering the different water courses which lead to its cycles of scarcity and abundance.
Join Frederick for an event exploring the natural produce that rely on the water supply within the forest.
Frederick will create a new sound work/ walk tracing unknown water sources and tributaries within the forest and the impact these have on wider ecosystems. This will be available as a download from the Erbe webpage following his residency.