Foraged and wild works headed to The Merchant's Table this November.

Some thoughts behind the selection of works for this collection, arriving at the space and online from November 8th:
'These pieces have been foraged and found in areas around Suffolk and beyond - collected on hikes and lifted out of meadows, wild garden patches and woodland.
The Green Man is friend and foe, the wild energy of the woods and the kingdom beyond the walled garden. Fisher Kings, fairy fog and Wood Wives. His realm is a place of wonder and fear. I can’t help but marvel at how hard we’ve worked as a society and a species to counter and escape the Green Man’s influence on our lives.
The walled garden is a collaboration between nature and rationality. A haven of balance and order. It is the garden of Eden, where the Lady and the Unicorn sit together amongst cultivated flowers and orchard fruits. There is much discussion today of our part in the natural world, how we relate to or should try to relate to it. The fashions are polarising. At once, we are told that the flourishing of the natural world is antithetical to human ambition and current technologies. Then another institution declares the necessary interconnectedness of all things, presenting all the harmonious interventions we as a species can make for the benefit of nature and human flourishing. Is it a walled garden or a pen? I do not have an answer.
But I can say what the Green Man is to me. A symbol of magic, a restorative force. What I fear from his trickiness, I also respect.
In Northern Europe, to help bring pagan and Norse worshippers over to Christianity, churches were sometimes built with living trees planted inside. A recognisable symbol, the Tree of Life as Yggdrasil, the world tree; but perhaps also a celebration of a shared value. A bridge between thinking, our proximity to nature or creation. In churches still, the carved face of the oak-haired Green Man is found all over the UK and Europe. Life in death, spring following winter.
The last couple of collections I’ve brought to the Merchant’s Table have focused on feasting and food, the cultivated table spread which we take as our symbolic tableau in ‘vanitas’. This group is cast from wilder stock - crab apples, nuts, seed pods and mushrooms - with no less an inherent value to be celebrated.
The Lady and the Unicorn, chatting over the garden fence with Jack in the Green.
As the shop itself changes direction, I hope the introduction of a playful ‘functionality’ into some works might spark new paths in this practice too. Sitting on the fence of Fine Art and Craft, I have always been curious about the latter and the blend of practicality and aesthetics it makes space for. As the realm of Pomona is extended here from the kitchen garden into the woods, Art objects make a tentative step towards something we use as well as consider.'
For further details on works to come and exhibition details, see the Merchant's Table Event page here: https://themerchantstable.co.uk/products/forged-and-hedgerow-collection-alice-andrea-ewing

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