5 October 2009
Hello,
We've had a whirlwind few weeks working up the feasibility of Hutliving and these past four days have merged into many miles of road trip adventure, culminating in presenting to the panel today.
Of course, there's always more that could be done but I came away feeling we'd done Hutliving proud and knowing that we have built a fantastic team.
Thanks to Richard King for his huge generosity and can do attitude. Richard was also kind enough to lend us his unique recording of an eighty year old lady talking about her childhood memories of staying in a shepherd's hut and nursing orphan lambs. The panel heard the recording while they were immersed in the shepherd's hut, and Ben's work, which sat beautifully inside it.
It was also lovely to say hello and good luck to Robert Pacitti.
I'm handing over to Ben now...
Hello folks,
I just wanted to share with you a few pictures of our first Hutliving commission, produced over the last few weeks for today's presentation. (Click on the pics to see enlarged versions and to read the copy).
Whilst the plaques' final resting place will be in the fields where these men worked, the pictures portray them inside a shepherd's hut, which we brought down from North Norfolk for the presentation. I'd like to think Issac, Percy and John would approve...
Artist's Statement:
'I stumbled across my first shepherd's hut in 1977. It was quietly rotting away in the corner of a field, backed up against a hedge. Technology had moved on, making her redundant. This made me sad.
At one time, huts were found all over the East, pulled out onto fields during lambing and whilst folding the sheep on open downs, miles from the farm.To me, the hut shares many of the characteristics of the shepherd himself - hardy, adaptable, practical and unpretentious.
My childhood heroes were (and still are) the old countrymen; for their affinity with Nature, their animal husbandry, their tolerance of hardship, their wisdom and their sheer able-ness - qualities which, sadly, seem so remote in us today.
So I wanted to commemorate these men and their contribution; to acknowledge our 'Sons of the Soil'. The plaques themselves were cast in iron to echo the iron maker's plate found above the door of most huts. Iron is also durable, as they were.
Future plans (funding dependent) would be to research the names and lives of more of these men and cast more plaques, creating a 'Sons of the Soil Trail' across the fields, farms and bridleways of our region, for ramblers to enjoy.'
Ben Short
Wolterton, Norfolk, 2009
Comments
I just wanted to say how excited I am seeing the plaques created by the commissioned artist. They're a sort of rural version of the metropolitan blue plaques, and I feel that although these commemorated men were not known to us (in the same way as those men and women immortalised in blue), their contribution to this country is no less important. Celebrating our 'sons of the soil' and their inner qualities seems very apposite at this point in time.
Dear Nancy,Ben and "Morris Minor"...
Thanks for such a great time over the last week. Great to meet you all and thankyou both for such an adventure.I wish we could have had more time together.
And what an adventure.!!..Meeting you all on Sunday morning....(esp "MM"..!!!)...With lunch under a big blue Norfolk sky in a sun bathed Shepherds Hut...Then drying out a more than wet "MM" beside Kims warming stove after his swim in the fountain..........oppps....naughty Morris..
Then...
Up at 5 am Monday...Loading Kimberley with the sunrise....6 wheeler lorry trip to Luton Carnival Arts..Unload Kimberley into the grand hall and you get to work your magic with her........Load up again...back home ......unload Kimberley for the last time and then a dusky dark slow tow down a bumpy track to her resting place beside the hut owners lake...For an "Old Lady" she certainly turned a few heads on her grand day out...
These were unbeliveable days to climax her last 3 years with us...The trip to the lakeside the grand finale, after her restoration from a shaky shed on broken axles,back to life into a fully working shepherds hut...What a life she is still having.!!!
A time like this to reflect and remember...
Good luck,..good wishes to you all..
I also ment to say what a really good work your plaques are Ben,..and could be developed into a nationwide trail (like the "Blue" plaques) to commemorate the people who make the world go round. In one generation they can get forgotten.
With a plaque like yours the efforts that they made would be held in time....and forever.... "cast in iron".....
The plaques look great! I can't wait to see them in person and in situ. Just fantastic
thanks richard - your comments are genuinely appreciated. Hope to see you in the near future - best wishes to all (2 legged and 4 legged) Ben
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