Conversations in Making

Artist: Linda Brothwell
Client: Bloor Homes
2019-2021

Commissioned by Ginkgo Projects and produced in partnership with English Heritage, Conversations in Making researched and explored the role of craft and traditional skills within the contemporary communities living in and around Amesbury.

In 2019, Linda Brothwell’s exhibition Conversations in Making explored the role of craft and traditional skills in contemporary communities and historical figures around Stonehenge and Amesbury. The creation of 40 vessels for the exhibition was inspired by speaking to ten makers who live and work in the local community, including thatcher, key cutter, hairdresser, tattooist and leather worker, among others. Linda was also inspired by prehistoric tools and pottery vessels in both Wiltshire Museum and the Salisbury Museum. The vessels were fabricated using silver, brass, copper and lead, each of which was hand made in response to her research and conversations with local craftspeople. The vessels are therefore inspired by a mix of historical and modern elements, and together they create a visual lexicon that communicates the materials, colours, textures and designs that informed and underpinned the work.

The final phase of the programme – that of a new publication and the distribution of the vessels back to the artisans and craftspeople that inspired them – was delayed by COVID-19 but can now take place. The objects will be distributed back into the local community that inspired them – into schools, libraries and perhaps even the local chip shop – where they will be used and loved. They will remain in dialogue with the place they came from and with the people who inspired them, and the conversation will continue.

The accompanying publication documents the process of the conversations and of making the vessels, with poetry from Holly Corfield Carr that responds to the sonic and haptic processes of Linda’s vessel making. It brings together materials and stories of the craftspeople that Linda talked to during the course of researching Conversations in Making, and it brings all the vessels together in one place after their dispersal back into the community. 

Susan Greaney, Senior Properties Historian for English Heritage said, “Linda Brothwell’s 2019 exhibition at Stonehenge, and this extraordinary collection of vessels, have provided new ways to think about archaeological objects from this landscape, linking together the tools and the people who made them in prehistory with craftspeople working in the area today. It’s exciting that these vessels will now be returning to the local community, back into the hands of people who inspired them.”

Conversations in Making is part of a wider programme of commissions being delivered by Ginkgo Projects on behalf of Bloor Homes, funded via the planning process for King’s Gate, a new housing development in Amesbury.

Image credits: Jo Hounsome Photography & Linda Brothwell.