Attended a workshop callout from the Pigment Patch, a project initiative led by textiles technician Polly Lancaster and Dr Assunta Ruocco. Today technician Rob Britt was offering a workshop/collaboration to build a bench that could be used with the potting tables and plant beds already installed up on the sculpture terrace.
I thought this would be a good way to help towards the progress of the project and learn more about how I can get involved with the natural dyes that are grown on the terrace. It also introduced me to the other technicians working in the NDH workshop, which I may need to use in future.
Rob showed us a basic design and we discussed ideas about the shape it should be. We decided on a bench shaped to make up one side of a hexagon, which mirrored the shapes of the tables already up on the terrace. With three benches together they could form an arch, which we thought would work well for teaching sessions up there.
The bench was made using upcycled wood, found in the workshop, namely surplus decking boards. I am really drawn to ways of reusing materials and giving them a second life as something useful or beautiful, so this was of particular interest to me.
At the end of the session I booked to have a full workshop induction, so I would be able to use the workshop in future for my own work.
Later that day James and I carried on working on the old table we purchased through Facebook Marketplace (£10, including 3 chairs!). We plan to explore using it within the collective somehow, perhaps painting it, but before we can entertain any ideas, we need to clean it and strip off the layers of grease and nicotine from the surface. A heat gun and electric sander were the go to for this.