Forecast - Spring
Walking along the riverside path one day in January 2020, I noticed that the ground was littered with plump, fresh, red hawthorn haws. I wondered why so many berries still remained on the hedges in the dying days of winter, so I went home and looked it up: hawthorn haws are mainly eaten by fieldfares and song thrushes, which are migratory. So the bush produces its bounty in late summer and autumn, and holds on to it right the way through winter just so that the song thrushes and fieldfares have a feast to return to. I thought that was a bit magical, and took the colour palette of rich red berries and fresh green lichen as inspiration.
During the process of making this print, I also discovered that there are British folk tales associating the song thrush with weather prediction, especially storms and high winds. Connecting this with the notion of the song thrush’s arrival being symbiotic with the appearance of spring, and after the severe storms of February 2020 in the UK, the name Forecast - Spring seemed natural.
Two block linocut, edition of 20
Hand pulled using oil based ink on Japanese Hosho paper
Printed area approx 6x4”, paper approx A4
