Interpreting a shepherd’s life in ‘Tracing Shadows’

Charu Vallabhbhai

Writer and curator Charu Vallabhbhai brings together the identifying marks of an artist, a poet and a musician in one experimental document. From this talismanic piece of paper, Vallabhbhai unfolds the story of an ongoing, expansive exploration of the working lives of women shepherds across the UK by artist Patricia MacKinnon-Day. For Tracing Shadows, the latest iteration of the project, presented this month at Art Gene in Cumbria, MacKinnon-Day enlisted the collaborative input of poet Kim Moore and musician Nick Rogers. Art works will be exhibited both inside and outside Art Gene’s building, inspired by the life and language of a shepherd based at Cartmel Fell, and the heritage of sheep farming in the region.

This untitled work on paper bears the marks of three creative practitioners, Patricia MacKinnon-Day who is a visual artist, poet Kim Moore and musician Nick Rogers.  It represents a multi-disciplinary project initiated and led by MacKinnon-Day to produce new works inspired by the working life of Cumbrian sheep farmer, Lisa Berry. The process of making work without actually coming together in the same physical space has resulted in the sharing of digital files - typed, recorded, filmed and produced using software. In recognising this, MacKinnon-Day, Moore and Rogers have each made marks onto a single page, applying by hand elements of the work they have produced in the form of rubbing, musical notation and the written word. This condenses their collaboration into a new form, one that allows each part to interplay upon a single plane.

In laying paper over the wood of a shed and revealing its contours, here MacKinnon-Day refers back to the start of her working relationship with Lisa Berry. In the Summer of 2018, a simple wooden shed was located on her farm offering a space for her to reflect on her sheep farming and also a place in which she could bring together significant items that represent her experience as a farmer. Some of these objects have informed the making of the new works by MacKinnon-Day, Moore and Rogers, and also their various visits to the farm allowing them first-hand experience of Berry’s working environment. Berry’s own recollections are also the basis of some of the new music, poetry, sculpture and moving image, as is her dedication and the sense of her being in tune with the habitat and the livestock she cares for.

The resulting exhibition ‘Tracing Shadows’ at Art Gene, Barrow-in-Furness, forms part of MacKinnon-Day’s long-term research into the roles of women working in agriculture, uncovering the vital and little recognised contribution women make to the agricultural industry. Since forming a strong connection with twelve farm women in Cheshire, resulting in a series of art works commencing in 2011, MacKinnon-Day has expanded her investigation to other rural communities of the British Isles. Between 2017 and 2018, the experiences of five female farmers in different geographical locations of Cumbria added more voices and personal narratives to the subject of women working today in farming. Commissioned for presentation at Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal, the exhibition offered its visitors deep insight into the women’s shared profession from different perspectives as well as places spread to other parts of the county.  Exposure to the farming practices of women in Cumbria directed MacKinnon-Day’s attention towards the figure of the shepherd in her project ‘The Calling Sheds’, with ‘Tracing Shadows’ presenting the most recent commissions in its ongoing development.

Through a growing network of farm women that MacKinnon-Day’s project was developing, she was provided with support in identifying four female shepherds who would collaborate with her in the next stages of her project. MacKinnon-Day’s ambition was to involve one shepherdess based in each nation that the British Isles comprises. This was at a time of potential fracture through decisions relating to the unity of the British Isles resulting particularly out of departure from the European Union and the ongoing debate of Scottish Independence. This means there is substantial value to drawing associations and recognising the parallel experiences of individuals and communities across the Irish Sea and the borders that separate Scotland and Wales from England.

One common structure employed by MacKinnon-Day for her projects in Cheshire and Cumbria had been the shed. It was first used in Cheshire to protect equipment that would record the views onto a range of Iron Age hill forts that the twelve participating farm women had access to.  The resulting work, ‘Private Views Made Public’ was the culmination of this previous project that included time-lapse photography throughout the four seasons of the year, filmed from a shed on each farm. The shed, for the Cumbrian farm women, formed an enclosure. Within each, an individual story carefully portrayed the life of a woman farmer, including an array of material from audio recordings, film, archival items and historic farming objects, as well as personal articles.  Together with MacKinnon-Day, the participating farmers had made, out of functional sheds, intimate spaces representing life histories. Sheds would next be transported to four farms in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

The participating women shepherds are Lisa Berry at Cartmel Fell, Lisa Gast on the Isle of Bute, Catherine O’Grady-Powers in County Mayo and Teleri Feilden in Snowdonia. Invited to collaborate as part of ‘The Calling Sheds’ project, each shepherdess took receipt of a shed installed at their farm for their own use, representing a private space that offered the potential for creative engagement. In 2019 at Tate Liverpool a single shed presented in their Exchange gallery space became a portal that connected visitors to Tate Liverpool with the participating farmers, offering individuals in urban Liverpool the opportunity to speak directly through video link with farm women working in different rural locations across the country. The contrast of urban and rural is explored in new work created for presentation at Art Gene in Barrow-in-Furness. Where MacKinnon-Day has led on identifying themes, Moore and Rogers, invited to participate in the project, have responded in developing a series of four poems and six instrumental compositions that accompany her work in moving image and sculpture.

Sheep farming is a centuries old industry on the Cumbrian Fells that was once managed by the monastic order at Furness Abbey. Its imposing ruins lie north-east of Barrow-in-Furness, adjacent to the railway line, on a site that retains its sense of wealth and prominence. Whilst maintaining its reputation as a place of prayer, piety and pilgrimage, the abbey was also a major landowner to tenant sheep farmers across the Lake District.  Now, as sheep farming continues throughout the county, it still relies on relentless commitment on the part of each farmer. The major structures, representing industry past and present, are not unnoticed by MacKinnon-Day. Cranes captured in operation at the edge of Walney Island, connected by bridge to Barrow-in-Furness, indicate that many locals are now employed in submarine construction rather than agriculture. Meanwhile a restoration programme at Furness Abbey has introduced temporary steel props to parts of the Abbey walls that act as reminder of the once thriving local steel industry. It was the abundant mining of iron ore and steel manufacture that resulted in Barrow-in-Furness becoming a significant producer of naval vessels.

Contrasted against large scale manufacturing and steadfast control of land imposed once from Furness Abbey, Lisa Berry, as a small farm producer, demonstrates the human and compassionate contributions made to industry. The skull of a sheep perished, once part of her flock, has been kept as constant reminder of the fragility of the lives in her care, as are her memories of a lamb lost too soon after birth and preyed on by scavenging birds, pecking its eyes. The subjects examined in the ‘Tracing Shadows’ exhibition now also inform a new body of experimental works on paper by MacKinnon-Day that developed out of the discussions about making one single work on paper together with Moore and Rogers.

Using photographic processes, such as cyanotype or printing directly to tracing paper, MacKinnon-Day is constructing multilayered images from the visual source material she has been compiling through her research. Wet photographic chemicals are applied, retaining brush marks that form a scratchy texture, as if an uncovering has been disrupted. Multiple applications of light sensitive liquid to paper re-exposed contribute to the formation of deep pools on blueprints composed through collage, reversal and inversion. Where there is horizon, word and musical manuscript occupy the sky. Where there is space above sky, winged sheep are the guardians - a heavenly form representing the shepherdess who cares for her flock. Meanwhile the ground on which the sheep roam contains bone or an ambiguous chasm.

The image making here relates to the critical narrative inherent in MacKinnon-Day’s research into the traditions and contexts that have historically misrepresented women. However, these compositions can also be interpreted as fantasy realms inspired by different elements of her project, focusing more on the locations of Cartmel Fell and Barrow-in-Furness as well as on the creative contributions of Kim Moore and Nick Rogers. In contrast the untitled page containing the identifying marks of the artist, musician and poet, made in their own hand, forms a documentation of their collaboration by visibly presenting their individual raw ingredients.

Tracing Shadows 22 January – 5 March 2022 – Dual screen projection at Art Gene viewable from Abbey Road, Barrow-in-Furness every evening

26 – 27 February 2022, 12 – 4pm – Exhibition open to public. Exhibition open on other dates by appointment

www.art-gene.co.uk