A guided walk around Dudley’s weird and wonderful Wren’s Nest Nature Reserve. Throughout the day we’ll explore the site’s many-layered histories and geological formations, and this will inform a ceramics workshop at Woodsetton Pottery in the afternoon.
The walk will be led by Geopark ranger Paul Floyd, who will teach us about the deep time of the site, with its plethora of fossils, plant life and limestone mines. Exploring questions around our relationship to the landscape and making, the event invites participants to consider the many stories held within the earth below us, and other possible ways of relating to the land beyond merely viewing it as an exploitable resource. During the walk we’ll hold a communal discussion around our connection to edgelands, exploring what beauty and mysteries can be found in the spaces between the wild and urban.
In the afternoon we’ll ground our thoughts and experiences from the walk through the ceramics workshop with artist Lorraine Bates, who will instruct us on how to hand build a small sculpture that draws on the Wren’s Nest as a site for inspiration. Pottery is one of the worlds’ oldest crafts, and the tactility of shaping clay brings us into contact with deeper timescales and earthy realms. You are invited to experiment and play with your piece, which will then be fired and available to be picked up from the studios at a later date.
Details
Access: The walk route can include an option with steps or without steps. Please let us know which would be more comfortable for you when signing up. The exact meeting point will be shared with participants ahead of the day.
While we’re on the walk, we’ll take notes and sketches that will inspire our ceramic pieces, so please bring a notepad or recording device (we’ll provide pens). Please prepare for the outdoors by wearing layers and comfortable footwear, plus waterproof clothing in the case of rain.
All materials for the ceramics workshop, hot drinks and snacks will be provided. Please bring a packed lunch with you – or there are some lovely pubs within walking distance of the pottery studio if you prefer to eat out.
Places are limited, booking essential.
Book hereBCN
This workshop is hosted as part of the BCN artist development programme. BCN is a space for mutual support, learning and knowledge sharing for artists in Sandwell and the Black Country. Find out more
About Lorraine
Lorraine Bates’s work at Woodsetton Art Pottery is rooted in the traditional Black Country techniques of hand metal working with echoes from the ceramics of the Arts and Crafts era. Stoneware and porcelain clays are formed using techniques of throwing, hand-building and casting to make pieces with a use, whilst the long kiln firings ensure that each glaze effect is unique. Lorraine has been working with the Geopark Rangers and Natural England to create new pieces entirely of Wren’s Nest, through foraging small amounts of wild clays, and making glazes from small pieces of rock. She then imprints these pieces with Silurian fossils found on site.
The Wren’s Nest
Wren’s Nest is a site of National Importance; it is a 101 acres site with four way-marked walks, over 700 different types of fossils can be found there (86 of which are found nowhere else on earth). The fossils are predominantly from an ancient coral reef that thrived during the watery Silurian period, 427.7 to 429 million years ago. The most famous one, a large trilobite, was nicknamed The Dudley Bug by 18th century quarrymen. The site is also home to the Seven Sisters, an 18 meter high cathedral cavern created by the limestone mines dug out during the Industrial revolution. Ripple marks can be seen on the limestone, from layers of sand compacted over time. Fossil collecting is permitted from the loose scree, but please refrain from taking them from the slope.
Location
Meet near Wren’s Nest,
Wrens Hill Road,
Dudley,
England,
DY1 3SB.
(Exact location TBC)