Making The Trent Valley Cabinet of Curiosities
Richard Redwin and Dan Jaworski-Higgs
Cabinet creation and experimenting with materials reclaimed from the River
Tethering with ‘water-reeds’
B. ARTS Studio Team - Richard Redwin and Dan Jaworkski-Higgs wanted the cabinet to feel like a real object and made the early decision to construct the cabinet using wood that had been reclaimed from the river if possible (without disturbing the ecology)
As luck would have it - the local Canal and Rivers Trust donated the team wooden posts that had been in the Trent and Mersey Canal - as the canal runs alongside or connects to the infant and middle sections of the River Trent through Staffordshire and Derbyshire, water from the river system naturally feeds into the canal pounds so we felt confident using these would mean the main building materials were suitably imbued with Trent water!
These posts were turned into more usable planks and formed the main body of the cabinet.
With additional handles and decorative features created using drift wood - sourced directly from the river!
Mark-making and adding detail
The team then began to add detail - using Dremel-carving to pick up on some of the imagery coming out of workshops on the designs outside the cabinet.
Artist and pigment maker - Sasha DeWitt - took a sample of cabinet wood - to experiment with creating a stain using River Trent pigment and refined linseed oil as we were keen to add a stain to help age the cabinet!
Adding electrics and finishing touches!
One of the challenges of the make is to enable visitors to explore the contents of the cabinet - without these objects becoming lost.
To support this we decided to tether movable elements to the cabinet using textile water reeds. Artists Fran Buxton and Holly Johnson ran a public reed-making workshop to create wonderful reeds of different lengths and thicknesses to secure items into the cabinet! Thanks to volunteer Jackie who made us some very thin ones for our smaller items!
This project has been commissioned by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, as part of the Trent Valley Past and Present Project. It is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with thanks to National Lottery players.
Find out more about the wider project here: https://www.thetrentvalley.org.uk/projects/tvpp/
