“How do traditional skills connect us to our environments?"
I firmly believe that traditional skills and craft heritage are a tie that we all share to our native landscapes. In my own home of Portsmouth, I am surrounded by localised maritime industry that is synonymous with the identity of place.
I feel connected to the landscape by the way the environment affords traditional maritime industry to its inhabitants. I began to explore the ties between tradition and landscape, creating a work that is celebratory of how the environment has shaped the identity of both the city and how I identify with it.
Creating these usually wooden components out of steel, I’ve adapted the local skills of my environment to my learned skill of forging. This has allowed me to further explore my own process and allow my own voice to create a statement about landscape and how traditional skills can strengthen our environmental ties.
By exploring traditional sailing connections such as rigging and wooden boatbuilding, I created this assembly of varying connections typical in sailboats. Through learning how these components all work in tandem, I sought to strengthen my knowledge and greater increase my connection with the heritage of my home.