MetGrow

MetGrow STAGE 3: The Wildflower Garden!

2009-05-30T03:23:00.000-07:00

There is a way that nature speaks; that land speaks.
Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough,
to pay attention to the story.

Linda Hogan.
American poet, environmentalist and academic.

Yesterday I built a raised bed to use as the container for the Metgrow wild flower garden. Originally I wanted the bed to be placed on the area where the greenhouse installation was for the last three months. However, on consulting the manager of the building, I decided that it would not be an appropriate location due to the fact that it may be too exposed to accident (see "Disaster" post) When the greenhouse was damaged, it was simple to fix, however I want this garden to stay in one piece so as to not disturb the plants as they fill the raised bed in the next few weeks. The small wildflower garden can be found tucked in a sunny corner which people can enjoy as they sit on the tables surrounding it.
I really like how small it looks in comparison to the rest of the surrounding buildings. It looks so fragile, which is indicative of their 'story' so far, to quote Linda Logan. It was amazing talking to the participants of the event who were so surprised that anything had grown in the greenhouse. The raised bed has been filled with the forty plants and looks great so far. I hope that over the coming weeks and with the right weather conditions, the wildflowers will begin to fill out and bloom. At the moment the garden looks very new and the plants look so small. It acts as a metaphor for hope and a reminder that nature and life will find a way to manifest itself even through the most unusual of circumstances. Linda Logan's quote above speaks of people not being 'patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story' of nature. I hope now that this garden will act as a reminder to the people in the building that the process of a seed germinating and becoming a fully fledged plant takes time, but it will happen. You can't control it like we can with so many other aspects of our 21st century lives. We have developed a culture of being used to immediacy: fast food, the Internet, convenience products etc, that this wildflower garden serves to remind us that the simplest of acts, planting a seed, takes a slow, natural pace. This project is entirely time based. Its such a simple process, and so many people did not think that the seeds would grow: which indicates how perhaps people who live in a city are unfamiliar with growing things and being in touch with nature.
Mohandas K. Gandhi once said "To forget how to dig the earth and tend to the soil is to forget ourselves."
I want to encourage more people to remember themselves through this process of planting. To not forget the small pleasures in life whilst working so hard in an office surrounded by deadlines, quotas and meetings. There is more to life than that. If I can hold an event where people simply rip up a metro newspaper embedded with seeds, house the pots in a greenhouse on a rooftop in the middle of London, then getting back in touch with nature can be done anywhere, with or without access to a garden space.

Metgrowth (week 7) - photographs

2009-05-29T03:58:00.000-07:00

Here are some recently taken photographs of the wildflowers which have successfully grown from the seed infused Metro newspapers whilst in the greenhouse installation in Knightsbridge. On Tuesday 26th May, I decided to take the installation down, and move the plants onto a sheltered area on the roof where they could ajust to the change in climate, and become more hardy. In gardening terms, this is known as "hardening off."
My camera has gone missing with the origional photographs of the taking down of the greenhouse so I am afraid I cannot show you that. However, I hope these images will give you an idication of the final wildflower garden which I will be putting up later today with a tribute to David.
More photos to follow shortly.

MetGrow Garden will be dedicated to a dear friend.

2009-05-27T05:33:00.000-07:00

On Monday 25th May 2009, a dear friend of mine, David Douthwaite, tragically passed away. Not only was he a wonderful and talented person whom I looked up to enormously in the agency, but he was also the one person who organised for me to obtain permission to put my Metgrow greenhouse on the roof terrace of JWT. He always believed in me and my work. Any time I had doubts about my project or concerns about people's responses in the building, which was frequently in the beginning, (see 'The only thing growing, is doubt.' post,) he was always there to reassure me and boost my confidence again, telling me not give up on my ideas, and to just give it time. He was the man who motivated and encouraged me on through this whole experience and was the driving force behind it's success.

I have therefore decided to dedicate the wildflower garden to him. My sense of loss will never go away but I will always be able to look back with happy memories of a dear friend who wanted me to succeed and always went out of his way to help me. I count myself truly fortunate to have known such a man who gave his time freely without any wish for personal gain. He was so very special.
The flowers which have grown from my seed infused newspapers are a testament to his never failing optimism and belief that my project would succeed.
He was right, and I couldn't have done it without him.

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake

David you will be so missed.

Metgrowth (Week 7)

2009-05-27T03:49:00.000-07:00

The plants are looking great, and with instructions from Paul the JWT gardener, I decided that they were big enough to be moved out of the greenhouse and into cooler air, ready to be planted in a raised bed later in the week. The reason I did not do this sooner was to ensure their survival by making sure there was no chance of frost as it is now late May, and also to allow them to have grown to become substantial enough to survive the transition.
The pots which have not sprouted any seedlings have also been moved as well. I did not want to throw their contents away, but instead, gathered all of the soil and newspapers from each one and put them in a larger plant pot. Who knows, maybe they will still grow!
I think the reason why some of the pots did not grow anything is partly because early in the project, I moved the few pots with small seedlings in (see post 'Metgrowth week 1') onto self-watering trays. These pots were placed in trays filled with water to ensure that they were continually moist, a perfect environment for small seedlings. I was trying to preserve them as best as I could, knowing that they might not get as much water as they should due to people in the building forgetting about them. I did not think that people would actually want to come and water the seedlings!
Therefore, the other pots which had not shown any sign of life, were subsequently forgotten about and dried up because the people from the office who came and looked after the greenhouse only watered those which they could see were showing signs of growing in the trays.
It is a shame that the whole greenhouse was not filled with seedlings, but there are fourty pots which are doing really well and I am alreadt looking forward to planting them together to form Stage 3 of the project: the display of the wildflower garden.
Originally, I had intended to plant the seedlings in around 50 individual decorative vases and place them where the greenhouse has been standing. I wanted to completely cover the concrete slab in the center of the lawn in wildflowers. However, during the project's development that this original idea for 'Stage 3' cannot come to fruition, because the agency needs the space for another event coming soon. Besides as a student I cannot afford 50 ornamental garden pots!
So, bearing in mind the changes in the original plan, I have had a rethink about what to do with the seedlings now that they are out of the greenhouse.
I did not want to leave them in the fragile signed pots as they could be easily damaged and may even blow away! I have decided to plant them all together in a raised bed which I ordered last week. This will unite the seedlings and look more like a garden area, and will give the piece a real unity. I also have a plan to put named plant tags next to the seedlings, each name corresponding with the name on the pot so that the participants from the event can see whose plants survived this 3 month project! In uniting the plants like this, I still want to maintain a sense of individual endeavour where one pot represents one person in the agency. I intend to achieve this though tagging the seedlings - a named pot will be replaced by a named tag!
I will post my photographs of the removal of the greenhouse and the week's growth progress as soon as possible. It seems someone has taken a shine to my camera and I appear to have misplaced it...
I will be going into Knightsbridge as soon as the raised bed is delivered and I will of course be taking more photographs (hopefully when I am reunited with my camera!) of the seedling's transfer from pot to raised bed.
I will keep you updated.

Metgrowth (Week 6): Recontextualising weeds.

2009-05-18T07:24:00.001-07:00

Here are some photos, taken today, showing the progress of my MetGrow installation on the roof top terrace of 1 Knightsbridge Green, London. I am really pleased with the progress and happy to report that the plant pots seem to be being taken care of by people who work in the building during the week. I spoke to the gardener last week who mentioned that by the end of May we should be thinking about moving the seedlings out of the greenhouse and either into a raised bed or larger pots, to allow them to continue to grow and develop their flowers. A lot of the seedlings seem to be wild grasses and people who have talked to me about the progress of the seedlings seem to think that they are weeds, and not wildflowers at all!
The reason I chose wildflower seeds to embed in my Metro newspapers was for that exact purpose. It seems apt that these plants which, when found growing wild in an urban environment, and considered 'weeds', are nurtured and sheltered in a greenhouse. Greenhouses to me bring to mind the growing and careful monitoring of precious plants which are not used to our British climate, such as Tomatoes and Orchids. To now be carefully growing what these office workers are calling "weeds" adds another element to my installation, as well as another juxtaposition. In the countryside, these flowers grow wild on the road side, but of course, modern city life dictates that these plants are unwanted and disrupt clean smooth urban forms. In fact, when faced with a 'weed' poking from your flagged garden, you would pull it out to restore the design. I enjoy the whole notion of human interference with nature; you see an unsightly plant, you pull it out.
But what is a weed?

Wikipedia defines weeds as such:
A weed in a general sense is a plant that is considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance, and is normally applied to unwanted plants in human-made settings such as gardens, lawns or agricultural areas, but also in parks, woods and other natural areas. More specifically, the term is often used to describe native or nonnative plants that grow and reproduce aggressively.

Generally, a weed is a plant in an undesired place.

Weeds may be unwanted for a number of reasons: they might be unsightly, or crowd out or restrict light to more desirable plants or use limited nutrients from the soil. They can harbour and spread plant pathogens which infect and degrade the quality of crop or horticultural plants. Some weeds are a nuisance because they have thorns or prickles, some have chemicals that cause skin irritation or are hazardous if eaten, or have parts that come off and attach to fur or clothes.

The term weed in its general sense is a subjective one, without any classification value, since

a "weed" is not a weed when growing where it belongs or is wanted.

Indeed, a number of "weeds" have been used in gardens or other cultivated-plant settings. An example is the Corncockle, Agrostemma, which was a common field weed exported from Europe along with wheat, but now sometimes grown as a garden plant.^[2]

Who is to say if nature should be subjected to being wanted/not wanted? It seems that we have an uncanny need to want to control and contain nature in picking and choosing the plants which suit our situation. I want to restore value to these "weeds" in my greenhouse. Hopefully people who have seen their slow and steady growth in the greenhouse and who have noticed their fragility, will realise that they are not weeds at all. It is interesting to note that if any of these plants growing in my greenhouse were found poking from the paving slabs on the roof terrace, the gardener would also most probably pull them out. By putting these plants in a different context, I am giving them a heightened value. I have recontextualised weeds!

To quote the article above, "A weed is not a weed when growing where it belongs or is wanted" and I certainly want these wildflowers to continue to grow in my greenhouse on the roof terrace of JWT!

So, weeds or not, whatever your view, they are wanted in my installation.

To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, philosopher and poet:

"What is a weed?
A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered"

My Website!

2009-05-11T12:44:00.001-07:00

I have decided to design and produce a website to work alongside my project. This will include all of my photographic documentation from start to finish as well as a live web feed directly to the greenhouse so visitors will be able to monitor the seedling's growth on a daily basis instead of just relying on my weekly visits.
I hope that this will make the installation more inclusive and will use the internet as a way of making the work more publically engaged. I will also be setting up a seedling orphanage, where members of the public who did not participate in the event will be able to adopt a seedling in a pot without a name. They will be able to offer advice and suggestions concerning their adopted seedling's maintenance and also suggest what they would like to see happen to it once it is out of the greenhouse.
I am really looking forward to seeing the final product and hope you are as excitet about this new addition to Metgrow as I am!

www.metgrow.co.uk

Check it out and in a few weeks, you can get involved!

Metgrowth (Week 5)

2009-05-11T07:49:00.001-07:00

I saw the gardener today to talk to him about the progress of my little seedlings' . I was not sure how long they needed to be inside the greenhouse before I will be able to combine the plants in larger more substantial pots which will form my wildflower garden. Hopefully once the plants are in a larger pot, they will continue to grow into stronger and more weather resistant flowers, ready to be enjoyed throughout the summer months on the roof terrace.
The gardener informed me that to ensure best results, planting the seedlings in to larger containers should be done at the beginning of June. To wait until this time means that we give the plants the very best chance of survival in a warmer time of year. If I were to put them outside now on the 11th May, there is still a chance of cold weather which would instantly kill them. So, for another few weeks, I will be monitoring the greenhouse and preparing for the third stage of my installation - instating the wildflower garden on the terrace! I am really looking forward to seeing all of the plants together and out of the greenhouse which I am pleased to announce, is still standing. (Unlike last week!)
Here are some photos of the seedlings taken today:

Metgrowth (Week 4.) The survivors

2009-05-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

Through all of the drama of my last visit to the greenhouse in Knightsbridge, I almost forgot to post some updated photos of the seedlings which survived the accident. They are doing extremely well and I am very pleased!
I just hope they remain that way to be brought out of the greenhouse and planted in a final display on the terrace in a few weeks time! Let's hope so, I will keep you posted!

Making a Mend.

2009-05-10T11:51:00.000-07:00

There was a rather positive outcome to the incident which occurred in week 4 in which the greenhouse was badly damaged and a third of the plant pots were disturbed/broken.
It served to comment on the incompatibility of office life and nature. It also represents a struggle - the struggle of survival through adverse conditions. The greenhouse seems to have become a metaphor for the environment. Not only is it the protector of my little seedlings, but the fact that it was so easily damaged could represent the fragility of nature itself, and how we must protect and preserve it, so as to avoid chaos.

Therefore, the duct tape which I found to fix the polythene should be noticeable. I thought that to emphasise the accident would be to emphasise the newly found concept behind this installation. The tiny strips of tape could be seen to echo the visual language of stitches.

I love that this project keeps changing and developing as the weeks go on, like a mini Eco system or life cycle. I think these changes and new developments which occur, whether positive or negative, are what makes its process from seed to full wildflower garden so interesting.

DISASTER.

2009-05-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

Happy that all was going so well with the growth of my plants, I arrived for the fourth time that month to check on their progress. I had a niggling feeling in the back of my mind about the installation though. Last week, the pots were completely dried up and the greenhouse was looking rather weather-beaten from the wind.

I arrived on Tuesday morning and having seen the manager to say hello after the bank holiday weekend, I went outside to see the installation. I always knew that Friday nights were very popular at JWT's bar and roof terrace, but fortunately, my greenhouse had not been affected by any accidents during it's time there...until now.
I arrived to this:

The greenhouse cover was completely ripped, and therefore wasn't keeping the plants safe from the elements nor at an appropriate temperature. I am not quite sure what happened. The wind had really battered my little delicate greenhouse. It was really sad to see.

Besides this as I walked in, I noticed that at least a third of the plant pots had been knocked over. A lot of them were broken, there was soil all over the ground and some plants were missing. Someone had obviously caused an accident and had left a complete mess. I could see that they had tried to quickly put things back in place again, but it really ruined the whole idea of my installation. The origional event had been held so that the participants could follow the progress of their individual pots, from start to finish. I was really upset that someone had almost ruined my project.

I understand that accidents happen, and I am flattered that people were curious enough with the progress of their plants that they wanted to enter the greenhouse randomly, but that hadn't really helped...
Oh well. I took a deep breath and sought to rectify the situation. I was not prepared to let a small hitch like this ruin all of the hard work and effort I had put into this installation and project.

Metgrowth (Week 3)

2009-05-10T08:04:00.000-07:00

It's the third week into the growing process and the plants are looking great. There are about 30 plant pots which are growing and about 30 which are not... it is interesting to note this 50:50 ratio that has resulted. I arrived to take more photos of their progress to a greenhouse which was beginning to look a bit dishevelled and wind swept. The polythene cover was beginning to rip at the seams so I patched it up with some tape and hoped it would hold...
The plant pots had also not been watered when I arrived, which was a shame. I hope that the person who had been taking such care of my plants has not given up. It would be awful to see the plants die at such an early stage.

Metgrowth (Week 2)

2009-05-10T07:33:00.000-07:00

Having been given a new confidence from the previous week's discovery of the little seedlings in my greenhouse, I arrived a week later to document their progress. As before, someone from the office was still watering them well and I was excited to see what a week's time could do!

The stuff of life

2009-05-10T06:18:00.000-07:00

In Bill Bryson's book 'A Short History of Nearly Everything', he makes a poignant point about life and living matter which I think is really relevant to my project. I thought I would share it with you:

"Every living thing is an elaboration on a single original plan. As humans, we are mere increments, each of us a musty archive of adjustments, adaptations, modifications and providential tinkerings stretching back 3.8 billion years. Remarkably we are even quite closely related to fruit and vegetables. About half the chemical functions that take place in a banana are fundamentally the same as the chemical functions that take place in you.
It cannot be said too often: all life is one. That is, and I suspect will for ever prove to be, the most profound true statement there is."

MetGrowth! (Week 1)

2009-05-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

"The day I see a leaf is a marvel of a day." Kenneth Patton

As I arrived at JWT, I was ready to let people know that I was going to move the greenhouse. I didn't want to leave it there if nothing was growing. I couldn't find the manager so decided to go and check on the plant pots one last time with my camera. As much as I was doubting the progress of the installation, I still had hope. Maybe it was just taking longer than I thought because the paper that the seeds was embedded in needed to decompose to release them...? I was not sure.

As I unzipped the door and walked into the greenhouse I noticed a change... In about 30 of the 60 pots, there were tiny seedlings. The Metgros had sprouted!
Thank goodness for that! I was elated! All my hard work was paying off! All they needed was time. It was interesting that I had nearly given up... I should have had more faith in my work, but it is difficult when you are waiting for something which you cannot control. The seeds might not have sprouted for any number of reasons which I would never really understand.
Perhaps I too am now so used to the city way of life; this instant, convenient way of living where I can order anything that I need quickly, that I was not prepared to wait for Nature to take its course.
To quote Frank Lloyd Wright, a 20th Centrury architect who was coined "the greatest American architect of all time" by the American Institute of Architects and who famously promoted organically inspired architectural design;

"Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature.
It will never fail you."

"The only thing growing, is doubt."

2009-05-10T04:30:00.000-07:00

Three long weeks came and went, with no sign of life from inside my greenhouse. Oh dear. Perpaps the people who doubted my project were right! What if nothing grew?

However, I was very pleased to see that every time I visited, with camera in hand, the soil was moist and the greenhouse was well maintained. Obviously, someone was keeping an eye on the installation for me, which was really lovely to see. The anonymity of this individual was really interesting too - I didn't know who it was, I never saw them, but the process was perfect. Someone was taking the time out of their busy day to nurture the seeds.
It gave me hope!

It was a really optimistic aspect of this seemingly barren installation...nothing was growing. Nothing! It was great to see that someone had faith in my project.

A lot of people who had initially been so excited about the event had given up on the installation once they had seen that after a week there was no visible growth. This was another unforeseen interesting point about this project. These people did not have the patience to wait for nature to take its course. Everyone is so used to having things 'now-now-NOW!' that they had quickly become bored and had begun to not believe that the wildflower garden growing from my Metro newspapers would never materialise...

I must admit that after Week Three with no change, I was also beginning to have doubts myself .
I decided to go into Knightsbridge with a speech prepared for the manager, suggesting that we give the greenhouse one more week, and if there was no sign of growth, I would be more than happy to remove my installation from the space if they no longer wanted it. Obviously JWT would not want a little wind swept greenhouse and 60 dried up pots of compost on their rooftop terrace for long, and I did not want to outstay my welcome.

I was really devastated. I had always thought that my project would work - there was no reason why it shouldn't have! I had given the little seeds every chance; a warm environment and water, I even soaked them overnight to stimulate their germination.
In the train on the way to Knightsbridge with the speech prepared, I looked around the carriage at the crumpled up Metros on seats and on the floor and my heart sank.

What had I done wrong?

Your Metgrow germinates here. Hopefully...

2009-05-09T07:50:00.001-07:00

2009-05-09T07:04:00.000-07:00

Well, as you can see from the slideshow below, the event really went very well indeed. Around 60 people came and planted my Metgro newspapers, most thinking that it was such a kooky idea that it would just be a 'fad' and that the Metgros would never produce any flowers as I had assured them they would.
Understandably, it was a really odd but interesting process ripping up sections of newspaper and putting them in the plant pots, especially a paper with which everyone is so familiar. People were really shocked at how easy the process actually was, which just reinforces my concept.
It was wonderful to see people picking their football team news articles to plant, their horoscopes, photographs of celebrities, politicians and even adverts they had been a part of producing in JWT!
People wrote their names, funny phrases, telephone numbers and funny faces on the pots to distinguish theirs from others. I loved the uniformity of the plant pots which had been graffiti-ed by the participants.
Choosing to exhibit the greenhouse post event day in JWT turned out to be beneficial for another reason which I had previously not taken into account. In an Ad agency, it seems people who are used to working to deadlines, in a very stressful environment, demand instant results from their projects. Obviously, seeds take a few weeks to germinate. The participants which had taken part in the event on the Friday, told me that they came into the office the following Monday morning expecting to see fully grown and developed plants!
These things take time, I said... Have faith, and in a few weeks you will see little green seedlings, I promise!"
I was not able to return to Knightsbridge every day to check on the growing installation. Part of its second phase, post event, is to allow the participants and office workers to take responsibility for maintaining the little plant's wellbeing through watering the pots daily and making sure the greenhouse does not get too hot/cold.
I just hope people take the initiative and look after their plants properly! If they don't and they leave the pots to dry up, the outcome will still reinforce the concept that people do not have any interest/desire to enjoy nature as they are all too busy coping with London city life to find the time.
I will be returning to Knightsbridge on a weekly basis to check on the installation and to document the little plant's progress, but for now, their future is in JWT's hands! Will anything grow? Will the office unite and look after the plants and nurture the seedlings? Or will I be left with a blown down greenhouse and 60 pots of shriveled up compost with nothing to show for all of my hard work?
Only time will tell.

Let's Grow The Metro EVENT

2009-05-07T09:35:00.001-07:00

As the event was on Friday evening in the JWT bar, I designed and produced four t-shirts for the bar staff to wear... Just to remind people my event is taking place if they hadn't noticed!
Here are some images from the Let's Grow The Metro event while it was taking place.
Enjoy!

EVENT DAY: Preparing the space

2009-05-07T04:03:00.000-07:00

What a perfect day for my event - 20 degrees and clear blue sky! It would not be difficult to convince people to take part later because it seemed everyone was outside for most of the day enjoying the sunshine.
For the last four weeks I had been peparing doe this and now it was finally upon me.
Of course, the main worry for anyone planning an event outside in March is the more-than-likely possibility of rain. I could have worked as hard as I wanted, prepared everything to perfection but if the heavens opened, the event would be a flop - literally. No one would want to come outside and I could forget having a publically engaged installation/event. Luck was shining down on me that day thank goodness, and I felt really positive. Everything I had set out to achieve, I had done, and that was a great feeling.

The Metgros had been soaking in water all night in order to loosen the seeds from the newspaper. I had a horrible feeling that I would arrive on my event day and find that they had turned into seed-newspaper mush (flashbacks to trying to make the seed paper myself!) (See

'So, seed infused paper you say' post,) but as the paper was so heavy, the pages were still in one piece. The Glue binded spines had losened too which was rather sad as I had spent 2 days working on that... but I needed to stop worrying. In a few hours, these Metros would become the basis of my 'Let's Grow The Metro' event and would soon be torn up and covered in soil.
Preparing for the event during the day was straight forward. I had experimented with where to put the plant pots (See: 'Plantpot Takeover' May 5th post) and had organised for a trestle table to stand in front of the greenhouse on the lawn to act as a stall for people to use when tearing the newspapers up and planting them. The greenhouse had not blown away and the lovely gardener had given me two huge bags of compost to use! All I had to do was set everything up and wait for 6pm!
Here are some images of the preparation for the evening's event.

The Metgro: Watered-down news.

2009-05-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

It was the Thursday before the Friday of my event. I had put up my posters and had handed out flyer packs with seed paper inside so people could try planting the Metgros at home.
The plant pots were in situ, the greenhouse was ready and waiting and the Metgros had been exhibited in the canteen for nearly a week...
I knew what needed to be done next.
And employee of the seed paper company Creative Paper Wales had responded to an e-mail I had written to him asking for tips on how to gain the best results from planting the paper:

Hi Jenna, We have had best results by tearing the paper into postage stamp sized pieces, then soaking overnight in lukewarm water to soften the paper matrix and to stimulate germination. Then. lay the pieces out on a bed of fine compost and sprinkle about 5mm over the top and water the resulting seed bed with a fine mist spray until it is evenly moist. Keep this seed bed moist and warm and wait for nature to take its course! Very warmest regards Lawrence Toms CREATIVE PAPER WALES

I had to soak the Metgros overnight. After all, I wanted to give them every chance of growing. I took Lawrence's advice and prepared the Metgros.

I found two black trays which held each piece perfectly. These would act as water containers. I decided instead of just pouring lukewarm water on to the Metgros, I would make a performance out of the process. I asked a friend wearing a Barak Obama jumper reading "YES WE CAN" to actually water the Metgros using a watering can in front of the greenhouse. This seemed appropriate so as to begin to merge the urban and rural visual language and create further interest.

METRO 1 - YES WE CAN!

METRO 2

The Metgros were left outside overnight to soak up the water and to stimulate the seeds, ready for my LETS GROW THE METRO event the following evening.

Seed all about it!

2009-05-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

Monday 16th March, the same day on which 'The Metro' ran the article 'Grow your own Metro', based entirely on the event I was going to be holding on the rooftop of JWT that Friday, I decided to display my two beautiful MetGro seed encapsulated pieces in the canteen or 'Comm' as it's known there.
I wanted to encourage people to pick them up, feel the seed infused paper and read the articles as they would a real newspaper.
I was also hoping that people in the building would have read the article in the Metro that morning during their commute and would put 2 and 2 together in order to link the events.
The publishing of that 'Metro' article and the display of my 'MetGro' pieces went hand in hand. It was perfect timing.
I wanted to display the two pieces on plinths which would give them more gravitas as art pieces in their own right. I decided to tie in the gardening theme and link it to outside by making plinths out of large plant pots! The shiny black plastic juxtaposed against the seed paper really worked really well and was a very interesting way to use these normal garden objects.

The two plant-pot plinths stood inside, next to the door which leads out on to the roof terrace. I wanted the pieces to remain inside for the first few days in order to allow people to pick them up and take them to read with a coffee as they do with the other newspapers available in the canteen. By putting them by the door to the roof terrace, the MetGros and the Greenhouse started to create a dialogue and more people began to piece my clues together.
Here are some images of the MetGros on display inside the building:

No smoking in the greenhouse please.

2009-05-05T09:41:00.000-07:00

It turned out days before my event that some sneaky smokers had been using my greenhouse as a lovely warm area to get away from the March chill. It's an art installation not a 'Let's be kind to smokers tent!'
I guess that is the problem with leaving an installation unattended!
A friend of mine kindly made a sign which read,s "Please Keep Out, ART IN PROGRESS."
Genius.

Plant pot takeover

2009-05-05T09:12:00.000-07:00

I decided that another way to provoke interest for my forthcoming event was to take over the roof terrace space of JWT with small plant pots which were donated to me for free by the lovely Gardener, Peter Logan. These pots would form the basis for my event in which participants would pick up any pot of their choice from the surrounding area, rip up whichever part of the Metro they chose and cover it in soil before writing their names on the pots and then placing them in the greenhouse.

Giving the participants
-A pot of their choice
-Whichever part of the newspaper they wanted to plant
-Their choice of a location inside the greenhouse,
I would be making the event more personal and hopefully, more people would be willing to get involved and compete to help create the most successful outcome. Writing their names on the plant pots also meant that once the event was over, the participants could also keep a close check on their plant's progress through the see-through greenhouse gallery.

By filling the bases with soil to keep them from blowing away and placing them around the roof terrace walkway, I was able to spread my greenhouse installation and use the whole space.
Placing the plant pots in areas where people walked, encouraged them pay more attention to the installation and venture inside to read they flyers in order to find out what on earth was going on!
Here are some images of the plant pot takeover, taken during the week of my event.

Pun-tastic Posters

2009-05-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

During the run up to my MetGro event, I designed and produced posters and flyers to hand out and display in and around the JWT buildings, to encourage more people to come along and take part in planting my wildflower seed infused Metro newspapers. I art directed them using the Metro as my inspiration, using appropriate fonts which echo the newsprint and also funny puns which newspapers tend to find in titles to capture the public's attention. I wanted the people who would be reading these posters to feel that my event would be a fun and interesting project in which to take part, not a formal art event/happening. I needed to engage the public through these posters and what better way than making people smile.
Here are the two final designs for the A2 posters I printed and used during the week leading up to my event on the 20th March 2009.

1 Knightsbridge Green-house

2009-05-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

A week before the event, having thought about ways to spark interest in my event, I decided to build a small greenhouse on the roof terrace of 1 Knightsbridge Green, London.
This was for two reasons-

1. To create a ready-made sculpture piece which would trigger interest in the building when people use the canteen or go outside pre-event, and also to act as a formal art installation post- event. It will therefore act as a small see-through gallery where people can check the progress of their seedlings.

2. Practically, it will also act as a warm area for the seeds to germinate once the event is over and the Metgros are planted but will protect the plant pots from wind, frost and clumsy people...

Here are some images of my greenhouse!

In this last photo, you can clearly see the illuminated "HA" of the famous London store, Harrods.

The greenhouse worked really well in provoking interest in my event during the week leading up to it. It also worked as an empty installation where this small, fragile greenhouse is juxtaposed against the large surrounding office buildings.
It could be read as a greenhouse waiting for someone to take initiative and use the free growing space in the heart of the city, or an empty growing opportunity, symbolising the London city worker's neglect of nature. On one hand it is optimistic, waiting, full of growing promise. On the other hand, it is delicate, easily damaged and ready to blow away with one large gust of wind. Whichever way you read this initial stage of my event, I have provided the perfect environment for my Metgro seeds to grow and develop into a wildflower garden.
Now, all I need is a successful event and time.

Me? PAGE 3?

2009-05-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

One of the simplest ways to advertise any event to a large group of people if you are not massively 'tech-savvy', is through the social networking site, Facebook.
Having secured a great location and a date, I went ahead and produced an event page 'Lets Grow The Metro' which informed my friends and colleagues that my kooky idea was materialising and invited them all to come and take part.
Copy-paste the link below into your web browser to see the Facebook event:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=502412489&ref=profile#/event.php?eid=57900946796&ref=mf

FROM:

TO:

Unbeknownst to me, I had left the event 'public' which meant it was easily accessible to anyone on the whole of the global Facebook site. One weekend, I recieved a phone call from an unsaved number...

To cut a long story short, someone from The Metro Newspaper had stumbled upon my open event on Facebook by chance and wanted to run a story on it! I was interviewed over the phone and photographed in a local park looking very posed holding my MetGro pieces, smiling awkwardly whist sitting in wet soil and dog poo... it was all very surreal but I thought it would be a great way to attract publicity around London for my event. Talk about publically engaged work!

The Metro newspaper is read by over 4 million people a day! I knew I was bound to get some interest/feedback from this! I also thought that it might be worth scanning the article about my event and printing THAT on seed paper too, so it all becomes wonderfully cyclical... maybe I am getting carried away with wanting to print things on seed paper... hmm.

The article was published in the 10th year anniversary addition on 16th March 2009.

Here is the link to the article on their website:

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?How_to_grow_your_own_Metro&in_article_id=581314&in_page_id=2&in_a_source=

A whole article about me!
On page 3... which amused friends and family for a good few days after it was published! As you can see, it is very staged and false... The cynical side of me says the Metro wanted to run it on this 10th year addition because it shows an ecologically-minded newspaper and reinforces their desire to see their paper recycled... If I had used any other newspaper, they would not have picked up on the story because really, it's free advertising for The Metro.
Still, it's funny how things turn out!

Location, Location, Location.

2009-05-03T06:42:00.000-07:00

I can not tell you how happy I was that I had been allowed to use this wonderful space for my event.
Here are some images of the location:

There is a really perfect plinth-like concrete platform in the middle of the lawn as you can see. I thought it would be a great area to place a little greenhouse which would house the plants after the event!

I had four weeks from the date I had secured the area to the event date. During that time, I would need to advertise the event, produce professional looking posters, flyers, buy and assemble a greenhouse, make t-shirts for the barstaff to wear, think about how to present the event - on a stall/table? Where was I going to get soil from? And plant pots/vases?
How would I exhibit the Metgros to allow people to see them pre-event day?
I had lots to do to make the event worthy of such a great location...
Not to mention trying to please the cynical eyes of the advertising agency... I didn't realise how much I actually had riding on the success of this...
NO PRESSURE!

Where to hold the event?

2009-05-03T05:52:00.000-07:00

I had grown really attached to my Metgro newspapers as I had invested so much time making them. However, the whole point of this project was to create an event which would allow my work to become more socially engaged.
However much money, time, sweat and tears I had invested in making my Metgro pieces, the plan had always been to tear them up and plant them to watch these urban-life metaphors grow into a wildflower garden.
With that in mind, I began to think about an appropriate location for my event.
I knew I wanted to engage with people in central London who experience the commute every day and whose lives the Metro newspaper is a daily part.
I did some research on the matter -

London Underground users can pick up a free morning newspaper called Metro. The publishers of the newspaper produce enough copies for 50% of Underground passengers - travelling between 6.30am and 9.30am - to read. The true genius of this enterprise is not the paper itself, but its delivery mechanism, which takes into account the following considerations:

The distribution system relies on the basic human instinct to pick up any piece of paper with the word 'free' on it.
Copies are placed in neat piles at the entrances of Underground stations so they can be picked up by people at the start of their journey into work.
Any commuters who haven't picked up a copy of Metro by this point, will notice, the moment they get on a train, that everybody is reading it and they're seized by the desire to find out what is so interesting in a newspaper that everyone appears to be reading.

Here the pure genius of the distribution system comes into play. The content of Metro is limited in such a way as to only supply enough interesting reading matter for 20 minute tube journey. As such the original owner of any copy of Metro, not assigning any value to it (as it was free) abandons it after 20 minutes or at the end of their journey. Whereupon the now insanely curious onlooker, in total disregard for normal social etiquette, will lunge across the carriage to grab the abandoned copy. By the end of the day, a relatively small number of copies of Metro have reached a massive number of the London population.

By the sounds of it, a LOT of Londoners who commute in the morning will encounter a Metro Newspaper, if not by picking one up from the station, then by grabbing 'an abandoned copy' along the way.
According to their website metro.co.uk they distribute 1,006,821 copies daily!
Perhaps the location for my event should not focus on the Metro itself, but on the concept of juxtaposing urban and rural imagery? What about an allotment a city farm or a city garden?

Come to think of it, the whole premise of this publically engaged idea stemmed from my work placement at JWT London which has an amazing grass covered roof terrace overlooking Harrods on Brompton Road, Knightsbridge. It would be a perfect place to hold my event...
The location would echo the urban v rural concept as it is an unusual garden-like area in the middle of an office building in London. It overlooks Knightsbridge tube station, one of the busiest in London; filled with people flocking to see the famous landmark, Harrods. It is surrounded by large office buildings, dwarfing the grass lawn, which is mowed weekly by a gardener who also tends to the other flower beds on the roof. I would also be engaging with the people who work in the building so this would provide a captive audience. All I needed to do would be to advertise the event within the building itself. The roof terrace is also connected to the canteen/bar area so the idea of planting a Metro news article could also be something of a novelty to do on a Friday night with a beer in-hand!

Before long, I had secured a meeting with the manager of the space and after a quick meeting to pitch my idea, I had permission to hold the event on the roof terrace!
I would be holding my Metgro event on the Friday 20th of March. This is for two reasons..
-Friday nights in the bar are the busiest in the week so my 'audience' would be greater, therefore encouraging more people to participate
-The 20th March is the day before the first day of Spring, signalling the end of winter, and the beginning of nature coming to life again.

Seed infused Metro newspapers

2009-05-03T05:09:00.000-07:00

I had successfully printed my two Metro newspapers on to live wildflower seed-infused paper. I had laser-cut their deckled edges and assembled them in numerical order using the original newspapers as a guide.
Here are some images of my two finished 'MetGro' Newspapers!

As you can see, the MetGros look very thick - like hand made books. They were certainly more bulky than regular Metro newspapers because the seed paper was so heavy. Because of this, it was impossible to fold the paper down the centre and staple together.
It proved difficult working out how to bind the seedpaper together so that the final product looked as close to the original newspapers as possible.
Finally, I came up with a solution.
By glue binding the 'spines' of the seedpaper piles and then using the front page of the newspapers to wrap over the spines to create a smooth finish and to hide any unsightly glue, the pieces looked as newspaper-like as they could without being folded..

I really liked the way that the papers were 'ready-mades' with a twist. I had taken something so recognisable and by simply printing it on to different paper, the MetGros became important art objects; not to be cast aside once read on the tube, but to be exhibited and observed.
From start to finish, the process of making these two MetGros took approximately five weeks - to order and wait for the paper to be made; to scan each newspaper; to edit each scan and prepare for the printers; to digitally print each page; to laser-cut the seedpaper accurately; to assemble the pages and finally to glue bind them together. I had grown so attached to both pieces. Having worked so hard on them it was interesting that everyone who helped me along the way began to treat the pieces with care, delicately lifting the pages to read the articles and feel the seeds in the paper. It was as though I had suddenly given these free newspapers a greater value.

It seemed a shame to rip them up and put them in soil!
Oh well, on to Stage Two of the process... organising the METGROW EVENT!

Digital printing headache.

2009-05-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

Having gathered my thirty sheets of beautiful seed paper, I geared myself up during my walk to College, to approach the digital printing technician about printing my two Metros using the printing suite.
I explained what I had in mind, including a very convincing seed paper show-and-tell.
After a LOT of 'umm-ing' 'aah-ing', and bending and scratching of my paper samples, the technician gave me the go-ahead to 'prepare the digital files'.

Note to self: Remember to pay attention during College Photoshop inductions in the future.

I I smell of linseed oil and my clothes are covered in paint. I do not have the faintest clue about 'preparing digital files'.
Stretching and preparing a canvas? Yes. Preparing digital files? No!

The technician reluctantly gave me a quick Photoshop demonstration and suggested that I scan the pages individually instead of photographing them. With a photograph I would have to position the camera and the page in the exact same place in each shot, whereas he assured me that a scan is a lot quicker and simpler to ensure they are all the same size/colour balance etc.
It sounded simple enough.
No such luck!
It took me two whole days to scan and edit every single Metro page for my two pieces. It was awful. The largest scanner in College is A3- not big enough to fit a whole piece of newsprint inside.
I took the staples out of the Metro and treated every opened page as a front and a back which I had to number to ensure the correct order for printing. Because the scanner in college is not big enough to accommodate a fully open tabloid sized piece of paper, I had to scan the pages in four separate sections -
Front R page**
Front L page**
Right R page **
Left L page **
Once all of the pages were scanned (14 pages x 4 = 56 scans for each paper...112 in total,) I then had to photomerge the lefts and rights together and create a FRONT and BACK folder. So eventually, I was left with a METRO1 folder and a METRO2 folder, each with 14 fronts and 14 backs inside, ready to be sent to the printers.

Here's an example of page 1 FRONT and page 1 BACK of one of the Metros I chose, to give you an idea of how I managed to 'prepare the digital files'.

PAGE 1 FRONT
PAGE 1 BACK

The files were all saved as PDF's and were ready to go.

The technician was very concerned that the seeds from the paper would fly out whilst being printed, so, I was assigned to what felt like the oldest printer in the world. I had seen it before, whirring and shuddering in the corner. Oh God! Hugely aware that I was about to put £150 worth of paper in this unreliable old thing, I decided to oversee the process.

It took about an hour to clean the ink jets. The printer was so old,that the ink was all coagulated and was beginning to solidify inside itself. Reassuringly, the technician informed me that the ink was vegetable based so should not harm the seeds in any way. Great, I thought, if it actually works!

Finally, we were ready to hand feed each piece of paper, doing all of the fronts first, then turning the paper over, and printing all of the backs in the same order.
The actual printing process happened incredibly quickly apart from a few hitches. I couldn't believe it! I had had such a nightmare up until this moment - not being able to make seed paper, being turned away from silk screening, not having access to the digital suite, the scanning marathon and editing when I had no clue what I was doing...and finally, it was all coming together mockingly quickly.
The end results were flawless - perfectly accurate and looking really slick.
I wanted to mimic Metro newspapers using seed infused paper?
I had certainly done that.

Paper:Check. Printing on it? Um...

2009-05-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

I decided to have two Metro Newspapers for the event I was planning. From a practical point of view this was so that if one 'went wrong' in the process of producing it, I still had a 'back up'. From the point of view of their installation, it seemed more engaging to allow more than one person to see a piece at once. Giving people a choice in papers also would give them a greater selection of articles to plant.
Originally I had had an idea about collaborating all of the green-themed pages from a number of Metros and creating a whole new paper based only on that which would refer directly to my ecologically minded cause.
However, I decided to leave the newspapers as they were to keep them as recognisable and as 'real' as possible. I also wanted to include all of the stories of war, the economy, murder etc. so that participants of the event couldselect which pieces of news they wanted to see buried away.

It seems poetic to let beautiful wildflowers grow from terribly dismal news articles.

Now that I had found and ordered the seed paper, I simply had to establish how to print the articles and pictures on to it in order to make it look like a regular Metro newspaper.
Having had a rather stressful meeting with a print-making tutor in College, I was advised to go elsewhere for advice. The reason my meeting with the print-making tutor was so stressful was because I am stubborn and when someone tells me my idea is great, but impossible, I get quite annoyed. Nothing is impossible, just more challenging to resolve... he clearly didn't like being challenged like I do!
To cut a long story short, the simple fact is that it would have been far too difficult to silk-screen the newspapers and then match the correct colours for each and every article and advert inside. It would have been possible, but it would have taken far longer than I could wait.
Also, the ink used in silk screening is incredibly thick and hard once dry, which means that the little wildflower seeds would not be able to grow if the sheets of paper were covered up with layers of plastic-like material.
I was really deflated. I always have to come up with a Plan B as my Plan A's never pan out the way I see them in my head. The only other way that I could think of printing my papers was using a large digital printer. I would have to digitalise the Metros (probably scan the pages and Photomerge them together on Photoshop) or photograph each page with a good quality camera and upload the images to the printers that way. I just needed to get the Metros I was holding in my hand into a computer somehow so that when it was printed again, it would look as close to the original as possible.
I made my way to the digital printing suite in College to find it closed. The university only opens the printing room 3 days a week (don't get me started on how ridiculous it is for an art school to not have access to these basic facilities any time of the week...) and I would have to come back tomorrow.
Having been so elated yesterday and having spent £150 on seed-paper (!) it never occurred to me that it might not be possible to print on it.
The good news was that my paper was sitting waiting for me when I got home. It was beautiful - creamy and thick with the seeds clearly embedded right into thin layers. It felt really tactile too - I could just see people holding the Metro papers and suddenly feeling how lumpy the paper is as they feel the seeds. It's just what I had in mind.
I would have to go back into college tomorrow, paper in hand, and pray that the printers will allow me to use my own paper... looking at it again, it is awfully thick... I also hope the printers can cope with seeds springing out all over the place too...
Oh dear.
Let's not think about that until tomorrow.

So, 'seed-infused paper' you say?

2009-05-01T03:39:00.000-07:00

I knew that I wanted to print/silk screen Metro newspapers on to seed-infused paper.

I knew that I wanted the paper to sprout indigenous wild flowers.
Hmm, but where on earth was I going to find this paper?
Firstly I tried making the paper. Having been assured that people 'hand make paper aaaall the time' by a friend, I decided to give it a go myself. How hard could it be?
I walked around Peckham Rye train station collecting abandoned Metro newspapers, which I decided I was going to recycle and use as the base of my seed paper.
The only other things I needed to make my hand made seed paper now, was glue, water, a regular food blender and really cheap seeds. Check, check check check...
It all went horribly wrong.
I liked the idea of making the paper using old Metros but unfortunately as soon as I added water and glue to the newspaper and blended it together I managed to produce a horrible grey mush as all of the ink from the newspaper had mixed together.. not to mention the poor blender which was wheezing and rumbling worryingly having had glue poured into it...
I thought about bleaching the mixture to make it paler but in doing that I would most probably kill the seeds which I wanted to add and probably upset the blender even more...
I tried to roll out some of the paper using instructions I found online, but once the paper had dried, it was extremely brittle and dusty and would certainly not hold out through the rough ride of silk-screening or digital printing.
Oh dear...and it seemed like such a good idea at the time.
There was only one thing left to do. I would have to commission somewhere to make the paper for me. I Googled 'wildflower seed-infused paper' and after a few clicks, there was my answer.
'Creative Paper Wales', a paper company based near Snowdonia, (Wales,) were selling 10 sheets of Seed Paper (wild meadow) for £50 !
' The paper is made with live wild meadow seeds...and can be planted to grow a beautiful meadow bouquet . . .It's paper and it's a garden all in one!'

Not only was the paper already made for me, (no more grey glue disaster mix, hurrah!) but the seeds inside the paper were exactly what I was looking for! Here is a list of the wildflower seeds included in this magical paper...

Meadow Floxtail

(Alopecurus pratensis)

Chamomile

(Anthemis nobilis)

Wild Carrot

(Daucus carota)

Meadowsweet

(Filipendula ulmaria 'Aurea')

Selfheal

(Prunella)

Red Campion

(Silene acaulis)

Yarrow

(Achillea Coronation Gold)

Common Poppy

(Papaver rhoeas)

Oxeye Daisy

(Leucanthemum vulgare)

Two whole Metros stuffed with those beautiful flowers. Wonderful!

The seed paper's size is 508mm x 635mm which is also perfect as I needed tabloid sized pieces (430mm x 280mm). Perfect!

As a Metro uses 14 pieces of newsprint per paper (I counted!), I was going to need the same for my Metgros. I ordered 3 batches of 10 sheets from Creative Paper Wales and slept soundly that night, quietly confident that this kooky idea might just work...

Now, to figure out how to print newspapers on to this paper...

Where the idea 'stemmed' from...

2009-04-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

"For me, I am an optimist.
There does not seem to be much use being anything else."
Sir Winston Churchill 1954

The idea of printing Metro Newspapers on to seed-infused paper came to me in early January 2009. During October and November 2008, I interned for seven weeks with the creative department of RMG Connect in Knightsbridge, part of JWT London.
During that time, my partner and I were introduced to a non-for-profit organisation called 'Go Green' which encourages inhabitants of Hackney who do not have access to a garden, to grow their own fruit and vegetables using any domestic appliance as a make-shift plant pot:

'No Garden, No excuse.'

After some thinking, I began to look into infusing clothes, CD's, and beauty products with fruit and vegetable seeds as a quirky way to encourage people to become involved with this charity.
I had a vision of creating a whole house made entirely of things which will grow if you plant them - even the house itself.
It would have been amazing to see the people of Hackney tearing up bits of sofa, TV, walls, bathtubs and burying them in the ground so that, over time, the house would grow into a crazy allotment...

I left the internship feeling elated about this idea and it really stuck with me. Would I be able to translate the concept of planting seed-infused domestic products into a fully resolved project that could be the conclusion of my three years in Art School?

I realised that through this advertising placement, I had discovered a really keen interest in socially engaged art. I wanted to create an event where people could come together to become a part of my work and the process, rather than pontificate about its final resting place in a dead white gallery.

Taking into account my last few painting's urban and rural language juxtapositions, I had the idea of printing Metro Newspapers on to indigenous wildflower seed paper. These two things reference the life I was used to whilst growing up in the Lake District , and the life I will have to become used to, whilst working in London in the future.

To me, wildflowers bring to mind meadows, summer, sun and freedom; they are 'wild' and have an amazing ability to pop up anywhere. Some may call them weeds, I call them inspiring.
They are inspiring in the sense that Nature is always around us in this hectic world in which we live, (even if we don't notice it whist crammed into a tube with 300 people at 8am) and life will always find a way to manifest itself in the most barren of places.

The Metro newspaper served as a metaphor for representing modern urban living - the stressful cramped commute into the city, the easy to read, bite-size news articles and this 'throw-away culture' which causes London's public transport to be littered with thousands of crumpled, disregarded newspapers on a daily basis.

I thought: Why not turn all of this bad news about the economy, global warming, gang culture etc into something more fulfilling?

So: Get back in touch with Nature, get your hands dirty, bury these ridiculous papers and watch them grow into your own little part of the English country-side.
LETS GROW THE METRO!

Drawings

2009-04-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my recent drawings. Although these do not tie in to my MetGrow theme, I thought it appropriate to show them alongside my other past work. Some were commissioned, some were just for fun!

Let's start at the very beginning.

2009-04-29T04:26:00.000-07:00

I thought the first port of call for this blog was to show you some of the work which led me up to my "Metgrow" event. I hope that this will give you a more rounded idea of my background and the sort of thoughts that I had during my degree...

Jimbo's Barn

2009
Biro and Tip-Ex on paper

Under Construction
2008
Oil on canvas

Blake
2009
Oil on canvas

When you go down to the woods today
2009
Oil on Canvas

Epson weed
2009
Scanned wildflower on A4 paper

A to Tree
2009
A London A to Z map book , live tree.

Untitled (Homeland)
2007
canvas, wool tights, soil