Environment - Scarecrow sample

Another piece not used on the final panels but this time because it was a sample for the rag rugging technique used for the Environment panel. This one was made by Margaret Kenny as a test piece to see if really fine canvas could by used.

Environment - Meanwood Valley Farm

Meanwood Valley Urban Farm was officially opened in 1980. From humble beginnings, operating from two old caravans with bed frames providing fencing, it has steadily grown to become a major centre for community and environmental work.

The farm is open to the public, with a cafe (closed on Mondays), and it also provides many other amenities to the community including holiday play schemes, development programmes for disabled people, and Re-Connect, an alternative for senior school children who have difficulty in main stream education.

There was a lot of photoshopping to get the pig house and animals into the photograph. The background was then printed onto fabric and machine stitched by Betty Bertrand. The animals were printed separately, hand stitched by Valerie Horner (12 hours) and then applied to the background. The large sheep looks a bit odd on the image above, with no front legs, these were omitted in the embroidery to prevent too much bulk behind the lamb when the animals were stitched to the background.

Environment - Rivercare

This is the picture from the front cover of the Rivercare brochure. During the late 1990s this programme was introduced by Yorkshire Water to upgrade the region's 617 inland sewage treatment works and sewerage system. Yorkshire's sewerage system was built by the Victorians and during the 1980s Yorkshire Water began to tackle the years of neglect and underinvestment.

"We will be investing over £1 million every day over the next few years to further improve clean and waste water services in Yorkshire"

Unfortunately there's no date on the publication and there's no obvious information on the Yorkshire Water website about Rivercare. Has the programme finished? Were all goals met? Has it changed it's name to the Freshwater Fish Directive?

In 2002 there was an exhibition at Armley Mills showing photographs taken by the artist in residence, Ian Beesley, was this when the programme came to an end?

Questions, questions.

What I do know is that Joan Holah spent 80 hours hand stitching this on printed fabric.