Cumberlandia Banner
Arwen Heaton (centre) and the rest of the Cumberlandia committee with the Cumberlandia banner
As well as a crazy thunderstorm this past weekend, there were two Cumberlandia art workshops at the fabulous Florence Mine Arts Centre in Egremont.
The workshops were for adding details to a huge banner of our tree and landscape logo, which I am making for this year's festival.
The concept for the banner was sparked by the artistic vision for the festival as a being space where we make connections and build a temporary 'village' through sharing music, dance, art and creativity. Cumberlandia as a community underpins all our planning and the banner is intended to meld those ideas together.
As part of our temporary village this year, we have designated the central grassed area as a Village Green and have commissioned an 8ft tall steel and willow sculpture installation by Phil Bradley to be a central focus. There'll also be a village pub (the Cumberland Arms) on site and a village brass band present for the opening and closing ceremonies.
I am privileged to have been commissioned as a site artist this year, and so taking all these elements on board, I took inspiration from colliery banners that were an integral part of pit community life across the UK, which are still paraded during the annual Durham Miner's Gala, and which would have been paraded at local community events and gatherings.
Bransty Banner
Many branches would have commissioned a large fabric banner with images and a motto specific to their pit (you can find out more about them here https://www.ncm.org.uk/news/voices-in-the-coalshed-the-meaning-of-banners/ ).
Although there is plenty of information about the content and meaning of the banners and the importance to the miners who carried them, it is difficult to find information about exactly who made them and how. I suspect this is a case of lost women's history, as although later there were companies who made them to order, initially they were surely hand-sewn by the women in the community.
Our 2x3 metre banner will be paraded onto the Village Green accompanied by the brass band, community choir, and dancing, evoking the close-knit community of pit villages along the west coast of Cumbria.
Ours is a little different though, in keeping with our ethos of environmental responsibility and protection. Our banner is based on Keith Fitton's painting for the cover of the 2024 Cumberlandia programme. It is constructed entirely from reclaimed fabrics; all hand-dyed and printed with foraged hedgerow and garden plants, using minimal-impact, minimal-fuel, and minimal-water methods. The pieces are sewn together using an antique hand-cranked Singer sewing machine and all the threads are vintage reels that have been hiding in the bottom of several sewing tins for decades!
Embellishments to the appliqué have been needle-felted using raw fleece picked out of hedges and plant-dyed, and painted on using a mediaeval recipe for ink made from oak galls. Leaves and hedgerows have been printed using a method native to many indigenous cultures by hammering plants directly onto fabric. Hazel poles to carry and hang the banner will be made by Phil Bradley. I think this must be the most eco-friendly village banner in existence!
In this way it forms a bridge from our industrial past to our future, simultaneously signifying respect to our heritage and responsibility to our planet, and underpinning our temporary community that will gather at Cumberlandia on July 25th-27th.
