Digit Blocks

Digit Blocks, Hermione Allsopp, 2021, plaster, thimbles, paint, varnish, 5cmx5cmx5cm

Hermione Allsopp's Digit Blocks are gathered at the Constitutional Club and in Bridewell Lane. 

​IF COLSTON WERE STONE
                                                
“How are the mighty fallen?”
I have literally fallen.
They have written over my feet
And pushed me into the water.
I wanted to swim, except I sank like a stone.
Because I am a big stone.
 
This alabaster gaol is not of 
my choosing, constraining
my colour like a sealed inkwell,
Unwritten words from an unused quill.
I am petrified, fossilised, literally set in stone,
Because I am a big stone.
 
To remember my deeds, you put me
In a park to collect pigeon shit,
Then, to punish, locked me in a museum.
But virtues or vices, my deeds are part of you. 
And so I am become your millstone,
Because I am a big stone.
 
Natalie Low

Digit Blocks, Hermione Allsopp, 2021, iron filler, plaster, thimbles, paint, varnish

Mini Monuments
 
Bevelled blocks, 
of balanced proportions,
soothing in their sameness
and tactile, like marble.
 
Each one faux finished, 
layered like sediment
compressed 
by geological time.
 
Little dips collect 
coloured slip 
which pools 
in the puddles,
so each one is distinct.
 
Moveable monuments
able to commemorate,
and venerate values
as they change.
 
Deborah Bowkis

Hermione Allsopp makes sculptural work by collecting objects and furniture and re-creating them into new forms or compositions.  These are familiar, known, domestic items that have been discarded in charity or junk shops – not, inert materials, but ones that carry collective attachments, memories and meanings. As sculpture, these re-done, or un-done-up objects begin to exist as something else and are intended to raise questions about the value and material nature of every day objects. Through the choice of objects, and the techniques she employs, she explores the boundary between repulsion and attraction, ideas of taste and notions of desire.  The work also reflects on wider topics related to consumerism, psychological and physical interiors and exteriors. Twitter @HermioneAllsopp Instagram @hermioneallsopp Facebook Hermione Allsopp www.hermionallsopp.com

Natalie Low enjoys putting words on paper and believes that everyone has a book of some sort inside them. She has published two chapbooks, Dementia (2015) and School Run (2017). She is a regular contributor to CollectConnect exhibitions, both as a writer and artist/maker. Instagram nat.low Facebook Natalie Low

Deborah Bowkis has published through competition prizes and in anthologies, including Ink Pantry Sea of Ink and Voices of the Brecks. She currently works as an academic and has taught creative writing courses and workshops in Suffolk. In 2016 she set up a thriving creative writing group, Left to Write, in Bury St. Edmunds. 
​https://greenacrewriters.blogspot.com, http://www.breakingnewground.org.uk