Arty Alchemy

UPLIFTER’s enjoyed a great mix of heritage and art in our recent Green UPLIFT, ‘Arty alchemy’ at Worsbrough Mill.

The day began with a tour of the mill with the Miller Simon. This historic, grade two listed building is a working mill and produces flour which is available to buy in the on-site shop. It was great to see the mill in production, and we can’t wait to do a spot of baking with the flour!

Artist, Lee Sass then led a very special workshop giving UPLIFTER’s the chance to explore some delightful techniques using natural materials combined with amazing alchemy to create art!

 Three different techniques were used: soilograms, cyanotypes and photographic leaf prints. We began with leaf prints which uses sunshine to project a negative onto certain types of leaves. We gave it a good go but the sun sadly wasn’t massively in our favour for this one so we moved on to try cyanotypes. 

Cyanotypes uses a UV light to produce a blue tone to print. UPLIFTER’s took photos and manipulated the image using a variety of techniques with some fantastic results! The final technique we experimented with were soilograms, which are achieved by grinding soil, ash or any kind of earth in a pestle and mortar. The powdered soil is then distilled into a mixture of chemicals to create a beautiful round piece of chromatography. Another success! Everyone’s pieces were all so different and so beautiful!

The techniques explored in the workshop were really fascinating and something totally different to what many have experienced before, as such there was a great demand for more.

A big thanks to Lee Sass for sharing these processes with us. These processes are so dependent on the conditions which made for a very special atmosphere. There was complete joy in experimentation and unexpected results. “More please!” was the cry of the day!