This naive style landscape explores the use of fences to subdivide pasture land. Pasture management is in my farming background, partly from having owned a sheep and cattle farm, and partly because I used to teach it at part time courses for an agricultural college. This is what is called an extensive system, where animals, let us imagine sheep and cattle or sheep and goats, live in the same field all the time, but each field only has a small number of animals. Its advantages are that there is less movement and therefore less stress on the animals, and the water supply can be rationalised. It is the least labour intensive method, and a system that has been around for hundreds of years. The disadvantages are that the grass is not utilised to its maximum, as some will be trampled and not eaten, animals can pick out the tastier grasses and leave the ones they don't like, and parasites will be more difficult to manage.
But enough of that! This is not really what I wanted to make for my final challenge, which is a detailed portrait of some refugee women and children in a camp in Pakistan. A fence is in the foreground. It will take me at least another month, though I have done all the preparation. I was just too busy at work to have the time.
This second choice combines elements from the first one in the fences series (green) with elements from the art deco one. It intrigues me that we can assemble a limited number of 'marks' and shapes, and yet we find them convincing as a landscape.
