Little Lounge is a church-ran community hub, who support the residents of Cilfynydd. During my first meeting, we discussed planting potatoes, and this very quickly became the focus of the project! I ran two participatory workshops, the first being a needle felting workshop, where collaboratively we created 3D potatoes and potato leaves. These would form the basis of the artwork I would ultimately make for the Art Trail. Additionally, I facilitated a potato planting workshop, merging both artistic creation and observation with useful life skills. From this time spent with Little Lounge and the journey we went on together, I created a felt wall hanging, using a wet felting for the background and needle felting to embellish the details of our journey. The quotes cross-stitched onto the felt are words spoken by children in the potato planting workshop. In addition, I have produced a zine (artist’s self-published magazine or booklet), called ‘Community Spirit’. As suggested, community spirit can be found throughout Little Lounge, in the sessions they run, to the food they supply to residents through the community pantry. Consequently, the zine not only depicts the journey that took place during my time with them, but it also contains recipes using potatoes and instructions for how to grow your own potatoes at home.

After the art trail the work will be donated to Little Lounge. I would like to thank them for collaborating with me for this project, and I would also like to thank Pontypridd Museum for hosting my work during the Art Trail.