photo essay: Brickfield

#2 on meditation in action

I heard about Brickfield - community brickworks in a repurposed china clay pit - for the first time last year. Since then, the project and Rose, artistic director, keep coming up in conversations. By summer this year, I knew I had to make my way to St Austell and see for myself this “magical, otherworldly place.”¹

One morning at the beginning of July, I saw on Instagram that Brickfield was holding an open day, offering the opportunity to learn how to mix clay, clat it up and throw it into a wooden mould before tapping out to reveal a brick.

I’d never visited a clay pit before, and I had absolutely no expectations apart from sheer excitement to learn. Stepping onto the site indeed felt like entering a paranormal terrain. And yet people have been making bricks from local clay in Cornwall since the 16th century.

One of the many highlights was meeting John Osborne, the last man to fire the brick kiln at Wheal Remfry brickworks near Fraddon, St Austell in 1971. In fact, when John was hand-making bricks at Wheal Remfry, a pair of brickmakers (working as a team) would make over 700 bricks in a day!

When you watch Rose and John interact, you can tell that these kindred spirits made bricks together in a previous lifetime, and it was such a privilege to witness the energy between them.

I never in my life expected to feel such pull towards brick making but here we are.

Brickfield is holding open days this Friday 31 July and Saturday 1 August.

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A portrait of John.

Sieving in progress.

The brick masters.

Johhn cleaning the moulds.

Progress :-)

Rose and John.

Beehive kiln for firing bricks.

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Chop Wood, Carry Water is a project exploring the remarkable power of doing things with our hands, together. It is an ode to labour, heritage, landscape, and community. Each photo essay is an attempt to understand and share how different restorative practices can influence collective wellbeing and serve as a form of meditation in action.

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1. To quote my friend Olga Owczarek, who is a textile artist based in Cornwall.