Between The Trees was originally conceived one sunny afternoon in 2014 and contemplated in a well-used sketchbook, through musings, doodles, a myriad of possible names and logos.
After many years of deliberation and thinking about a collaboration of the various passions of his, scientist Andrew Thomas handed me the battered book of his thoughts and ideas, asking “what did I think?”
I loved it… and I was inspired.
I knew we were onto something. We had the same love of music in our bones, a long held passion for natural science, art and design and lastly… camping. Both in education, we longed to bring the best of what we knew of the original music scene to a wider audience whilst integrating this with Science and Art.
He had already explored many aspects of the theme; he had logos, mind-maps and finer details sketched out.
So where did I fit into this? Let’s ask Andrew? “Dawn provided the creative spark required to bring the festival to life. As a freelance art educator and a natural motivator, she focused the ideas, sketched out the plan and basically kick-started the whole thing off”.
We worked together to bring the natural science element to the fore, using the local environment as a resource. The idea was to utilise the immediate countryside as a resource for Land Art and the collection of items for a Five Senses Treasure Hunt.
We set about creating a new, interactive, Pop-Up stand for Einstein’s Garden at Green Man Festival 2017: “The Pollination Station” was born! This project was sponsored by Cardiff Metropolitan University and investigated the amazing diverse morphology of plant pollen grains and insect parts using microscopy. We used 3D printed pollen grains to visualise the pollen structures and played interactive games to engage the public with the intricacies of plant fertilization, the role insects play in pollination and our interdependence on other animal species for survival.
This was beginning to evolve into something much bigger… to be continued.