For illustrator Jackie Morris, her collaboration with writer Robert Macfarlane – The Lost Words – grew and grew. Today at Hay she described it as if it were a thing of nature. “It’s becoming a cultural phenomenon. It’s sprouting things all over the country,” she told Nicola Davies.
The seed of the project was the Oxford English Dictionary’s decision to remove certain words, such as wren, acorn and kingfisher, from their latest edition. Macfarlane teamed up with Pembrokeshire-based Morris in an effort to preserve the endangered words and to introduce them to a whole new audience of readers. “What it is, is a song of hope,” she said, before conducting a live painting session on stage. As her portrait of an otter was projected onto the screen behind, she recited some of the spell-poems from the book. “I have to speak an otter to make it happen,” she said.
Morris was joined on stage by the singer-songwriter Kerry Andrew, who performed some of the spells from the book. Using a loop station to record different elements as she performed, she created a soundtrack to the book for the audience. As a one-woman orchestra, her music built into a cacophony of sound. Davies described it as "truly magical".
Discussing the book and where it might lead, Morris told of future collaborations with hospitals and schools. She said that the response to the work from all walks of life was not something they had predicted. “I’m enjoying seeing it have a wild life,” she said. “It has its own life. It needs no control.”
If you missed this event, you might like event 332, Creativity and Life, at 4pm on Friday 1 June.