Blue John: Open Seam' is painted onto a cupboard door from a Victorian terraced house in Buxton, built around 1880. The cupboard sat in an alcove beside the chimney breast in the back room. Made of Scots Pine, it still has its original brass hinges and screws, and over the years it was covered with layers of paint and wallpaper, each one a trace of its long life.
The front of the door was badly damaged, with a deep split that immediately made me think of the natural seams in Blue John – the rare banded fluorite quarried in the hills and tors of the nearby Peak District. That split became part of the work, a reference to the local landscape.
The timber is Scots pine, a wood long planted and used in Britain. Most likely it came from a local plantation, though by the late 19th century softwood was imported from North America and Canada – a journey of 3,000–3,500 miles that could take up to two months. Either way, the wood carries over two centuries of history woven in to the artwork it has now become.
