Making adder art

Jess Cooper, artist

I was delighted to be chosen as the North Pennines Adders Commission Bursary artist for 2025, I had applied with an idea to run a series of workshops with schools and community groups. I had an encounter with an adder some years ago while out walking and this mysterious creature held a magical space in my imagination. I wanted to see how children would engage with the idea of a species they maybe had never come across in real life. I built a collection of images looking at pottery inspired by snakes from across a range of cultures and timespans. These images started conversations about adders, about hand building techniques and the constraints and limits of clay as a material.

I learned so much about adders in the process of preparing for and delivering these workshops, I learned about their habitats, threats to their populations, breeding cycles, identifying their patterns and colours. I also learned how to respond if I see adders out in the wild; stop, step back and smile.

It was amazing to see how children responded to the materials offered; clay seems to have a universal appeal and all children I worked with engaged with the project. I was also surprised how many children and adults had experience of seeing adders. The understanding and reflections of children about the need for habitat management and careful interactions from the public with adders was impactful and gives me hope for their sustained existence in the North Pennines.

The workshops resulted in each child making their own adder inspired piece and each class made a collaborative pot (or two) by building up coils in pairs. Making these big collaborative pots was a lovely way to encourage teamwork, often with one child scoring the clay, one child applying slip and another rolling and adding coils.

We had some mellow, relaxed sessions with classical music playing in the background and some wildly busy sessions with mega making mayhem underway!
As the project has drawn to a close, the exhibition at Bowlees is a wonderful celebration that brings together so many different mediums, covering textiles, clay, puppetry, filmmaking and more it shows how the arts can engage a broad spectrum of folk and create dialogue about vulnerable and special species that we are fortunate to live alongside.