Putting art, and hope, into people's hands

At Lannock Manor Farm on a balmy day this summer, we fastened an earthy brown banner high above our heads, letting it catch the breeze. Printed in thick black ink, the words ‘Raise up the next generation’ rest above a raised fist, gripping a leafy carrot.

The artwork was created by printmaker, illustrator and author of Botanical Block Printing, Rosanna Morris.

Rosanna specialises in relief printing, a process where an artist carves away the negative space from a block or plate, leaving the raised surface to receive ink and transfer the design onto paper or fabric.

The connection between her art and the natural world runs deep. She grew up in an urban environment, but speaks of how she has always felt a pull towards nature – something she continues to explore through her work.

“I feel like I'm constantly reaching for nature, trying to touch those spaces which make you feel the most grounded, calm and happy,” she says.

Much of what she does is rooted in a fascination with where our food comes from, and the people, knowledge and practices behind it. Seed saving, small-scale farming, agroecology and food sovereignty are recurring themes, explored through the natural forms and everyday details she finds around her.

“Ordinary things can contain enormous amounts of beauty and meaning when you stop and really look at them.”

Rosanna turns her attention to the things many of us overlook. Vegetables, weeds, hands, seeds, birds and people at work. Things that could otherwise be described as ordinary. “But ordinary things,” she tells us, “ can contain enormous amounts of beauty and meaning when you stop and really look at them.”

Growing food on an allotment and spending lots of time outdoors with her three children – or wildlings, as she warmly calls them – she naturally lives and creates in step with the seasons.

Her work ebbs and flows with seasonal markers like the arrival of spring blossom, the intense abundance of midsummer, beans climbing, tomatoes ripening and the bare structure of plants in winter. In the fallow winter time, she finds herself pouring energy into making; the yearning for nature takes over and she’s more productive on the page.

For Rosanna, the natural world can never be separated from the people who tend, shape and live alongside it. “Land is shaped by people, farming, labour, politics and history as much as it is by plants and weather. So when I make work about the natural world, I don't really see it as separate from making work about people."

A MESSAGE FOR THE MOMENT

When it comes to printmaking, she reminds us of the practice's long history of communicating ideas, telling stories and putting art into people's hands.

For this piece, she wanted to draw on that very history.

The hand speaks to a tradition of solidarity and collective action, while the carrot – an everyday agricultural staple – brings the message back to the land. Strong and unmistakable, the message was made for the moment.

“I wanted it to have the strength and immediacy of an old political or agricultural print,” she tells us.

It couldn’t have been more fitting for our stand at Groundswell, where we spent two days in the Emergent Generation tent talking about hope and resilience in farming, and what it really means to raise up the next generation.

The block Rosanna used for this print was made from a large piece of flooring lino, which she carved entirely by hand - in the middle of a heatwave, no less.

“The children were splashing in the paddling pool, while I sat inside with the curtains closed, sweating away and vigorously carving the block,” she recounts.

In the midst of the hottest summer on record, Rosanna completed the carving and printed the banner just in time for the festival. Seeing it there, surrounded by people talking about farming, soil and the future of food production, made those long, hot hours of carving completely worthwhile. It quickly became a talking point, with people stopping throughout the two days to recognise Rosanna’s work and ask where they could get their own.

Her craft calls for patience, precision and an extraordinary amount of hard work. So, in a world increasingly shaped by digital tools, why does she choose to continue making her prints by hand?

“With so much of our lives now being about speed and convenience, making a print by hand is almost the opposite of that,” she explains.

It’s a process that demands time, with no shortcuts – from carving the block and mixing the ink to rolling it out, placing the paper, applying pressure and peeling back the print, before finally hanging it to dry.

That time, though, is unmistakable in the finished piece.

There are tiny differences between every impression and evidence of the person who made it. “I think we need those things. Objects that carry some trace of human hands and human time.”

Looking ahead, there’s plenty more taking shape in Rosanna’s studio, as she continues to make work around land, farming, plants and our relationship with the natural world, alongside illustration commissions and some larger print projects.

One of her latest projects is a 2027 calendar celebrating migratory birds. “My goal is to highlight the natural migration of animals and for people to reflect on the man-made borders of our earth. With growing hostility in Europe towards others, I want to bring home the idea that migration is a normal part of the natural world.”

You can find Rosanna’s original prints, editions and upcoming workshops at rosannamorris.com, while she shares new work and plenty of the carving and printing process on Instagram at @rosannaprints.