A YEAR long community art project to create an exhibition of decorated seed heads from harvested sunflowers has been backed by Feast, Falmouth Cultural Services and Cormac.

Fibonacci Flowers was a seed of an idea for Jo Clarkson when she studied Fine Art at Falmouth University in 2017 and now thanks to Feast, Cormac and Falmouth Cultural Services it has developed into a year long Community Arts Project for Cornwall.

The project, began this spring when Jo visited schools and community groups in Cornwall and helped them to plant their own sunflower seeds.

The next stages will be harvesting, drying and then painting the seed heads. Finally in the spring of 2019 this project will culminate by bringing together community groups and schools across Cornwall in a colourful collective exhibition of all of the decorated seed heads.

“I was delighted when Feast, Falmouth Cultural Services and Cormac agreed to provide funding so I could make this project happen," said Jo.

It’s a really exciting project because it has so many different elements of interest and creativity giving plenty of benefits to everyone who becomes involved.

"It highlights how fun and rewarding growing plants from seeds can be, it teaches how the mathematical Fibonacci sequence appears throughout nature and especially in the sunflower seed head, it allows for creative mindfulness through the process of painting with the Fibonacci approach and finally it provides an opportunity for the community to work together to produce an intriguing beautiful artwork.

"Schools love the project because of the creative and educational benefits and I think the adult community groups will find the Fibonacci painting approach very meditative and calming."

“The children are so excited to see something they have planted to grow and to keep on growing. They cannot wait to see them planted outside around the school. I know they will take care of them especially with a little reminding from me” says Jacky Elder, teacher at Falmouth Primary School.

"Anyone can still join in regardless of experience so I am hoping it will continue to evolve and grow as the time goes on ” says Jo Clarkson.

There is still time for anyone wishing to join in the project, whether you are a group or an individual and especially if you are already growing sunflowers. If you’re not there are spare sunflowers which you can adopt. Cormac is also growing us an extra stock so people can just join in the autumn when there will be extra seed heads to paint. If you are interested email jo.clarkson@icloud.com or call 07721 043 479.