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100 Days of Groceries is a love-letter to our local greengrocers, fruit & veg stands, butchers, deli’s, corner shops and bakeries along our high streets.
This collection of silkscreen prints showcases the images and stories of market stalls and high street shops across communities: Kensal Green, Chingford Mount, Walthamstow (London), and Dundalk (Ireland). The project was made in conjunction with Waltham Forest Arts & Culture, as well as Creative Spark Print Studio in County Louth, Ireland.
100 Days of Groceries is a project that captures not only the history of where a shop may stand, but the voices and stories of the people running them. It explores the culture of the ‘food shop’ in a given community and repositions the importance of the high street through a collection of colourful photographic silkscreen prints that capture the simple, yet vibrant beauty of the storefronts. These artworks have been produced following conversations and collaborations with the local stores and are exhibited alongside their corresponding transcribed interviews.
It paints a picture of the essence each community through the lens of the food shops that provide for them.
'Drumnasilla', (or: 'The Jam Man'), 2022, CMYK screenprint, 70 x 50cm
Drumnasilla
22nd July 2022
Interview with Iain Hovelt
Iain Hovelt is a chatty man who runs his stand ‘Drumnasilla’ in Dundalk Square Farmers Market, selling his own home-made jams and preserves, as well as various country remedies and syrups. Iain moved to Ireland from England in 1995, where he worked in human rights law, and helped set up a refugee legal service in Ireland. He disagreed with the stifling bureaucracy of solicitors, eventually leaving to teach law and ethics at Dundalk Institute of Technology, as well as setting up his jam stall in 2005.
“I’m guessing there’s a lot less bureaucracy in jam.” I ask him.
“There’s a lot actually.” He replies. “This honey’s regulated by the department of agriculture. All the rest is regulated by um, the Food Authority of Ireland. The rules of honey and bees are different to the rules of the rest. And what I do is considered ‘low risk’. They would look at things like cheese as high risk.” He points at the cheese stall across from him. “So, he gets hell from them, and I tend to end up getting a quieter time.”
“And are you making a lot of it yourself or are you sourcing it from other places?”
“From here on…” He gestures at the distinctively hexagonal jars. “…I make everything. And the bees make that.” He points at the honey and bee pollen.
“And do you keep bees as well?”
“I actually do have a hive…” He starts, but interrupts himself as he sees a woman walking by, raising his voice. “Excuse me, madam! Have you finished your shopping yet?”
“Hiya!” She comes over.
“You haven’t finished your shopping, have you?” He continues.
“I still haven’t had something off you.” She replies, sheepishly.
“That’s exactly it!”
The woman comes over to the stand. “I’m going to visit my friend, so what should I bring her? What about a jar of honey?”
He shakes his head. “No, that’s not mine.”
“Well, what’s yours?”
“Is she a marmalade girl? Does she like gin and tonic? Would she like my gin and tonic marmalade? Or how about blackcurrant jam?” He starts rattling around his taster jars and brandishing small wooden spoons for her to sample the marmalade.
“But are you selling the honey?”
“Oh yes, but it’s not mine.”
“Yeah, I’ll get her a jar of honey if that’s okay. Thanks very much.”
“How are you keeping?” He asks her, as he hands her a card machine.
“Oh, I’m good thanks! Those look nice, what are those?”
“That’s rosehip syrup. Local rosehips. And that’s, um, gooseberry syrup.”
She thanks him and leaves, although not without commenting that his hat looks ‘very French-looking.’
“You’re a very good salesperson.” I comment, as he notes down the sale in his book.
“I know them.” He explains. “She didn’t want to buy anything. I forced her to do it. I wouldn’t just do that to anyone random person walking by.”
Iain tells me a bit about his life. He was born in Reading, England, and grew up in Maidenhead. His father was sent to work in Germany in 1953 and worked there for four and a half years. His mother worked for a market research company, and was only one of two field supervisors in the UK, and at times she also had to go up to Scotland for work. So, as a child, Iain’s grandmother would sometimes come over to take care of him and his siblings.
“My grandmother used to tell fortunes and read palms and do horoscopes. And she was into good eating and balanced diets. When granny came over and looked after us, she’d take us out and go foraging. And then she’d get us all to make jams, and that’s where it all started.
I did nothing about it until um, until I eventually after many other escapades, I came and taught law and ethics in DKIT for ten years, and in that time I started doing all this until I gave up teaching. And in the background of all this, I also sold jam.”
“So, all this, are you growing it yourself, are you foraging it?”
“Well, foraging’s been a mixed blessing. For example, I went on holiday – sightseeing – for the first time in ages, just as all the elderflowers came out, about a month late. It was late this year. So, I didn’t get to do any elderflower cordial. But I’ll do spiced elderberry syrup. And then, um, I pick most of my blackcurrants and gooseberries. Somebody else picked their own gooseberries and gave them to me last week. They’ve got dessert gooseberries, so dessert gooseberry jam is red.” He hands me a jar to took at. “If you look at the white gooseberry jam at the front there, it’s a pale green.”
“You say you also sell home remedies?”
“Yeah, I do…Have you got a camera there? I have a recipe for spiced elderberry syrup, you can take a picture there.” He explains to me the medicinal properties as I take note of some of the remedies he has on display for anyone to use the recipes for. “The elderberry has a chemical in it that’s antiviral, an old fashioned remedy for colds, and flu. And I do bee pollen.” As he speaks, a new customer arrives. “Hi, can I help you?”
“Hi, can I get some of the gooseberry, please?”