Blanket Bog by Alice Austin

A tunnel book-perspective of driving across the blanket bogs of western Ireland.
“This five panel tunnel book evokes a drive through the blanket bog along the west coast of Ireland in County Mayo. A herd of sheep stops the car and the viewer contemplates the hillside, with piles of peat, cut and stacked to dry. … The side panels take the viewer along the road from farmland into the bog. The last panel is a five-color reduction linoleum print of the landscape. The back of the tunnel book includes a poem, … written by the artist about the blanket bog:
stone walls found under the bog
traces of neolithic farmland.
still, sheep graze by the roadside
cairns of peat stacked to dry
people and land interwoven." - Alice Austin
Pamphlet text by artist gives background on the bogs of Ireland as well as turf cutting.
Text excerpt:
On the west coast of Ireland, around Ballycastle in County Mayo, the bog extends to the ocean cliffs, covering the land like a blanket. Saturated by the warm and rainy climate, the oxygen-depleted, acidic soil creates a unique ecosystem that supports a hardy variety of plants, animals and insects. The bog is a living, growing thing as mosses and ferns grow, die and are buried and smothered by successive growth layers. This organic matter can’t decompose in the anaerobic, acidic soil, and builds up and compresses into peat over the millenia.