Garden & Countryside

Sometimes a garden can be the best room in the house, a great place to spend time with friends and family, to walk together and share its beauty, to be diverted and distracted, to pass the time and forget ourselves. We can wander off and make discoveries, tell tales, find reflections and common ground. Continue reading “Garden & Countryside”

Frames of reference

Two Days In Epping Forest

I suppose that’s a bit of an exaggeration, we didn’t stay overnight, but it sounds better than two visits or two day trips to Epping Forest. The first was a week after Easter, on St George’s Day, inspired by blogposts and tweets about holloways, I wondered what’s the closest thing to a holloway in Epping Forest? And so we went up to Jack’s Hill and walked to the western edge of Ambresbury Banks. Continue reading “Two Days In Epping Forest”

Frames of reference

Six From Anne Davies

We just hung six new paintings by Anne Davies, though since we had one of them already, strictly speaking I suppose only five are new. But it’s a new sextet. Here’s what Anne said about them –

I spent time walking the Bermondsey Wall to Rotherhithe and then, on the other side, Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse. Canary Wharf was less inspiring but still interesting in a different way! I was also inspired by the lovely Ewan MacColl song ‘Sweet Thames Flow Softly’. I don’t know if you know it but it tells the tale of two people falling in love along the banks of the river, and then one of them thinks better of it in the end. I recommend the Rufus and Martha Wainwright version! Continue reading “Six From Anne Davies”

Frames of reference

Table Work

In my Scottish studio, I work on a table. Constructed in pine, it is rather battered but stable and came from a farmhouse in Gloucestershire. It was given to me by Lily Messenger, who had lived in Rodmarton before moving to Amberley, the village where we lived at that time. As our next-door neighbour, Mrs Messenger also lent me an attic room in which I worked for several years until we moved to Scotland in 1990. Before marriage, she had been Lily Bucknell, from a family of blacksmiths and wood-workers and who belonged to the Guild of Gloucestershire Craftsmen. This is only significant because my own Guild membership led to meeting highly skilled artists and craftsmen from whom I learned much concerning materials and ways of making things. Continue reading “Table Work”

Frames of reference