The forces of destruction and creation are harnessed in the paintings of David Hollington. Winter gives way to Spring in a new exhibition at Lauderdale House in Highgate, Apocalypse Of Love, from 29th May until 9th June. Join us for the private view, 7.30 – 10pm, Wednesday 29th May. More here.

Don’t Spill The Milk! is a new book by Stephen Davies and Christopher Corr, just published by Andersen Press. It’s their second collaboration and hopefully it will be just as successful as their first, The Goggle-Eyed Goats, which was launched last year at The Rowley Gallery.

This time it’s the moving story of Penda who lovingly carries a bowl of milk to her father, and brings a tear to your eye! It’s illustrated with joyful paintings, so bright and colourful and full of life you can almost hear them too. But best of all it’s dedicated to Kai and me! I’ve never been a dedicatee before!

Order the book here – Don’t Spill The Milk! – and see more Stephen Davies here – Ouagadougou.

This is Jelly Green‘s delightful painting of a Marybelle Jersey cow. The original was sold some months ago but now its mirror image is available as a T shirt from Boden. Do you wear it or do you frame it? The choice is yours. Limited edition. Catch them quick. More details here.

This comma butterfly suddenly appeared in my workshop just as the sun returned and the temperature rose. I didn’t see it come in, maybe it hatched indoors, and I didn’t see it leave either.

Perhaps that explains why this cocky robin keeps turning up. It’s been hopping around the joiner’s shop on three consecutive days so far, looking for titbits and crumbs, maybe butterflies too.

On one occasion I went down to answer the phone then came back to find my workbench ransacked, papers scattered on the floor and a surprisingly large dropping left behind, surely too much for a robin.

Over by the window sat this great big wood pigeon, flapping wildly at the glass when I approached. I opened the window and went back downstairs, leaving the pigeon to find its own way out. When I returned it was still there, raising a dust storm with its flapping, but it allowed me to lift it with two hands over its wings and release it through the window. Its not been back, but the robin has become a regular visitor. I’m thinking I should buy some mealworms.

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PS: I’ve now realised there are two robins though I can’t really tell them apart, it’s only when they turn up together I know they’re a pair, but I’ve not managed to photograph them both together yet.

On May Day, a public holiday given over to celebrations of fertility we went looking for maypoles and morris dancers. We went out to Epping Forest and parked by Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge. Straightaway, even before leaving the car, there were grand old characterful trees springing back into life, bursting with new born leaves. Maypoles and morris dancers proved more elusive.

We followed the Green Ride down Magpie Hill and across Chingford Plain by Cuckoo Pits and Bury Wood. Everyone was out enjoying the bank holiday sunshine, walking, running, cycling, riding (horses), flying (model planes), swimming (dogs), picnicking and frolicking all over the place.

I try not to photograph people unless I have their permission. It seems unkind to steal their image without asking. But up by Strawberry Hill Pond I inadvertently snapped a woman working-out on an exercise tree. Look closely above, right of the big tree, across the water and see tree tai chi.

This is such an idyllic, tranquil scene. It seems silent and empty, but there were ducks quacking, dogs swimming, children playing, and the music of their voices, shouts and barks and everywhere birdsong.

At Loughton Brook there is ‘a site of geomorphical interest’ and a sign which reads – The valley and meanders of Loughton Brook are a special feature and can be seriously damaged by cycling. It threads its way in great, winding, sinuous loops through the forest to the Roding then into the Thames.

Beneath the trees here, seen from the path, there were lovely, undulating banks and ditches. I should have gone for a closer look. Only later did I realise it was Loughton Camp, an Iron Age hill fort similar to the one at Ambresbury Banks further up the forest.

We headed for Baldwins Pond then climbed Baldwins Hill, one of the highest points in the forest with a good view over the tree tops from the Foresters Arms, a friendly pub with good beers and nice menu.

We retraced our steps back to the Green Ride and Sandpit Plain then walked on by Little Monk Wood to Mount Pleasant and Up & Down Ride. At High Beach the tea hut was busy with bank holiday motor-bikers, and the nearest trees busy conveniences!

All through the forest were occasional outbursts of crab apple blossom and lots of late blackthorn. As I write this, five days later, there has been a sudden and prolific outburst of new growth, lots of lush leaves. My favourites are fresh horse chestnut, now budding with candles too and the giant sycamore at the bottom of our garden is heavy with flowering tails. There’s also rowan, lilac, and cherry blossom, everywhere reminders of Samuel Palmer, though recent high winds have blown some away early.

We came back by Hill Wood and Almshouse Plain, pleased to find that Butlers Retreat was open again. It had been another Epping Forest tea hut but fell on hard times and last time we were here it seemed abandoned. Now it’s reborn and the perfect place to end a walk with ice cream and ginger beer. As for a maypole dance maybe we should’ve just popped down to the Brunswick Centre. Or maybe not.

For an earlier visit to the forest in wintertime see Epping Snow.

In March I participated in an annual papermaking swap with 40 papermakers from different countries. The package of papers which I received in the post from the organiser Elena Siff, of Etsy Papermakers Guild, introduced me to the diverse and creative papers of 40 paper artists like myself, each experimenting in their worlds of paper, plant fibres, colour and pulp. The variety and quality of the papers was wonderful and the experience was very inspiring.

Having worked on my own with paper for a long time I joined the Yahoo Papermakers Group, (many of the papermakers in the swap are in this group) and I am quickly discovering that papermakers everywhere are giving workshops to help people learn the skill of making paper by hand, which involves recycling, re-using, foraging, up-cycling, being both creative and practical, all at once, and which can lead to an income.

Most papermakers start off using a kitchen blender (you can also beat by hand with a thick piece of wood in a bucket) to pulp their plants and recycle their paper into a mulch ready for making paper. Cooking up and breaking down plant fibres is essential too, but this stage involves lye, or washing soda, and is best done away from the kitchen.

The very desirable step up from the kitchen blender however is to own a Hollander Beater, a machine usually way too expensive for the artisan papermaker… that is, until Mark Lander (an artist and papermaker from New Zealand) designed a portable and affordable version which is now available to papermakers. The Hollander Beater has the ability to happily handle anything stringy and tangly – plants from your garden, linen and cotton rags, and in large quantities too, rendering the plants suitable to make both decorative and functional papers, or simply huge amounts of pulp ready for moulding, casting and sculpting, and for someone or a group to establish a mill for small scale paper production.

Mark’s first ‘Critter’ (Hollander Beater) was made and sent by post, bit by bit, to the Womencraft project in Chicago, who were training the homeless in papermaking. Up until this point they had been using a line up of kitchen blenders to process office waste into the most beautiful cards and albums. It is now 12 years since Mark began his inspired and remarkable Critter Project and 358 machines have been made and sent all over the world. If you stacked them end to end they now stretch higher than the Empire State Building! His small profit margin and willingness to serve and provide has allowed him to make Critters for deserving causes. Take a look at Fancy Stitch, beautiful embroideries backed with amazing handmade papers. This project provides income for 400 families. Critters go to schools for the deaf in Tanzania, orphanages in India, one has even gone up the Amazon in a canoe!

This year there is a Spring Critter Promotion, which everyone can join in on. Mark has made an original woodcut print on his A1 poster sized New Zealand Flaxpaper, numbered and signed, this is folded up into an envelope for posting around the world. There are 130 in the edition, these are our ‘shares’ in a 2lb capacity machine. But this is the fun bit, when you enter the draw by using the link below you will receive one of the prints in the post shortly afterwards, and when all the tickets are sold Mark will do a draw and someone wins a Hollander, which he has made especially for this event. Keep it if you are a papermaker, or if you want, you can donate it to a charity that will really appreciate and benefit from using one of these marvelous machines. Just ask Mark and he will be able to advise you. The winner will be contacted directly. To buy a print please click here.

The Hollander beats rather than cuts the fibres,so it has the capacity to make very strong pulp for papermaking. I received my print in the post today and the paper itself is stunning, so many long fibres make a beautiful texture in an almost transparent paper with beautiful soft edges. The photo does not do this print justice. You can choose your number and the print will press flat on arrival. Although I don’t need any extra encouragement to get excited about the draw and to have faith in Mark’s promotion actually receiving the print has renewed my enthusiasm!

Please see Mark Lander and The Critter Project for more information.

Annabel Keatley / The Rowley Gallery

The exhibition Compass finishes soon so Art@42 are having a Closing Party on Thursday 16th May. Please RSVP to the gallery.

My Pharmacopoeia colleague, Liz Lee was featured on TV last week in the BBC 2 series Keeping Britain Alive – The NHS in a Day. Watch it on iPlayer.

www.cradletograve.org

Susie Freeman / The Rowley Gallery

Christopher Corr sent us photographs from the top of the Shard. Luckily he has a head for heights. He’d been invited to see the panoramic views across London. He took photographs and made sketches for a painting. A souvenir print will soon be available in the Shard shop.

Gherkin

Tate Modern

Billingsgate

Bridges & River

Tower Bridge

Tower of London

Bank & City

Elephant & Castle

Cannon Street green roof

River Thames east

River Thames west

Shard viewing

Shard viewing top

Shard inner view

For a 360° panorama click here and for an earlier view of the Shard click here.

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PS: Since writing the above, we received these below, Christopher Corr’s response to The View…

This is a postcard from the Fashion and Textile Museum, a souvenir of their exhibition Kaffe Fassett: A Life In Colour. It took me back to the 1970s when his influence was everywhere, in style and fashion and probably in my paintings too which were full of colourful stripes in those days. There’s a common myth that the 70s were a brown decade but this exhibition is a reminder that there was an exuberant riot of colour which has continued to the present day.

I’d not been to Bermondsey Street before. There are chic boutiques, gentrified warehouses, a nice collection of cafés, pubs, bars and barbers, a 17th century church and an industrial scale White Cube.

There are browns and greys, weathered reds and orange, pink and saffron. The warm colours of the Fashion and Textile Museum suggest Luis Barragán, but in fact it was designed by one of his disciples, fellow Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta. Inside the colours just get louder; the entrance hall has been specially painted in a fanfare of vivid yellow, turquoise, orange, blue and pink stripes. To be honest, at this point I almost turned around, though 40 years ago I would’ve loved it. Beyond this garish welcome the spectacle did quieten down a little with mementoes of Kaffe Fassett’s early years.

He was born in San Francisco in 1937 then moved with his parents in 1948 to Big Sur in northern California. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and later the Art Students League in New York. A meeting with Christopher Isherwood in 1964 prompted him to move to England, first to Bath then to Notting Hill in 1965. He made still life paintings inspired by objects collected in Portobello Road. In 1966 he met fashion designer Bill Gibb who introduced him to knitting which in turn led to an interest in all kinds of textiles. In the 1970s he met Hugh Ehrman and began designing for his tapestry company, then in 1980 he started collaborating with Rowan yarns and in the 1990s he was introduced to patchwork by the American quilter Liza Prior Lucy. All of this is reflected in a rich and joyous exhibition, an enthusiastic cornucopia overflowing with his prodigious energy.

It’s clear that he has a magpie’s eye and enjoys finding inspiration in the work of other artists. There are echoes here of Matisse, Klimt, Hundertwasser, Stella, Scully and probably more I didn’t recognise.

There are sketches and design drawings, display cases full of inspirational objects, scraps, mementoes, a beautifully embroidered ruby chard and radish, then back outside it seemed as if Kaffe Fassett had also been at work painting in the street.

Kaffe Fassett: A Life In Colour is south east of the Shard, on Bermondsey Street, until 29th June.

The Pelmeni Poets (named after a favourite Siberian dumpling) are hosting an evening of readings at The Duke of Wellington in Islington on 8th May featuring work by Tim Cumming, Natan Barreto, Anne-Marie Fyfe, Katha Pollitt, Rosie Shepperd and Liane Strauss. More information here – Pelmeni