70 Trees

It’s April 2023, and I will be 70 years old. What better way to mark the occasion than to plant 70 trees, not in the ground, but in the window of the Rowley Gallery. I sent out a call to 70 artists and got lots of replies. I could plant a small forest. So here’s a small celebration of trees, of their variety and complexity, their shelter and enchantment, and all their green, filtered, numinous enlightenment. Continue reading “70 Trees”

Frames of reference

Flowers From A London Garden

There’s a new exhibition in The Rowley Gallery window – eighteen freshly picked watercolours from Fanny Shorter’s garden. She dressed the window with her Mill Oak fabric and Margo wallpaper and arranged her flowers in what is now The Rowley Gallery garden. And she also wrote a blogpost… Continue reading “Flowers From A London Garden”

Frames of reference

A Winter Windowland

It’s like a compilation album with hits from all your favourite artists. They just take a bit of finding. And whilst you’re looking you might discover something new, something previously overlooked. You might even need to come inside and look around. But quick, it’s getting late. Continue reading “A Winter Windowland”

Frames of reference

For Kai

photo: Alastair Grant

Kai arrived at The Rowley Gallery over 30 years ago, I can’t be sure of the exact date, but her name back then was Kathy. And to all who knew her in pre-Rowley days she always remained Kathy. But there was already another Cathy at The Rowley Gallery so she abbreviated her name to Ka. That was her Chinese name. But pronounced Kai, so that was how she spelt it thereafter. To avoid confusion. Continue reading “For Kai”

Frames of reference

Twelve Little Birds

And three parrots. Our window this month at the Rowley Gallery is home to a diverse flock of brightly coloured miniature tropical birds. It’s an aviary of twelve unique life-size watercolour paintings. The parrots are screen prints. And they are all by Fanny Shorter, whose work we have been lucky enough to show for the past ten years now, during which time she has developed from a printmaker of exquisite little birds and fishes into an internationally renowned textile designer. So it was a great pleasure to ask her to make twelve little paintings, just for a change. Continue reading “Twelve Little Birds”

Frames of reference

Intricacy Of Nature

In November last year Fanny Shorter won the 2014 COADG Bursary which meant that, among other things, she had a film made about her by R&A Collaborations

Fanny is a designer and printmaker. Her distinctive, detailed work is largely inspired by her very English upbringing. She won the 2014 Confessions of a Design Geek Bursary of which this film was part of the prize.

The daughter of a physics teacher and a music teacher, she grew up in a school in Winchester, surrounded by idyllic countryside and historic buildings in an aesthetically crowded house crammed with prints and patterns on books, plates, cushions, rugs and wallpaper.

English holidays, frequents visits to the V&A, the Natural History Museum and National Trust properties as well as an entire childhood in a school are an evident and enduring influence.

See more by Fanny Shorter at The Rowley Gallery.

Frames of reference

All Blues

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Seen on the way to the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, thanks to God’s Own Junkyard, a parade of shops on Blackhorse Lane feels the William Morris effect, the spirit of regeneration brought to the area by the museum’s own renovation, with maybe a few ripples of Olympic legacy. Continue reading “All Blues”

Frames of reference