Christmas Tree
Carol Of The Bells
We are all off now for a spot of carol singing. Ding dong merrily and hail chime on.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
The Pursuit Of Happiness
This linocut print by Gail Brodholt shows skaters at Canary Wharf Ice Rink in Docklands participating in a festive communal ritual, chasing the glide, defying the cold and celebrating one of the many and various forms of slipping and sliding collectively known as winter sports. Their sinuous arabesques on the ice are contrasted with the checker board grids of the architecture. It’s Brice Marden versus Sean Scully. It’s snakes & ladders. Tis the season to play board games. Happy Christmas.
Back To The Studio
What is the best cure for frustration after an absurd flight from London to Berlin via Paris? Just cross the road and see the traffic light where a green-happy-chubby man in a hat is advising you either to cross or to wait. Continue reading “Back To The Studio”
Painting & Shopping In The South Of France
I like to travel and paint in France. It’s a big country full of surprises and contrasts. There are beautiful places to see in the north, east and west but I feel most alive in the south. It’s the light and the colours and the scent of the herbs in the hills. I even like it in the dark and cold of winter. Continue reading “Painting & Shopping In The South Of France”
A Studio With A View
A few weeks ago a friend came to see me here in Southern Spain. She told me on her last evening that one of the highlights of her stay had been making her way up the dangerously windy, steep and bumpy track to my house, which sits on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean, and seeing the view. It surprised me, although it shouldn’t have done, she’s an artist after all, and it’s true, the view from here is spectacular. Driving back down, what you see, although it’s a bit of a risk looking too much if you’re the one driving, is a huge uninterrupted expanse of blue sea and sky. And driving up it’s fields and mountains and on arrival the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Continue reading “A Studio With A View”
The Littlest Birds
For a couple of years now we have had Fanny Shorter‘s suite of exquisite screenprints featuring some of the world’s smallest birds, all of them depicted life size. They are beautiful and popular and fast becoming an endangered species. I sold two more today, which prompted this post, before they disappear altogether. Shown here is the Crimson-Hooded Manakin, a native of the northern coastal regions of South America, where its habitat is mangroves and riverside forests. It measures just 9 cms. Continue reading “The Littlest Birds”
History
The Rowley Gallery has been the kind provider of much of the discarded wood needed for a series of little buildings I have made this year. Continue reading “History”
Folly Hill
Today I visited Faringdon, Oxfordshire. A bright sunny day but with a sharp north wind. I climbed Folly Hill. A steep path rises from the edge of town between old stone walls and a tangled broken hedge of blackthorn and ivy. Continue reading “Folly Hill”
For Lord Glenconner
We were recently shown this double page from a Bonhams catalogue for the sale of the contents of the St Lucian property of Lord Glenconner. It marks the passing of a longstanding customer, who whenever he was in London it seemed, would bring us items for framing, sometimes beautiful, always exotic and unusual. He will be sadly missed. This drawing on glass of the Great House, Mustique was a gift from Princess Margaret in 1986. He has written this on the label. But that label, designed for us by Iain Bain in 1995 and used for the next ten years, shows that we must have framed it later. In fact, according to our records, we framed it in 2004 using a gessoed black frame with a gilded edge. After 18 years he had decided to reframe it. It is inscribed to the bottom left corner: To Colin with my best wishes for your 60th birthday with love from Margaret, December 1st 1986.