A Sussex Albion

Finished this today. 

William Blake and his wife metaphorically cast out from the Garden of Eden - or rather in this case Felpham - Adam and Eve style, after the incident with the soldier, and overlooked by one of his angels that lived in the trees.

Most of the cuttings for this collage came from a stash of old National Geographics - I believe the thatch in reality is a desert and the angel's robe, for instance, part of the Lascaux caves.

I love these transformations.

Anyway, it's a relief to have finished it at last.

Its completion coincides with my beginning a new book tomorrow which may or may not provide me with food for thought for my next House......

Wrestling with Blake

This is possibly my most difficult one so far, in that it has so far caused not one but two headaches. There is a lot of standing up involved in making a collage, what am I saying, more standing up than sitting down. And the combination with a bowed head is not good. Last night I feared a migraine so took myself off to bed with the cats locked out. Ooof, very serious that. They are still sulking..

The hippy lookalike is gone and replaced with a tree which I hope looks a bit Blakean with some sheep and vapours. Blake was big on sheep. (While I am in danger of contracting the vapours). In fact I may put this vignette on the back burner for a painting at some point.

Hopefully it's all looking very Albion-y and green and pleasant landish. I think I'd like to go for a walk through this garden.

Oh, and the significance of the scythe - I nearly forgot:
"In the summer of 1803 Blake found in the garden of his cottage a soldier, called in by the gardener, it seems, to cut the grass. Blake did not like soldiers; he was against war as such, and against the war of English intervention in France in particular. He ordered the intruder out by main force. Ill-advised words followed, reported as "Damn the King, and damn all his soldiers, they are all slaves"; and some remarks about Napoleon more fitted to the mouth of a French than of an English poet ..."

The upshot was poor old Blake was tried at Chichester for treason but eventually acquitted.

Bring me my scissors of delight ...

Well, it's got a catchy tune ... and I am enjoying getting stuck into this (puns'r'us). It's getting to the complicated, decisions-to-be-decided-upon stage. I always seem to start with the windows, I find they concentrate my mind wonderfully.

Blake and Catherine, his long-suffering wife, were known for stripping off in their garden in Lambeth so I have no doubt they did so in the far less urban surroundings of Felpham, so there they are. At the moment.

"I have very little of Mr Blake's company," Catherine was quoted as saying, "he is always in Paradise."
So I must place much more paradaisical green and pleasant vegetation in here to compliment the Adam and Eve of Felpham.

The archway I think may have been a later addition to the cottage but I have purloined it for 1800 as it has a Blakean, grotto-like feel. The scythe represents an infamous episode which led to Blake's trial for treason in Chichester, which I will relate in my next post being as I am pressed for time right now.

The angels .... Blake used to converse with them and see them in trees. I am not sure the more finished one on the left isn't influenced by my last post and Alan's comments - a bit flower-powery and harking back to those art school days of mine.

Entirely unlooked for effect.
Such is the power of the subconscious...

Beginning with Blake

My love of William Blake dates back to my art school days when he fitted in with all that rebellion, mysticism and downright morbid angst to which spotty youth is so prone. Bedsits with Athena posters of Blake's engraving of Newton, funny cigarettes and vile smelling joss sticks ... those were the days... Blake spans such a wonderful period of English history, being born just before Romanticism really got underway , in 1757 and dying in 1827.

A dyed in the wool Londoner, he nevertheless has a connection to my favourite county, Sussex, having lived in the idyllic village of Felpham for three years (1800-1803) during which time he produced the strangely wondrous words for Jerusalem. The cottage, then called Rose Cottage, still stands but is privately owned.
So I have decided it is to be my next collage capture.

Here is the roughest of rough beginnings:

And here is an engraving of the building by the great man himself:

I think the blue is too strong. I want to keep to the true Blakean palette. That means a lot of whittling down of cuttings scraps ... watch this space!

Sold

 Thank you to the person who bought these two paintings at the ABNA show in St Ives at the weekend.

I am very fond of them so am pleased they have found a good home.

Cut Off

The Blue Boat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Out of season's greetings from Miss Austen ...

I glued in the last snowflake (which all look suspiciously like the cotton wool balls my dad and I used to make for the Christmas tree when I was really small) this afternoon.

 

The light wasn't very good so it's a bit dark and there is about 3 and a half centimetres chopped off on either side because my camera doesn't do nice slimline rectangles, only dumpy ones. When I have better images on the Canon I will replace all the duff photos I have taken of late. As it is there are just one-and-a-half robins on either side of the house instead of two.
But I wanted to upload it because I then feel it is done and out there and I am freed to start on something else.

Mrs Austen in her pyjamas has gone. And that may or may not be Martha Lloyd in the doorway putting out the cat. The swirly lines have writing on. Which may or may not (ambiguous moi?) be words written by Jane Austen, a Christmas carol or just a simple swirl of seasonal fog. Or all three. I gave the neighbour bearing holly a black dog. The Dilke's refugee cat is back in the scraps box.

Christmas always reminds me of childhood. And one of the things I loved most in the run up was opening envelopes from aged relatives containing those dated (even then) cheapo cards with cheesy scenes of coaches and four, snow, glowing mullioned windows and rosy cheeked people in strange old-fashioned clothes. Often liberally sprinkled in glitter. I thought they were wonderful and would wish myself into the jolly scenes. As I got older and more sophisticated (who am I kidding?) I would outwardly make fun of them while still sneakily getting a thrill if one came through the post.

So now I produce this design. I think there are some echoes in there. My past is catching up on me ...

Beavering away on Chawton Cottage

Okay, so some of this is stuck down and some is in a state of flux. Is this a metaphor for my life I ask myself in ironic tone.

I am afraid it is becoming a bit unwieldy. For a "cottage" Jane Austen's was a bit of a humdinger as far as size goes. I have had to add on more at the sides as I go along to try to approximate to the rather grand proportions.

Looks like the turkey might be squeezed out. But there goes Jane Austen crossing the street. And her mum is at the door. Though she looks a wee bit too much like she is in her pyjamas at the moment so that will have to be changed.

I have been mugging up on Chawton Cottage for some background info: It was already 120 years old when the Austens moved in, part of Jane's brother Edward's estate. He improved it quite a lot for them, adding on more rooms at the back, apparently. Jane, her mother, her sister and their friend Martha Lloyd were not the only inhabitants, there were several servants. No wonder the place is a bit of a sprawler rather than a poky two up two downer with roses round the door traditional building associated with the word "cottage".

And it must have had an interesting view, looking out as it did over the main road to Winchester with all the comings and goings of the coaches that that implies. And the clatter. In fact in one of her letters Jane describes looking out of the front window and seeing the face of one of her nephews inside a passing coach.

Anyway, enough of this and back to the drawing board. I am setting myself a this week deadline for this larger-than-usual piece.

A Happy Christmas in July ...

I always did prefer cold to heat so what better time to put together my Jane Austen Christmas card design?

As the petunias wilt, brittle rubber tree leaves clatter to the ground and the cats sprawl in the shade, here am I in the cool and clutter of the studio moving bits of paper around the drawing board and trying to imagine myself into a Regency December in Hampshire kinda mood.

The idea came to me when I stumbled upon a contemporary engraving of holly sellers. I don't know if that's a holly seller approaching Chawton Cottage or one of the neighbours, but either way he gave me the way in to the picture: Probably not raggety enough for a seller now I come to think of it. A neighbour then. With a gift of holly and fir from his fields to deck the Chawton Cottage halls.

On the left is a refugee - surplus cat from the Dilke tribe in Keats House I found in my box of unused bits and pieces.

He may yet be transformed into a turkey. I am not sure that turkeys had got their feet on the Christmas traditions ladder or do I mean under the traditional Christmas meal table at that time, probably not, but I will conveniently ignore the fact. I fancy doing a turkey.

In the meantime I am pleased to announce the unveiling yesterday of my (still under construction) new website:

http://www.amandawhite-contemporarynaiveart.com/

Please drop by and have a look if you have the time, as I say I am still faffing around with it so there are lots of blanks and things that probably need blanking come to that. Golly I am getting so au fait with technology I can't believe it.

Jane Austen collage, finished at last

Jane and Cassandra Austen Tending Their Garden at Steventon

Phew! Finished at last. Has this been my most fiddly to date? Probably. It has also been a bit of a mission tracking down suitable prints that I thought fitted the period.

My admittedly shallow researches so far didn't actually turn up any references to either Jane or her sister Cassandra tending their garden at Steventon Rectory, their practical enthusiasms seemed channelled into putting their ensembles together and attending dances but I daresay they may have done some genteel pruning or cutting of flowers for the house.

But they most certainly did patchwork.
In a letter written to Cassandra in 1811 Jane wrote:
"Have you remembered to collect pieces for the patchwork - we are now at a standstill?" And I believe one is on display at the Jane Austen Museum in Chawton. So I've got that right, anyway

I don't seem to be able to capture the brightness of this picture. I've taken about a dozen shots but none of them come up to the mark. I'm looking forward to getting some professional style photos taken by my daughter when she arrives at the back end of July.
Bear with me!

The Austen Rectory taking shape

But more slowly than I would wish given distractions, various. Which is to say watching too much Wimbledon and hacking back ivy and an African creeper (I really don't know its proper name, African creeper is what a friend from South Africa used to call it so I bow to her superior knowledge) in the arbour I'm trying to get tidied up for use as an outdoors painting den. Yes, painting. Certainly not collaging - the bits would scatter to the four breezes.

And I will have to share with the cats as they think it's theirs. Although they seem to have gone off it at the moment. But cats are like that. As soon as they see someone else muscling in on their former territory I daresay the arbour will become all the rage with them.

I will post a picture at some point once it is respectable.

In the meantime I post the above work-in-slow-progress shot. To make me feel I am getting somewhere. The colours are much brighter but I can't move the piece to better light without much of it going awol.

It has acquired Pollock's Toy Museum-style drapes. And Jane and sister Cassandra with lady-like trugs doing some lady-like gardening. (I don't think hacking back alien creepers would have registered on their horizon). So you see life does sometimes reflect art. Or should that be the other way around?

Steventon Rectory

Steaming ahead with Jane Austen

Sort of.......

It went from this earlier start

But still a long way to go.

Steventon Rectory was the home of Jane Austen for the first 25 years of her life. The place was torn down many years ago and there is now nothing left of it except a water pump in the middle of a field, so I am treating it as a bit of a fairy tale with more than a sideways (or backwards) glance at the simply stunning quilt exhibition at the V&A last year and to childrens' samplers of the time. 

Jane's letters are full of references to fabrics and sewing projects so the idea of a patchwork effect feels right.

Let us see how it goes.

Defeated by technology

The computer man came to give my computer some much-needed oomph the other day and install a new second-hand printer. And enable some things and disable others. Among which last appears to be my facility to upload photos from my camera and bung them into a file. Or even to upload anything from existing files onto here. I am sure it is still there somewhere. Unfortunately I haven't a clue where. Or how. Or what.
So the photo I took of my latest work-in-progress (the now demolished Steventon Rectory) languishes in my camera.
Just thought I'd pop in to say that and explain my continuing silence.
An artist's blog without a picture isn't worth the cyber paper it's printed on.

Okay..... I have managed to get to upload stuff, namely this Brontë drawing, from my existing files.
New photos are still a mystery though.
I'm working on it...

I hope to resume normal communication soon.

Who's afraid of the Long Man of Wilmington?

Night and Day, Monk's House, Rodmell.

Nobody, now he's been restored to his original form after that massive aberration (is this the word I am searching for I wonder?) given him by some pranksters a couple of years back. So here he is, not in need of any modesty foliage, guardian of the South Downs and Virginia Woolf's countryside retreat.

It is many years since I visited it but I remember it as a place of wonderful tranquility and dense greenery. Some of that greenery I had to sacrifice in this picture in order to allow for the sight of the house itself. Inside it was almost like being underwater, what with the shrubs and trees pressing up against the small windows and the walls being painted in a lovely antiquey pale green shade.

Given Woolf's untimely end that is perhaps unfortunate. 

Or maybe fitting.

Anyway, I'm fairly happy with this one.

Now onto someone else's house......

Who will it be I wonder?

Tweaking away at Monk's House ...

.....Described as "a modest brick and flint dwelling, weather-boarded on the street side", it was bought by the Woolfs in 1919, the year of the publication of Night and Day (hence the moon and the sun) for all of 700 quid. It had no bath, hot water or even a toilet.

As Quentin Bell puts it:
"On September 1st they loaded two waggons with their possessions, crossed the Ouse and moved into Monk's House ... Virginia was obliged to admit to herself she was depressed. Whether the melancholy arose from the comparative imperfections of her new house or from the fact that Duckworth was about to publish Night and Day is not easily determined."

I am no Virginia Woolf but I have to say, in a flippant aside, that the possession of hot and cold running water and a toilet does contribute greatly to my happy-ometer. The personal hygiene arrangements - or rather the lack of them - of past generations has always been a deeply interesting subject for me.

Anyway, to get back to the picture in hand, I am now seeing my way with it and plan to include the Long Man of Wilmington which I am quite sure cannot be seen from Monk's House but is in the vicinity, well about 10 miles off. He is a figure, originally carved from the chalk uplands, regarded as a guardian of the South Downs. So in he goes. Tomorrow
For now, it's back to the drawing board ...

The Woolfs' Retreat

Virginia and Leonard, that is, in the East Sussex countryside.

Near Lewes.

This is still at the planning and moving around and humming and ha-ing stage, as you see. But I needed to take a photo just in case the lot went flying and I was left with bits on the studio floor and a paper puzzle to solve.

Next to Keats and his circle come the Bloomsberries in my affections. I caught both early - in my teens - and they persist all these years later. In fact now I come to think of it the first two things I bought myself with the first wages I earned in my first job was a smelly Afghan jacket and the two volume biography of Virginia Woolf by her nephew Quentin Bell.

Many years and thousands of kilometres later I still have the books. 

God knows what happened to that absolutely frightful jacket.

Haworth Parsonage Revisited

I have done another Haworth for the ABNA show. Slightly smaller with transportation in mind. It's a tighter composition and has the addition of Victoria and Adelaide, the Brontë geese exiting stage left. The moors are darker and the moon has a yellowish tinge though it probably doesn't show up much on the photo.


Comparing the two reminds me a bit of those spot the difference pictures you used to get in comics years ago.
I did consider putting Black Tom, the Brontë cat into the mix but haven't so far. However, there is still another 24 hours before I take this to the framers - anything might happen!

British Naives

It's that time of year again - parcelling up some pictures for the annual Association of British Naive Artists show in St Ives. Actually it isn't because the date has been brought forward so it's not nearly a year since the last exhibition  ... Pictures to arrive by June 14 deadline. 

Anyway, I am away tomorrow to my friendly local framer with these:

Three of them are on paper so would be a liability to send to the UK behind glass so I am going to see how they look with the unbreakable synthetic alternative (whispers: "plastic") but the sheet I was shown last week looked good.

I may send in the Haworth collage too but haven't decided yet.

The show runs from July 9 to 22 at the Crypt Gallery.

Bookmarks and a stroll around town

This is what is on my table this morning:

One bookmark design finished and the next at the assemblage-and-chopping-and-changing stage. And the book I borrowed last week, Haworth Harvest by N Brysson Morrison which is an enjoyable and untaxing read, devoid of the dreaded footnote disease and full of interesting little nuggets. I just wish it didn't smell of old (this is one of my daughters' most withering descriptions). Or should that be wuthering?

I called in at our local modern art museum the day before yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to find the collection had been changed since last time when I must say the preponderence of crusty, dusty fifties and sixties abstracts in various shades of mud and deterioration had detained me less than 10 minutes.

This time around I was bowled over by two tiny Eileen Agar pastels, one of which is below:

Not a very good reproduction I'm afraid as I was taking the photo undercover. In real life the colours sang out and here they look more like they are doing more of a bit of a muffled hum. Agar spent the winter in Puerto de la Cruz for several years in the 1950s. As did another British painter I admire, Dot Procter. 

And here is another picture I was taken with, by Canary Island artist Lola Massieu:

The collection is housed in a beautiful 17th century mansion overlooking the fishing port, and was once the local customs house. It deserves to be better known and better visited. Unfortunately it suffers from another disease I am averse to (see above), namely acronym disease. The letters MACEW will mean absolutely nothing to 99% of people but that is the big sign under which the building labours (standing for Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Eduardo Westendahl). So potential visitors who don't go a bundle on figuring out word games simply pass it by. There was just one other person strolling around when I went in. 

The woman on the desk, who was very knowledgeable about the paintings and artists, seemed touchingly pleased to see us.

Haworth Parsonage pet picture

I finished this today. 

At least I think it's finished.

Not terribly happy with this photo as I am missing about an inch of empty space to the right. One day I will get around to finding out how to crop images instead of just bunging them in as they come on the camera.

Anyway, it depicts part of the Brontë menagerie: Flossy the dog, Victoria and Adelaide the geese and Little Dicky the canary. There were cats too and a falcon and other dogs but I think it had to be a case is less is more for this image. Paring back is generally the best bet.

The animals seemed to have mostly belonged to Emily and Anne. Charlotte could, apparently, take them or leave them. Patrick Brontë their father had a couple of dogs called Cato and Plato in his last years. 

I quite fancy doing a picture of those three. Possibly outside the church. In the snow. 

Mmmmm ... time to do some thinking with my biro and book.

Back to the drawing board

Spending time gathering my thoughts and ideas in my doodle book, as you see, and happy to have abandoned yesterday's aberration.

I picked up a book about the Brontës in the library this morning. It smelt rather old and musty and hadn't been taken out in seven years, but the first sentence I read was this:
"Emily's interior life was as spacious as the landscape that met the gaze from the field path behind the parsonage and against so ultimate a background everything was simplified."

I really liked that.

So I have brought it home to give it an airing and see what emerges.

More scribbling, most probably ....