A bit of a to-do in Suffolk – FolkEast 2015

"A fresh approach to a timeless tradition . . .on the ancient parkland at Glemham Hall, where, for three days of the year, the folk of the East and their families gather for a bit of a to-do" 

Today I'm tired (understatement!) late last night Cliff and I got home after 3 days at FolkEast where I had a stall in the Art Arcade – we were in the long marquee you can see in the background of this photo . . .

As you can see, this year the dance floor for the Morris Dancers is located right in the centre of the Art Arcade, which meant we were almost constantly entertained with very energetic dancing (video by paper cut artist Claire Knight), music, clashing sticks and thudding drums. It made us feel even more part of the festival.

That huge domes tent is the home of The Social Knitworks, oh how I wish I'd had time to spend inside! Early on Saturday before the Art Arcade opened for business, I ran across to take a peep inside . . . LOOK! a beautiful cool shady world - an allotment, guinea pigs in a hutch, a shed! all created in yarn AND they were serving proper pots of tea at lovely little tables.

Most of the time I was demonstrating linocutting and chatting to lots of lovely interested and interesting people – that's what is so fabulous about FolkEast, the people! Musicians, dancers, techies, crew, stallholders and visitors were all such a great bunch.

This was my view for most of the weekend while Cliff restocked the stall with cards and served customers.

If there was a quieter moment one of us looked after my stand while the other dashed round to grab some food and have a quick look around. On one such circuit I met some delightful Suffolk residents . . . 

. . . donkeys revelling in the sunshine, taking time out to snack on the grass

. . . and this gorgeous lady, Olive the Suffolk Punch mare, isn't she so beautiful?! She was wonderfully placid and her air of calm as she muched her hay in the sunshine, seemed to sum up the mood of the weekend.

After closing up our stall at around 6.30pm we were free to wander round and enjoy the music. There were 5 stages this year, above you can see the aptly named Sunset Stage with the Suffolk sky on Friday evening almost upstaging the performances.

For most of the weekend we basked (almost melted) in the hottest temperatures of this summer. But on Sunday afternoon the heavens spectacularly opened with a deluge! The dancers took cover, some in our marquee, but the performances continued in the rain. There were a lot of very soggy costumes!

Over the weekend, inspired by the array of head wear that paraded past my stall, I cut a set of small blocks featuring folk dancers' hats. I think they turned out well, so I'll make some prints and maybe cards from these.

It was difficult to choose what to buy as a souvenir of the weekend, there were beautiful ceramic cups and saucers, baskets, hats, sea-glass jewellery . . . in the end I bought a snowdrop card from my neighbouring stall holder Sue Sullivan; a pen fashioned from a Golden Syrup tin and a Ribboned Ash wood spoon by Ed Mitchell-Finch; and a hand woven purse made from plant-dyed yarns and waste fibres by Zoe Wood.

The rain stopped before the final evening performances so we could sit outside to eat our supper and enjoy the music in the misty darkness. I particularly enjoyed the energetic music of the French-Canadian trio Ten Strings and a Goat Skin - you can find a taster of their music here.

Thank you to Mandy Walden for organising the Art Arcade, to John and Becky for marvellously inventing FolkEast and making it better and better each year and the thousands of folk who gathered together to make it happen.

Celia

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Plants & Crafts at Wyken

Before I get immersed in work I'll tell you about the event I was part of on Sunday . . .

Plants & Crafts in the Garden at Wyken 2015

Wyken Vineyards is in West Suffolk, about 50 minutes drive from my studio, I've visited many times and it is lovely!

After last week's glorious warm sunshine it was a shame the weather turned back to grey and very chilly for the weekend, on Saturday night the heavens opened and we got the rain – the first for 6 weeks! It was an early start for me and just after 8am I was setting up my stall in the 'Farmers' Market' cart sheds. I just had time to visit the exhibitors' loo, located in the cute little red cottage above, and run round the end of the cart sheds past ranks of pre-loved buckets and garden spades and forks before the customers started streaming in! 

Here's a quick snap of part of my pitch, I'm pleased to say the cards attracted lots of people and I was constantly restocking the stand.

This was my view for most of the day . . .

I had agreed to demonstrate linocutting, I hadn't anything planned or sketched out so I quickly drew sone Auriculas in pots directly onto the lino and got cutting – the lino was icy cold and hard! 

I used small ink pads to ink the block and took prints at stages to show progress. By the end of the day I'd almost completed a small print . . . I'll do a few tweaks and print an edition of these next week.

This was a lovely event, I hope I'll be invited back next year. The only downside was the weather, by the end of the day I was chilled and stiff - so it was a wonderful surprise to see Cliff arrive to help me pack up and load up the car.

After a hot bath, a glass of red wine and supper of rib eye steak and lots of vegetables, I was much revived.

The best thing about the day was all the lovely interesting people that I met and chatted with. 


I came home with a few treats for myself and our garden:
a Campanula pyramidalis Alba plant from Sue of Bellflower Nursery; a made to measure leather belt to hold up my jeans, from Mark of White Buffalo Crafts; a pretty spotty jug from Rob Wheeler and a beautiful yellow Auricula from John Hewson.

This week I'm up against a deadline for completion of two large woodcuts for the back and front of a book jacket . . . a lot of carving to do!

Look out for Gardens Illustrated, I loved working on the illustration for the May issue – I'll be back with a blog about that soon.

Celia
xx

Redgrave and Lopham Fen through the seasons

In late April we visited Redgrave and Lopham Fen on the border of Suffolk and Norfolk, it was Spring – the leaves were fresh and bright green, the reeds beds were full of birds, bright flowers spangled the heath and marsh and we heard the calls of the cuckoo and bittern . . . it inspired this linocut.

Yesterday we returned, our intention was to have a long quiet walk – but when we arrived we found dozens of cars in an overflow carpark! Suffolk Wildlife Trust were hosting a Apple Day Fair, it looked like fun so we paid the entrance money and went in for a look around . . .

There were lots of apples!

and some cute hedgehogs!

I bought bargain plants and vintage garden tools

and then we went for our walk . . .

Redgrave and Lopham Fen is large enough to feel like a wilderness; the weather was perfect – warm and breezy – for a day striding out between the rustling reed beds.

I love the textures at Redgrave and Lopham Fen, especially the vertical patterns of the reeds broken up with areas of water that reflect the sky.

The swirling patterns of this willow's bark echoed the movement of the reeds and leaves in the wind.

Sunlight illuminated the vivid olive green lichen on the Elder bushes,

and the russets of the Teasel heads.

Along a green lane outside the reserve we came across the quintessential toadstool – the Fly Agaric. 

And back inside the nature reserve area we stumbled upon lots of Giant Puffballs  . . . and these really were giants! as you can see compared to our OS map . . .

. . . or to my toes!
The puffball on the left has been munched by something, the one on the right has matured and is puffing out spores.

However tempting the thought of bacon fried with slices of puffball for supper, we left them untouched.

As we made our way back across the fen we met the resident herd of Konik ponies, these were introduced in 1995 to graze the vegetation prevent scrub invading the precious heath and marshy grassland habitats. Native British ponies aren't suited to living in these tough, wet conditions but these Polish ponies thrive. Konik ponies have the characteristics of the now extinct Tarpan – an primitive type of horse that roamed the plains of Europe after the Ice Age. These beautiful stocky ponies look as if they've walked out of a neolithic cave painting! They were very placid and didn't mind a bit that I took loads of photos – I think they'll be appearing in a print inspired by Autumn at Redgrave and Lopham Fen.

I hope you had chance to enjoy the unexpected warm sunny weekend, before we batten down the hatches for the first of the Autumn gales.

Celia

xx

Winter Evening in Bull's Wood - linocut and cards

Last year's festive season was only just out of the way when I was contacted to talk Christmas Cards for 2014! It was a request from Suffolk Wildlife Trust for a donated image suitable for one of their cards.

I had a think . . . my prints suitable for Christmas cards were already being sold as my own card designs; in 2013 I'd produced some Christmas cards in the most economical way I could without compromising quality and I realised that customers either wanted much cheaper cards OR preferred to buy Charity Cards. So as Suffolk Wildlife Trust is one of my favourite charities, I decided to offer a brand new design and invited them choose a subject.

Suffolk Wildlife Trust suggested I illustrated a winter scene in one of their lesser known reserves – I selected one that was not too far from my studio . . .

Bull's Wood

It was a mild late January afternoon that I arrived at Bull's Wood . . . of rather, a farm yard where I could park 'tidily' before heading off down a track towards woodland a couple of fields away.

Stepping into Bull's Wood is like being transported back in time, it is a small remnant (about 30 acres) of 'the many woods of Cockfield' which where recorded in the Hundred Rolls in 1279, and those woods had probably existed for centuries before then and were in constant use by villagers who harvested poles and timber, grazed animals, foraged and hunted. The ecosystem of the woodland is entwined with lives of the people. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the woodland was destroyed as fields were enclosed and ploughed up to plant crops. Somehow Bull's Wood survived and today it is managed by volunteers who coppice the Ash and Hazel just as it has been done for a millennium.

I walked around the wood getting to know its specialness. The strange shapes of the ancient Ash stumps, the textures of the branches and the scale of the tall Oaks. I took photographs for reference of particular details, but mainly I let a composition come together in my mind.

I wanted to depict Bull's Wood on a cold winter's evening, so would need to do some research and work from experience and imagination. At home I put down my ideas in my sketch book, including animals I knew would be in the wood on a December evening . . . a Tawny Owl roosting in an Ivy covered tree, a Roe Deer in a clearing near the pond and a flock of Redwings arriving from Scandinavia to feast on the berries.

It was Spring when I carved the detailed lino block and a wood block from which to print the red colour to make the trees glow in the setting sun.

I decided to wait until Autumn before selling the prints, to coincide with Suffolk Wildlife Trust publicising their new cards for Christmas 2014. These are two of the finished original prints ready for the Market Place Gallery in Olney and my exhibition at the Church Street Gallery in Saffron Walden this month.

And here's another I framed last night to replace one in my exhibition that has already sold.

Winter Evening in Bull's Wood

The cards are available from many shops around Suffolk and here on the Suffolk Wildlife Trust web site. They are blank inside, so if you'd prefer a seasonal message you could use a rubber stamp (either buy one or make one - I'll try to blog about how to do this when I'm making one for the cards I'll be sending).

I'm very happy that this year the proceeds from these 100% donated cards will help target conservation efforts to turn around the fortunes of Suffolk’s hedgehogs.

Celia

xx

An evening orchid hunt in the SW corner of Suffolk

We've just been on an orchid hunt . . .

The first one we spied was this bright cerise Southern Marsh Orchid, just starting to open.

Next we found some beautiful spires of palest mauve speckled flowers of the Common Spotted Orchid

And on our return route we found some lovely tall stems of the Pyramidal Orchid just coming into flower.

And nearby I was thrilled to find lots of gorgeous Bee Orchids.

Close up you can see the bee-like lower petal.

Then I spotted . . . not another orchid but a Broomrape, possibly Common Broomrape, but after consulting 'A Flora of Suffolk' I found there are many species and sub-species each specific to a different host plant and particular habitat - Broomrapes are parasitic. Amazingly a Broomrape seed can seek out and attach itself to particular species of plant's root and when it detects it has found the right host, it germinates and plugs itself into the host plant's vascular system and grows a flowering stem.

This is where we were orchid hunting . . . it isn't a nature reserve, it's the 'flood-park' on the edge of Haverhill opposite a supermarket and a DIY store. The lake and marshy meadow surrounded by high embankments is a safety-valve allowing the swollen waters of the Stour Brook to be diverted by sluices and prevent flooding in the town centre.

It's worth looking for wildflowers wherever you are . . . you never know what you may find.

Celia

xx

The last post

A sad sign of tough times in rural England . . .

For the past 15 years, when I needed to send a parcel, buy stamps, get some cash or pick up a prescription, I have driven to the next small village – just over the gently rolling hills and down into the next valley – to this shop and Post Office.

Over that time there have been three owners – the first I remember was a gently spoken gentleman who eventually went to follow his love of music as an organist/choirmaster after a particularly horrid armed raid (who can blame him); then a sweet lady and her eccentric husband complete with collections of wartime memorabilia, vintage biscuit tins and the train set that was displayed in the window; and finally a young woman who really really wanted to make a success of her local shop. She dusted down the shelves and changed things around, introduced grocery deliveries and veg boxes; but she kept the stools near the counter for elderly residents to sit down and have a gossip or drink a mug of tea.

Sadly it just wasn't enough. I could tell she'd lost heart after Christmas, the through-road had been closed for 10 weeks for the water main to be replaced - no-one could just drop in on their way to or from work, it was the final nail in the coffin.

Today I posted a package to a customer in the US, for me it was probably my final visit – on Friday the post-mistress will lock the door for the very last time.


So next time I need to post a parcel, I will drive in the opposite direction down to the town. In truth the distance from my studio may just be slightly shorter, but I will miss the chatter and local gossip – the two part time shop assistants had been serving in the Post Office for all the years I have used it, so I know them quite well. It was the sort of place where you could ask advice if you had a bee swarm (true story) or go in wearing your messiest gardening clothes and not look out of place. Now I'll have to park in the supermarket car park, walk down to the High Street to the big main Post Office and join the queue for "cashier number ..." 

. . . and I'll have to check I haven't got ink or mud smudges on my face before I go!


Celia
xx

Probably the last seaside ice-cream of 2013

The delivering-work-to-galleries season is here, I always slighting underestimate the amount of time it takes to frame prints, pack cards and compiling itemised lists in duplicate.

But I try to combine taking the work to a gallery with some time for relaxing and enjoying a day out. In the past week I've had a super giggly day out to Norwich with a dear friend who has just dipped her toes back into the blogging pond; a wonderful day showing a very special New York blogger the out of the way corners of Cambridge; and then yesterday Cliff and I had a jaunt to the seaside.

We were blessed with good weather, it was mild with fleeting sunny spells through the broken thin cloud . . . so not bad for 1st November! Our first stop was to deliver my prints and cards to The Gallery at Snape Maltings. I'm still a little excited that my work is in the same gallery as Maggi Hambling's.
I love this tranquil view of the river and reed beds and the quay at the Maltings.

With the delivery done we ferreted around the antiques barn (but resisted buying, mindful that our house is full of 'stuff', we need to sell things rather than buy more!) Then we headed further East to the coast at Aldeburgh and a nice lunch at The Lighthouse, fish and chips of course!

We had to follow that with a walk down to the beach to see the grey North Sea . . . very churned up but calm again after the St Jude's Day Storm.

And we couldn't resist having an ice-cream from the hut by the Boating Pond . . . probably our last seaside ice-cream of 2013.

And then it was the long drive right across Suffolk (a very wide county!) to home and supper of the best potted shrimps from a fisherman's shed on the beach and delicious bread from the Pump Street bakery at Snape to remind us of our day.


I have a little space now to work on a couple of commissions and plan more work . . . and maybe another blog post, Cheep wants to show of his swanky new tail to you!


Celia
xx

The shingle will hide the secrets

Very early on Saturday morning Cliff and I drove to the coast, although we live in Suffolk it's a 2 hour journey zig-zagging eastwards to the far edge of the county. Months back we had booked to go on a tour of Orford Ness, we'd never been before. We hadn't payed much attention to what we were signing up for . . . and that turned out to be THE tour for 20th century military history enthusiasts!

For most of the 20th Century (1913 to 1993 to be precise) the 16 kilometre long shingle spit that hugs the coast of Suffolk just south of Aldeburgh, was the top secret research site for everything from the first forays into air warfare, parachutes and aerial photography through to testing the aerodynamics of the UK's atomic bombs and at the height of the Cold War the huge array of aerials of 'Cobra Mist' secretly eavesdropped on the Soviet Block. If this is your thing, read more here.

Luckily for me the sign above no longer applied! It was a grey day and there was a cold wind blowing off the North Sea, I settled for taking photographs rather than sitting on the shingle freezing sketching.

Orford Ness is now owned by the National Trust, the shingle spit is a nature reserve of international importance . . . you may have seen it featured on the BBC Springwatch (watch Richard Taylor-Jones stunning film here start at 31mins in, available until Thursday 20 June 2013). I found the juxtaposition of the mysterious architecture and the encroaching shingle and plants, fascinating.

Inside the buildings, while our amazingly knowledgeable guide talked of boffins (and apparently the word was first ever used to describe one of the top researchers in these very buildings!) I searched out textures and geometric shapes in the decaying laboratories.

Glassless windows framed views across the vast expanse of shingle . . . much of it still out of bounds because of the danger of unexploded ordnance.

The next chapter in the story of Orford Ness will be about the plants and wildlife that are now the only inhabitants (apart from the day visitors that come across by boat from the mainland) and gradually they will hide the secrets for ever.

On the seaward side of the Ness stands a lighthouse  –

Trinity House have made the decision that in these days of satellite navigation, lighthouses are no longer required the light will be turned off in a few days time and it will be left to the mercy of the North Sea which is eating back the coast at a rate of 5 metres a year.

Eventually it will collapse onto the shingle and be smashed apart by the waves.

You can see more of my photos of Orford Ness here:
the buildings
the windows
the textures
the plants

I hope to go back to explore again soon... and hopefully see more of the birds and hares.

Celia
x