Protest and survive

Here is a little late night blog post created with the help of chamomile tea rather than coffee, because it’s late and I really need a good night’s sleep. I’ve had such a busy few days and keep forgetting to drink water which means I’ve been headachey and shriveled and resentful. However, today was saved by the fact that although I had to work on a rare sunny Saturday, I was at work on the day when my friend Susie was doing her needlefelting workshop in the gallery. I am a very lucky person because my friends are made of pure priceless gold and Susie made my day by handing me a stripey paper bag with this person inside…

Isn’t he amazing, such expression in his beady eyes! She really is a very clever and beautiful person (and a small group of animals stayed behind at the gallery looking for new homes…). Susie’s business is called Drawn by Badgers which is very topical at the moment as today was the day that the badger cull became legal; I have friends who are dairy farmers and I’m a lifetime listener to the Archers -an English documentary about rural life ;0) – but surely this isn’t the way to solve the problem? I don’t know if it’s middle age making me angry or just that so much is happening at the moment that makes me what to shout and stamp my foot and protest. I haven’t felt like this since I was a teenager going on CND marches and Greenpeace bike rides. Today’s good news was that the anti- badger culling protest march in London got more support than the EDL , BNP hate mongerers trying to cash in on a tragic event, these attitudes make me despair.

Ok, enough soap box stuff. I’m a hippy at heart and just wonder why we can’t just be nice to each other and have a bit of respect. Naive I suppose.

I’m hoping that tomorrow the sun will shine and I will be able to make cyanotypes, smell some bluebells and watch the tortoise exploring the garden…providing I don’t just sleep all day. Simple things.

Time for bed now and sleep with no alarm set…luxury. Happy June to you.

A glass half full…

I have retreated indoors with my sunburned legs and grass stained knees to catch up with some writing and to eat melted cheese. This weekend has seemed like a gift especially wrapped and presented on an embroidered cushion; after a week of stress, mounting panic, rain, hail and occasional hill snow. In the end Joe Cornish’s talk and exhibition went well, the cafe opened on time and Angela James’s bookbinding workshop was a success ( nobody has yet died due to my cherry and almond cake at least). The sense of relief was fantastic on Friday night when the mayor of Northallerton came to open the new gallery cafe and no one would have believed what chaos it had been just a few days/hours earlier. The whole process has made me want to have my own place more than ever, I’ve become slightly obsessed with the coffee machine and am determined to learn how to make Latte Art before I overdose on caffeine.

So we left the gallery late, after making a million cups of coffee and, slightly drunk on red wine, returned to Witchmountain for three whole days of blissful escape from work. I must have needed to unwind because I slept most of Saturday and awoke on the garden bench with lobster legs and one red arm…fool; luckily I had protected my nose. I never stop being amazed at how lucky I am to live here; looking out now the sky is utterly cloudless with golden light on the still bare oak tree. Swallows are swooping and curlews calling, while in the pond (Belfast sink) Mr Newty Newton has returned to spend the summer under a lily pad…how did he get there and where are his family? I will do newt research as soon as I’ve posted this…

I went to Art in the Shed today and ate heart shaped shortbread in Jane Thorniley-Walker’s lovely garden. The exhibition looks better than ever this year and has such a relaxed atmosphere, I could have stayed all day, except I had a shiny new lawnmower in the boot of the car and a jungle to tackle. I’m really pleased with the way my work looked in the end as I really had thought I would have nothing to show. Jane had made some lovely new mosaics and paintings, Lindsey Murray had brightly painted canvasses and printed textiles inspired by her time in Africa while Angela James had some beautiful delicate etchings.

Art in the Shed

Art in the Shed

Art in the Shed

Art in the Shed

Mosaic by Jane Thorniley-Walker

Art in the Shed

 

Goodness, writing this is making me sleepy again and the trouble with writing less often is that I have so much I want to say but have to miss half of it out for fear of sending YOU to sleep! I think I must make a little space in the week to sit and write, even if the posts are shorter. I met a real writer last week when I visited my dad‘s studio.He is working towards some big exhibitions this Autumn and John Yau is a poet and writer who was visiting to prepare for a piece he’s going to write for the exhibition catalogue. It was lovely to meet him and to have the excuse to take a few sneaky pictures of the studio. I will leave you with this view of the bookshelf, with postcard inspiration, and see if I can find some more aftersun…

Hermitage

Suddenly the world outside the window is a big green explosion with everything bursting into life and singing its heart out.It feels like being part of that speeded up nature film, with leaves unfolding before your very eyes and seasonal flowers urgently rushing from bud to bloom in a day, to make up for their late arrival. Unfortunately I’m also part of this, feeling that time is passing so quickly that there isn’t a moment left to get everything done…after work one can either write or draw or garden but not all three (and these more often give way to cooking and trying to hold back the tsunami of neglected housework ). This is my apology for neglecting Witchmountain and allowing the gallery to steal my life. I miss my days of hermitage.

Still,I guess most of us are discontented and frustrated by the day job and I’m lucky that at least mine has some perks… I was recently able to use my “Wren” design on some bags printed to promote the gallery’s creative workshops and now that the cafe is almost complete, the shiny new coffee machine is helping to feed my addiction, while my own stove top “Mooka”pot sits lonely and cold on the shelf at home.                                                                                                                At the moment I’m making some digital prints ready for Art in the Shed in Osmotherley on Bank Holiday Weekend which is now in its third year, raising money for Street Child Africa and celebrating a wide variety of talent from the village. The same weekend sees the opening of the cafe at the Joe Cornish Gallery with a talk by Joe, so I imagine I’ll be living on cake and coffee. And meanwhile, whenever the sun shines in the evenings I’m flitting in and out making cyanotype prints and getting carried away digging the garden and dreaming of new planting schemes.

So you see I have been wanting to write and share Spring thoughts from the Moors for weeks but always ended up doing gallery stuff and wasting hours looking at other people’s lives on Facebook instead of living my own. It may sound selfish or arrogant or even lazy but from now on I’m promising to be nice to myself and I will leave work behind at 5pm, take a deep breath and head for the hills…after all my heart and soul belong to Witchmountain not my weekly wage cheque.

I wanted to tell you all about the wonderful birthday trip to the Lakes, of scrambling about in icy cold becks wearing unflattering wetsuits, of eating flapjack in a hailstorm on the top of Rannerdale Knotts with my daughter, of the swallows return and the arrival of buzzards, of Lomography experiments and cake accidents… but already the windows are dark-as-night-blue and the heating has clicked off. I think I can hear a curlew outside but it must be flying home to bed.

Thank you for reading where ever you are.

Reading:- “The Hobbit” J.R.R.Tolkein  Listening To:- “Kaleidophonica” Spiro

Emerging

Last weekend it was Easter and the clocks changed, so all of a sudden the fact that it is not yet spring became more obvious because you could actually SEE the wintery proof on the drive home from work. It’s been winter since the beginning of time but today the sun came out, in a clear blue sky and it shone with some real warmth… so warm that Mr Tortoise came out to help me in the garden.The poor old cat  was amazed and once again regretted eating the things it found on the floor after a particularly wild party years ago… is that stone talking to me?!

It felt so good to be outside, there was something very sweet in the air (willow pollen perhaps?) and small discoveries made with every handful of dried leaves and dead foliage removed…”ah, so you survived Snake’s Head Fritilary?”,  “Happy April Pasque Flower”. Meanwhile the tortoise found a rabbit’s jawbone on the lawn and began to eat it in a way that made me glad he’s only the size of a small cheese pasty.

I’ve been so sleepy after work lately that creativity had really taken a back seat until I frightened myself by deciding to rent some wall space in the Joe Cornish Gallery, along with Jane Thorniley-Walker. It was a spur of the moment thing, partly to help get the new “Long Gallery” looking ready for it’s opening day. Imagine my surprise when both Jane and I sold work on the first day, and in such illustrious company ! The piece I sold was a cyanotype which I still enjoy experimenting with, although I’ve got a lot to learn and my methods are haphazard.

I felt encouraged and finally got around to making a start on a cushion that someone commissioned months ago and made some tiny bird and feather prints,  with stitch,  that may or may not make it to the gallery.

Anyway, here is part of our section in the Long Gallery…Jane’s mosaic owl looks perfect. The wonderful black and white work on the far wall is by photographer Neil Bage and you can also see work by Lizzie Shepherd, Prints For Arts Sake and Mark Banks in this room.

Now I must tend to my battered hands which resemble the tortoise’s legs and sting from pulling up nettles with bare fingers (gloves never work do they), I may seal them in plastic bags full of hand cream! Here is a message to those of you on Facebook… my brother and I have recently got the password for my daddy’s page ( from his gallery) and are now in charge of running it. We’re building it up steadily and it would be great if you could go and take a look…like, share and all that stuff. Thank you and I hope spring has sprung where you are. x

https://www.facebook.com/WilliamTillyer

 

“How can the bird that is born for joy…”

This week the long awaited curlews returned to the moor. Getting home from work in the rain and fumbling with my key in the lock, I was stopped short by the mournful, undulating song of the bird that, more than any other, symbolizes spring on Witchmountain. Suddenly the drizzle didn’t seem so depressing, I stood there smiling,getting wet and breathing in the warm damp air. Well, March is cruel and likes to tease, so today I turned my back for a moment only to look out of the window and see huge flakes of snow, falling fast and in time to the music on the radio! The world was soon blanketed again, leaving my “spring cleaned” rugs gathering a covering of snow where I had hung them on the line earlier. I’ve left them there and retreated to the kitchen to bake a chocolate cake and try to remember what sunshine felt like.

It’s been nearly six months now since I started working at the gallery and if anyone is still reading this blog it will be a miracle!Posts are becoming few and far between and I still haven’t achieved the balance between my own work and payed work that would be ideal. I am learning a lot about the realities of selling work however … record keeping, VAT rates, trying to display things properly. This week I decided to try one last time with some new necklaces I’ve been making… just for fun…well, they will fill a gap in the shop until some new stock comes in.

One of the best things about being in the gallery is when new things arrive and it’s been so exciting to get this little display together from three of the people who are also running workshop days. Muddy Fingers Pottery, Hunt and Gather Designs and Jenny Pepper Felt all make beautiful work which it is a genuine pleasure to talk to customers about. I really hope their workshops are a success for all our sakes!!

Now I’m going to take a look outside and see what has become of the world. Tomorrow I bet this sudden snowstorm will have melted away leaving nothing but a slightly stressful drive to work. Meanwhile I’m going to look for something good on the radio, make a pot of tea and daydream about the day when I have my own little gallery with coffee on the Sweetheart stove and a garden full of birds. Here is a link to my Pinterest page where you can see the shape my daydream is taking!

Reading :- “Waiting for Sunrise” William Boyd  Listening To :- birdsong

 

Here we are again.

I seem to begin every post with surprise at how quickly time has passed since I last wrote. This time I looked back at previous March writings and felt an even bigger jolt as I compared notes and re-evaluated how I had felt, what I had hoped for and where I am now. Mostly what I learned was that this time last year the daffodils were already out and the curlews had returned, that fresh air does you good and that March, for me, is a time of soaring highs and crushing lows.

This weekend I have definitely had my fair share of fresh air and exercise, with a much needed escape to the Lakes  yesterday and a day in the garden today, doing all the jobs I should have done in November. Goodness, it feels good to stand on the top of something tall that you’ve climbed up! We even had time to visit the Heaton Cooper Studio where I spent a fortune on two bottles of ink and a paint brush, justifying the expense by telling myself I would be inspired by my trip and would have a burning desire to draw things with bright blue ink. I’ve mentioned before the amazing selection of art materials in this tiny shop, including the most gorgeous boxes of water colours and pastels, blue squirrel brushes and inks made from natural pigments such as walnut and elderberry.

When I got back to civilization I was amazed to see that I had suddenly been “liked” by loads of new people on Facebook after my page was kindly shared by “Love and Buttons“. This surge of interest, as well as a commission resulting from a previous post, has made me keen to make some new work and stop devoting all my waking (and sometimes sleeping) hours to worrying about my day job. At least I feel as though I’m learning a lot from being at the gallery and the program of workshops that I’m organizing seems to be coming together, fingers crossed! I’m also really pleased to have been able to work with people I knew from CCAD to get their work in to the shop, Lauren Cherice‘s screen printed bags and kits have started selling already and it really makes my day when people chose to buy from a designer maker…it gives me hope!

My apologies for not sending out prints to the winners of the last giveaway yet, I’ve actually given them to the gallery’s framer to mount properly; which was extravagant but I thought they deserved it.Hopefully they’ll be back this week and in the post to you. One of the winners, Michelle from Elephantattic, also has her work in the New Beginnings exhibition which is on until April at Dacre Banks near Harrogate.

Soon it will be time for me to curl up like this fox and prepare for another working week. Until then I will be doing bright blue drawings, eating biscuits and waiting for Guy Garvey to play some tunes to serenade me in the bath (6music 10pm). Have a great week and enjoy the slow, teasing arrival of spring.

Reading:- “There But For The” Ali Smith   Listening To :- Birds getting all loved up and noisy in the garden. Neil Young on repeat. Looking At :- An exhibition by Claire A Baker opens in Hartlepool next week and is not to be missed, her work is always stunning and her attention to detail is enough to make me want to donate my embroidery stuff to a charity shop! Have a look…see what I mean.

 

 

 

New Beginnings

Here we are in February once again and I have been so busy that I forgot to celebrate the February festival of Imbolc (pretty neglectful for someone who goes by the name Witchmountain)however, since all the light bulbs in the house seem to have popped at the same time I did light lots of candles by default…

“It is traditional upon Imbolc, at sunset or just after ritual, to light every lamp in the house – if only for a few moments. Or, light candles in each room in honour of the Sun’s rebirth. Alternately, light a kerosene lamp with a red chimney and place this in a prominent part of the home or in a window.” (TheWhiteGoddess.co.uk)

Already the drive home from work is almost completed in daylight and I passed fields that in a certain light were slowly changing from brown, bare earth to green. A good time then to be taking part in an exhibition called New Beginnings.

I drove over to Nidderdale yesterday afternoon and with the “help” of my phone sat.nav. (“GPS signal is lost” was all it could tell me)  I found the studio gallery of Frances Payne exactly where I would have found it earlier, had I just looked at a map made of paper.Once the village shop in Dacre Banks, the gallery has 4 panels of beautiful, delicate stained glass with hand painted birds and it’s the perfect setting for this tiny gallery where Frances also paints and holds workshops. In fact, its tininess gave a renewed spark to the smoldering embers of my own shed dream.

I’m hoping to make the preview evening if I have the energy and enough petrol, after work on Friday, so that I can see everybody else’s work and met the other artists; it’s been good to do something with my own work again and I’m very grateful to have been asked to take part.

And so here is a story that warms my heart and makes me happy in so many ways.Remember the photo competition that Temporary Measure held to celebrate joining Facebook? Well Emma has now made some of the entries in to a new range of Short Story Cards , including this one of little me! I feel like a supermodel ( well, not right now, or in fact ever but if I could time travel…)and the caption is perfect…although the others are very,very funny and this is much more wistful.It’s a bit uncanny because I think that is exactly what I was like as a child, probably humming the theme tune to Black Beauty annoyingly and being incredibly serious about my imaginary horse. We happened to be in Keswick on the very day they were announced so it was a perfect excuse to call by for tea and a bit of chat about the weather, infectious diseases, dealing with “the public” and the joys of self employment. The cards aren’t on the website yet but you can see them on the Facebook page… look out for Womble Girl, my favorite, and be sure to get your order in!

Sadly no mountain pictures as we were stuck down by a mystery fever that left us looking forlornly at the snow dusted,sunlit peaks, too weak to walk further than from one coffee shop to the next and contemplating a future filled with park benches,tartan rugs and thermos flasks ( get well soon Rupert! x).

Now, I promised to giveaway a print when I reached 600 followers on Facebook and suddenly there even more than that! So in honour of all those lovely supporters, my daughter’s 21st birthday and my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary I will pick a winner at random next Saturday.Just leave a comment here or on the Facebook post and I’ll be making up some surprize,prize parcels.