Treasure, treasure, treasure. I’ve had two trips to Hemswell Antique Centre this week, the first with Colin on our way back from a visit to the Sam Scorer Gallery in Lincoln, the second with stitching buddies. The Gallery was real art work, not just images on-line, and one of the group of artists, Christine Plummer, was (wo)manning the exhibition. I have done a couple of workshops with her years ago, one making little garden books. Sadly, it’s the final exhibition by the group, but there was some lovely work. And very good to chat with a real person about the work and the group.
At Hemswell with Colin we went in a building we haven’t been in for many, many years. It went more up-market, and more furniture orientated, but I suggested we have a look. It’s changed again, and still a tendency to be more expensive, but found a couple of delightful children’s books: only £6, for the two.
I think Molly Brett was the first children’s illustrator that I was captivated by as an adult. I’d bought a greetings card, complete with a story that one of my early pieces was based on. It took 20-plus years to finish, and had three different teachers’ input and suggestions. It was probably the first thing that made me realise how influenced my work is by what I see around me seasonally. Seeing new forsythia and cherry blossom made me dig it out and work on it again, but I would lose impetus, again, a few weeks after the flowers had gone. Once I recognised this was what happened, I determined to finish it the next year.
It’s a mixture of hand and machine embroidery, fabric painting, quilting techniques, the pond has a cellophane-y / plastic-y bag stitched over the silky, painted blue water, and the lily pads and goldfish are silk painted, and cut out. The bee is velvet stitch with gossamer wings. The fairy is scanned and transferred with image magic (?), she has a little wadding behind to make her slightly 3D with the stitched details. The butterflies are my own photos and transferred on to silk so fine, that they flutter slightly. If I had finished the piece with the first tutor, this stuff didn’t then exist, so the final piece of work would have been very different, as my skills also increased and improved over the years. To do it now, it would be very different, but I was pleased with the final result.
The Mother Goose is quite a find (for me). It was published in 1988, by Walker books. Our son Miles was born in 1992, so we spent many hours looking at and reading children’s books, bookshops and library visits when you would expect to have seen it around. At two he was dragging us into book shops, not that we needed much pulling! Every room in the house has books and bookshelves which we continue to fill and read.
It is full of many of my favourite children’s illustrators, and some new to me. I love children’s books, and when I applied to do my degree, as well as applying for Fine Art, I also applied to Lincoln to do a combined Fine Art and Illustration (and was accepted) course. It was a tough decision between Hull and Lincoln, all the places I applied to were equidistant from home, (Grimsby offered a place, and first on a reserve list at Doncaster, I only found out at the interview that the course was already full). But, I was pleased I chose Hull, and didn’t do the illustration (more prescribed briefs).
I’ve only had a brief browse so far, but love the dedication and the foreword talks about the Opie archive, now (then) called The Opie Collection of Children’s Literature, collected over 40 years by Peter and Iona Opie. So, a new field of exploration.
I couldn’t resist this chocolate box when I was with the friends. Was it once full of exquisite, luxury chocolates? I can but dream! Or, was it made to be purely decorative? It’s constructed like a Brie or Camembert box, so it won’t take anything very heavy. However, it’s big enough to take a hooped sewing project and threads, etc. Far better for the figure than the chocolates it could contain!
debbidipity 