Rosehip November

SINCE THE WINDS CAME, the yellowing leaves of the year and the last apples have fallen into our gathering early dusks, and we have looked out beyond the black sky-writing of the now bare branches into the cold cold soon-come night and thought of Indoors and Fire.

We've been nearly three damp months without a usable woodburner (our only real heating), and finally finally, we have a hearth again, and we did not have to move house! It's amazing how not being able to light a fire takes the heart, in a very real sense, right out of a home. All the complexities of thatched listed buildings, landlord's house insurance, chimney regulations and suchlike, have been remedied, and the original fireplace has been uncovered from behind decades of brick and plaster. We are overjoyed with warmth!

Meanwhile, my studio has been a hive of Calendar packing. I was so pleased to have sold out within such a short space of time! Thank you folks as always for loving and supporting what I do - it makes a real and tangible difference. I have made a second order with the printers, which I will be listing for sale this coming THURSDAY NOVEMBER 21st at 8pm UK TIME (find out when that is where you are here). Be quick folks: I predict this lot will whisk off the shelves rather fast too!

Though the sunlight streams into my lovely studio, the winds also blow in through cracks between the floorboards, and so woodburner-installation shall be happening there too before long.

A painting has been birthing on the floor of my studio for some months now. It's on a large piece of oak which won't fit comfortably on my desk or drawing board, and it is almost done. I can't show you it yet, but will be sure to do so in due course. My back and knees are quite glad it's nearly finished.

In other autumnal news, those in the South West and beyond are cordially invited to come and say hello at my stall at these upcoming craft fairs this month (and snaffle the last calendars left!)...

The first will be the always cozy and convivial delight that is the South Devon Steiner School Advent Fair near Totnes on Saturday November 23rd:

The second will be a gathering of local art and craft talent on Saturday November 30th for the Chagford Winter Artisan Fayre, where you will see many wondrous creations in wood, clay, silver, pencil, paint, bronze, fabric, ink, thread, paper, wool and gem:

There have been cold, sunny November stomps on the moor, where we looked down over the valley of the river Dart, and the many beautiful ochres, umbers, ambers, rusts and browns that clothe it.

And we gloried in the low November sunlight edging the mossy moorland woods as we walked out the heavy-booted things of the year passing behind us.

I have been helping clear and prune an old overgrown local orchard where the apples are sweet and the ivy threatens to win the battle. Under the autumn crowflight, we tended trees in the smoke from an applewood fire, and learnt about which branches to cut, and which to leave to bear fruit next year. 

When the elderberries were ripe, I gathered them to make syrup - an excellent tonic for the colder months which will fight chills and ills before they get you. I followed the recipe in Roger Phillips' Wild Food. Simmer the black elderberries with sugar and cloves, then strain and bottle.

It hasn't lasted long.

And from the orchard cuttings, I rescued ripe rosehips, and bottled them dry with sugar, after making a few cuts in the skin of each hip. For this I followed the instructions in Hedgerow Medicine by Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal, but also those given by the mother of a friend from Bulgaria, who told me that they still make syrups by layering berries with sugar in a jar, and leaving them for a couple of months until the sugar and berries have turned into a syrup, and then straining and bottling. This retains far more of the goodness than the cooking method, so we shall see what emerges from the jar in the new year.

On which subject, I cannot pass by without sharing Rosehip November by Vashti Bunyan. This quiet, atmospheric song sits on an album she released in 1970 - Just Another Diamond Day - which she wrote whilst travelling in a wagon through Britain. It garnered very little initial acclaim, which caused this gentle soul to abandon her musical career entirely, until recently when after thirty years had passed and her music had gathered a cult following, she once again took up her guitar. Some people find this album a bit twee, but for me there's something essential and sparse and honest in the music and artwork that reminds me of the feeling in the fallen autumn leaves and in our innermost desires to sit on a dark evening by a log fire warming our toes and dreaming of the road ahead.

Red & Gold

THE LAST GOLDEN LEAVES cling quivering to the trees' black November-bitten fingertips; whether they hang suspended far off in the quiet Dartmoor fogs that have moved over these hills lately, or are edged by the crisp bright low light of autumn, they are beautiful. 

But Oh! I have so much to do! This blog is overdue many tales of things done in the days gone before, that continue to go before at an astounding rate, but for now I must tell you of preparations for Yuletide, music, greetings cards, fairs and suchlike...

In a fit of un-Rima-like organisation, I began painting my yearly winter painting a while ago now. And it was to double as a poster for a Yule gig we are planning, which I shall tell you about in a few paragraphs' time.

This is called Feast of Fools, remembering the old tradition of Misrule in the middle of winter - the festival of turning things on their heads, making fools into kings for a day, and servants into masters. 

Here a motley crew in their fools' caps make their way to a gathering in a winter village. They travel there ridiculously of course: some try to sail their ship of fools across the snow, one carries his ass in a cart. Around the fire, bagpipe music is serenading the foolish antics of the red-and-yellow jesters there, and above it all, even the moon behaves like a loon.

I painted this in oils on canvas board as an experiment in painting on a different surface. This meant using the paint in a much more impasto way that I am used to, and also gave the final piece a background weave, which I quite like.

Feast of Fools
oils on canvas board
© Rima Staines 2012
prints available here

And so to the actual Feast of Fools...

My friend Suzi Crockford and I are organising a tremendous gathering of music and storytelling for a rollick of Yuletide cheer in the Chagford Jubilee Hall two days before Christmas (and two days after the end of the world!). There'll be our esteemed friends from Oxford Telling the Bees with their simply beautiful darkly crafted psychedelic folk music, as well as local apocalyptic bluegrass quartet The Kestor String Band with their superb purple moorgrass music, and my own trio Krasa - that's Lisa Rowe on fiddle/accordion, Tim Heming on clarinet/bass and me on accordion/flute - we'll be throwing some stonking Klezmer, Balkan and Eastern European tunes into the pot.

As well as all that, the ever-talented Tom Hirons will tell us strange tales of folly and wisdom, and be our be master of ceremonies for the night.

There'll be local ale and cider, mulled wine and mince pies, and an abundance of warmth, and festive foolery.

Here's the painting transformed into a flyer. If this fiery festive concoction tempts you, you can buy tickets locally at Sally's Newsagents in Chagford square, or else online here. Do come: it'll be marvellous! Here's the facebook event page.

Next in the catalogue of wonderful things... I have new greetings cards for sale!

Last year, I made a tidy loss on my winter cards due to my decidedly unmathematical brain, so this year, Tom has been helping me enormously by dealing with the unfathomable numbers aspect of my business. Also, I have been a good deal more organised and made a big print order of greetings cards. These are not just Yule cards - they can be sent any time of the year... I have cards for births, cards for old age, cards for weddings, cards for transformations, cards for trials, cards for journeys, cards for celebrations, as well as plenty of wintry cards too.  They're all blank inside for your own message.

I'm exceedingly proud to announce that they are all printed with vegetable-based inks on 100% recycled card by a worker-owned cooperative. 

I'm selling them singly, so that you can pick and choose the designs and amounts you like. They sold fast last year, so grab them now, before they're all gone!

This Saturday 24th November, I'll be selling these cards, along with my prints, framed with handmade reclaimed wooden frames at the excellent South Devon Steiner School Advent Fair, in Dartington. Last year this was more like a mini-festival than a school fair - with chai tents and stone-baked pizzas, pole-lathes and outdoor forges, not to mention the plethora of truly excellent craft and art; it's worth a visit if you're around on Saturday.

That evening I also have a gig with Krasa at a party in another Devon village, which I'm practising madly for, and quite nervous about - our only performance together so far has been busking, so this and the Feast of Fools will be our winter debuts as a proper band!

If you're Devon based and can't make the fair on Saturday, I'll also have a stall in Chagford's Endacott House at a small craft fair on December 15th. And there are always framed archival giclée prints and smaller works of mine available at Chagford's Artisan Gallery too, should you be searching these South-Western lanes for gifts this winter. 

In the gaps between my mad days of finishing commissions, beginning new ones, preparing for fairs and practising the accordion, I have snuck out with Macha for walks down the auburn-fringed lanes around our house. 

One evening took us sniffing and squelching along glinting yellow hedgerows and down the hill...

The hedge-leaves and Macha's fur were all picked out in gold, like the pages of a very precious book.

We found an open gate, and ran, arms-wide into the steep green field which overlooked the nearby hamlets, hills and moor beyond...

And then we walked on, further downhill...

The mossy middle of the lane was carved in a beautiful khaki evening light, and the shadows were long...

Toward the bottom of the hill, we could see an intriguing shape in the field ahead...

This is Spinster's Rock - a neolithic dolmen, just round the corner from our house!

It stands in a farmer's field, and is often used as a rain shelter by sheep. There are varying legends about three spinsters (i.e. women who spin wool, rather than single ladies) and how they erected the stones, or else became them. It feels perfectly safe to sit inside, (despite the precarious-looking granite capstone) and watch the last long sun rays sweep the tops of the trees.

On the edge of this field, there's a beautiful beech tree, grown over long years into the wall, crowned with fire.

On the way back up the hill, we spy soft-breathing neighbours through the hedge, caught in the mauve light of near dusk ...

And the sun sets behind us, silhouetting Kestor on the skyline, and the wide wild expanse of our Dartmoor.