A basketful of treasure at Hibernation Time

HUGE SKIES full of light and dark and wintering and wondering crown the granite tors of Dartmoor this November, as the mists creep in; and I return here, nearly a year on from my last post, with apologies again for this quiet, and some small pieces of artwork and news for you.

Much has happened this past year, and in time I may craft some reflections from it all. Our family is well, and our beautiful boy grows and roves and laughs through his third year on earth, stretching our hearts bigger by the day. Soon, I hope to be blogging again, in a fresh new space, but for now - here's tell of the things in my basket at the moment:

The Storyteller - Advent Calendar by Rima Staines - available here

Firstly, here's The Storyteller Advent Calendar - a new creation of mine in watercolour. She - wise old witchwoman, tatooed and furred, sits in a snowbound place, beside a fire, her words and hands weaving magics in the cold air as folk and creatures gather round to hear. What are the stories she is telling? Well, behind the doors, as you open them throughout advent, you'll find objects from many of our favourite folktales. If you can guess all the stories, you could win an A3 signed giclée print of this painting (without the numbers). Here's where you can buy a calendar for yourself - we're very proud of this, and I don't think you'll find an advent calendar like it anywhere else in the world! 

The painting is also available as a print here.

Wolfmother by Rima Staines - available here

Another new piece created on scratchboard this year - Wolfmother - shows a wintery scene of a huge mother wolf nurturing a village, and singing Russian lullabies in the snow...

Баю-баюшки-баю, Не ложися на краю. Придёт серенький волчок, Он ухватит за бочок И утащит во лесок Под ракитовый кусток.

Bayu-bayushki-bayu, Ne lozhisya na krayu. Pridyot serenkiy volchok, On ukhvatit za bochok I utashchit vo lesok Pod rakitovy kustok.

Baby, baby, rock-a-bye On the edge you mustn't lie Or the little grey wolf will come And will nip you on the tum, Tug you off into the wood Underneath the willow-root.

This is available as a 7"x5" print in our Hedgespoken Press emporium, in fact all my prints are now available over there instead of etsy. This should make ordering our books, mp3s, posters and advent calendars alongside prints much easier, as well as saving you a bit on postage and packing. (DO go and see the other delights we have there - Tom's widely travelled and loved poem Sometimes A Wild God with illustrations by me is available as a book, a poster and an mp3. And as a thank you to you all for supporting us, you can enter the code WELCOME-TO-HEDGESPOKEN to get 10% off your order until Sunday November 19th 2017! 

And Tatterdemalion - this wondrous collaborative creation of Sylvia Linsteadt's and mine, which you've surely heard about by now is also available there - in the special or trade editions. I urge you to read it if you have not yet - it will change you, undo and redo you; inside it you will root and shatter, mourning and enchanted, wholly othered.

Pages from Sanctum

Sylvia and I have collaborated again recently - in the margins of the latest publication from The Dark Mountain Project. Sanctum is an exquisitely beautiful book about ideas of sacredness from many perspectives. All the artwork has been made on vellum parchment created from the skin of roadkill deer. Sylvia writes about the creation of our marginal earthen-voiced sibylline interjection here. 

And last but not least, there are two opportunities to see my work this winter - firstly in a joint exhibition at Lowton Farm in mid Devon - CURIO - where I will be sharing a beautiful timber framed barn-gallery space with five other amazing artists. There will be automata from Fi Henshall, ceramic sculpture from Claerwen Gillespie, Printmaking and drawing from Sarah Coomer, metal and wood creations from EC Osborne, and wonders in wood and bark and light and water from Jack Oakley. Do come along if you can. It's on for a week from November 18-26, open every day from 10-3, there's ample parking, and there'll be plenty of tea and homemade cake!

And then at the start of December I'll be joining my old comrades at the Chagford Winter Artisan Fayre - which is always a very lovely event.

I can't believe how the wheel of the turning years finds me here again at this potent dark time, trying to weave together all the threads of my life as we step out on our road - travelling, homing, creating, learning, mothering, partnering, living, loving, changed and yet the same.

Blessings of this hearth-season on you all, too, wherever your roads lead you...

Wild Goddesses and Gods

IT'S AN AEON AND A MINUTE since I stood on that shore looking out over the then unknown seas of motherhood which were to wash over me just a few days after this photo was taken. And now my baby boy, deepest joy of my heart, is nearly 7 months old! Words feel strange on my tongue and under my fingers, it will take me a while yet to find good ones to weave around this new story of motherhood in all its depths, and the Rima that writes this now is a different one from the young woman looking out to sea there. But I am starting to feel a creative spring as the autumn falls on us in Dartmoor, and I am wondering how I might continue working as an artist whilst mothering. I feel all of you out there wondering at our news too, though spending time near a computer has proved almost impossible for me so far, so different are the ways of being required to be with my child and with a laptop! 

Much has been happening in our life and work since I was last here. Since the momentous Becoming-Three which happened at the end of February when snows were still falling, we've moved through spring and summer and we've left house life behind, selling many of our belongings in a rainy but enjoyable yard sale, and we've moved into a 16 foot yurt near to where the truck build is happening. I have work in three exhibitions, Hannah Willow & Friends at Obsidian Art in Buckinghamshire, a wondrous new gallery in Portland, Oregon: The Fernie Brae, and a winter show yet to come in our local Green Hill Arts Gallery in Moretonhampstead, Devon. All of this feels quite amazing given that I've hardly made any art all year! We have been out with my red handcart - a lovely creation made by our friend Eric from old doors and bicycle wheels from a drawing I gave him - selling my work on the streets of Totnes.

 

The truck build continues in its wonderful slow and majestic way, we hope to have an update on its progress soon over at Hedgespoken. During all the welding and decision-making and wood-planing and painting and hammering, a filmmaker from Germany, Marie Elisa Scheidt, has been accompanying our journey for a final piece for her studies. We are one of three protagonists in her documentary, which has a working title of Our Wildest Dreams, and which you can see glimpses of here. These two pictures below, taken earlier in the year, when both babe and truck-home were not quite so grown, are by her.

These days we are living in a circular space amid a copse of trees. We wake to hazel nuts being thrown down on our roof by squirrels and nuthatches, and fall asleep to owls, hooing close by our canvas walls.

Once more we're living a life where water and wood must be carried, and washing up must be done by lamplight. It is wonderful beyond words to be living with the leaves again, though different and harder with a baby, it feels so much lighter and righter than the house did. The view from our door looks like this:

But there is one thing I have managed to create with my hands since having a baby, and of this I am immensely proud. When Tom and I first met, we planned to make a book together; and five years later, having first created an even more incredible being together, we've finally made our first book - a small and beautiful chapbook, litho-printed on recycled paper by a workers' coop - this is Sometimes A Wild God, Tom's widely-loved poem, illustrated with six little ink drawings by me, which I did at night when little one was finally sleeping, though I wanted so much to be sleeping too... it was hard, and I felt very out of practice, but the constraints have forced a new kind of work out of me, and I think this is an interesting beginning. I hope you'll all go and have a look, you can order one for £7.50 from anywhere in the world at the Hedgespoken Shop. We are really proud of this, and excited that it heralds for us a new chapter of book making. But we need you all to support this endeavour by buying copies, spreading the word for us, and asking for it in your local bookshop or library.

Over the last couple of years, some of you have asked about buying the original Weed Wife painting, which I created in oils on burr oak in 2013. Up till now, it hasn't been for sale, I have felt it a deeply special painting and have been unsure how to put a price on it. However, we're now at a crucial point with our truck build, and struggling to make ends meet now that my income has all but disappeared. So, I am considering for the first time selling this painting if the right person comes along and offers me a sum I feel I could exchange it for. If you feel that might be you, please get in touch and let me know how much you might be willing to pay for it, and we can take it from there. I'd love for it to end up in some Herbal library or Wilderness school or somesuch, but perhaps you know of a place and a person who should have it... 

There is so very much to tell you, I don't know where to begin, and finding the right thread of story and secret is hard. I don't want to put pictures of my boy all over the internet, nor write his name, so these are just glimpses of back of head and little feet. But I do want to share some of my experiences as I go along, and hear from those of you amazing women who have gone before me, mothering and making art, mothering and living on the edges of things. I have a new-found awe for all women who do this most sacred of tasks. From the deep love and profound tiredness I salute you!

Hedgespoken

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was an artist, a storyteller and a 1960's Bedford RL lorry... They lived in troubled times – sometimes it seemed like the magic had all run out of the world and all that was left was distraction and strife. So they decided to make something amazing, a device for spreading beauty and kindling imaginations, a spectacular creation to reignite the old enchantments hiding at the edges of things, and bring wonder back into the greying world. And so, they created HEDGESPOKEN... A vehicle for the imagination!

Yes, friends and fellow travellers near and far and in-between, it's true! We are taking to the road again in our beautiful Bedford RL truck, but this time, it will not just be a home on wheels, it will also be a travelling wonder-wagon, a purveyor of tales and uncanny beauty, of hedge-theatre and woodsmoked enchantments! 

As you will remember, we bought this beautiful Bedford a couple of years ago now, but the seed of Hedgespoken has been germinating since the very first time Tom and I met and conjured the idea of it into being. Now, its time has come. The hedges are calling to us louder than ever before, and we long for a life more filled with blackbird song and morning dew and starlit story. 

Our dream is to build a home on the back of this truck that will also be an off-grid travelling theatre. It will boast a fold-down stage on the side (which can double as a porch on which we can sit and drink our morning cups of tea). This will be a performance space for all sorts of our own and others' puppety-theatrical-storytelling unfurlings - we will travel with it to waysides and village greens, to disused urban spaces and wild misted hillsides. And there we will endeavour to call in once again the magic that hides at the edges of things and to reawaken a circus in people's hearts.

This is the truck we fell in love with two years ago - a 1960s ex-military auxiliary fire service truck. Four wheel drive, with only 7000 miles on the clock, oak-backed, and in immaculate condition! 

It's the kind of truck that people stop and smile at as it goes by, and I'm sure you'll agree that it smiles back most fetchingly!

The dreaming has been taking place in our hearts and sketchbooks for months and months now...

And with the turning of the year into Autumn, this dream is becoming more tangible...

In order to make Hedgespoken manifest, we are calling on people - on all of you - to join us on this adventure, to play a part in our wonder-story and help us to make this dream a reality. We cannot do it alone, and so in return for some truly delicious perks, you can support the Hedgespoken Crowdfunding Campaign and help to make sure we get this show on the road!

At the top of this post, you'll have seen the fantastic little film that we made with the help of our amazing creative community and filmmaker extraordinaire Annabel Allison of Wax Films.  

Annabel briefs the vagabonds. Photo by Steve Earp

Lily on horseback. Photo by Steve Earp

Virginia as The Moon. Photo by Ruth Olley

The circus assembles. Photo by Steve Earp

Angharad dresses Lily's hair; Maddy and Virginia look on. Photo by Rachel Basham

Following Joanna the deer. Photo by Lunar Hine

Jason attempts to move the truck. Photo by Ruth Olley

Lovely Lily. Photo by Rachel Basham

Tom tells tales. Photo by Steve Earp

A few weeks ago we put out a call for folks to come in their vagabond-circus finery, to gather under the trees to make our film. And they did us proud! 

Lily on horseback. Photo by Terri Windling

Rima plays squeezebox in the driving seat. Photo by Lunar Hine

Owl Maddy. Photo by Steve Earp

Emma puts on her circus paint. Photo by Suzi Crockford

Rachel and Sharif enjoying after-filming food & fire. Photo by Lunar Hine

They came bedecked in feather and mask and antler, they came in their patchwork coats and on horseback, in moons and owls and top hats and wings, with ouds and drums and puppets, and they danced for the camera and afterwards we ate food around the fire. Annabel directed us with expertise and humour and what you see above is the result of many hours of her hard work and our vision. I do hope you enjoy it. 

Annabel at work. Photo by Lunar Hine

Young'uns conspire. Photo by Rachel Basham

The Moon & family. Owen, Virginia and Marja. Photo by Steve Earp

Danielle and steed. Photo by Steve Earp

Vagabond accessories. Photo by Lunar Hine

Tom tells more tales. Photo by Ruth Olley

Virginia's amazing Moon. Photo by Steve Earp

Emma. Photo by Steve Earp

Campfire pancakes. Photo by Ruth Olley

We found it very nerve-wracking speaking to camera, and I don't think I'll be taking up a career as a TV presenter any time soon, but nevertheless I think it really works, we're delighted with the result and I hope you'll be inspired and enchanted in turns, and feel compelled by our wonky magic to share this film and the campaign far and wide!

Lily, Pete and Ava prepare for filming. Photo by Steve Earp

Eric hula-hoops. Photo by Steve Earp

The dance begins. Photo by Steve Earp

Lily. Photo by Steve Earp

Circus! Photo by Steve Earp

Emma and Ruth at the fire. Photo by Terri Windling

Joanna the Deer. Photo by Terri Windling

Ruth and Jason and everyone else looking amazing. Photo by Terri Windling

Tools of the trade. Photo by Terri Windling

Musicians play. Joanna the Deer dances. Photo by Terri Windling

Vagabonds discuss (Sharif, Tom & Howard). Photo by Terri Windling

Ashley teaches Fynn some magic. Photo by Terri Windling

The lunching circus is serenaded by Elizabeth-Jane's beautiful harp playing.
Photo by Terri Windling

Lily on horseback. Photo by Steve Earp

Tom & Rima with Hedgespoken plans.
Photo by Miriam Boy

You can read more about the project and our plans at the Crowdfunding page as well as choose from an array of fabulous perks ranging from heartfelt and handwritten thank you cards, to Hermitage 2015 calendars, to books of Tom's incredible poetry, to drawing lessons with me, or storytelling workshops with Tom, to print bundles and original artworks and Once Upon O'Clocks painted by me, to a golden ticket to our first ever secret performance in the woods, to Hedgemother or Hedgefather status as patron of Hedgespoken with a lifetime ticket to every show we do and your name carved into the stage! We will also be keeping a Hedgespoken blog as the campaign progresses talking about all the artisans who will be involved in the building of this wonder-wagon, and our ideas and inspirations, as well as ways you can support us if you have no pennies. 

More than anything, though, Hedgespoken is our dream – we’ve thought long and hard about how best we want to live our lives, how to do what we love doing in a way that serves our communities and fulfils our dreams of living close to the land in a creative, sustainable way. Hedgespoken is our best shot, our way of taking our skills and our love of story, of art and magic, and living in a way that means we’re using all of that, all the time. And, it’s our promise, to ourselves and to our children, that we will refuse to live half-lives. Hedgespoken is a gamble – to live on the road is to embrace uncertainty and certain kinds of insecurity, after all – but it’s a gamble that we have to take, because we dreamed this in the week that we first met and we knew then that we had to find a way to make it real. With your help, we’re getting there, in Hedgespoken style, living lives that are full, not empty, nor half-lived or hollow – with your help, we’re already creating something beautiful, allowing something of the magical world to be born.

Thank you!