Five chapters of summer

A LONG SPACE there's been between the last time I poured tea here and this! Life has brought a satchelful of wonders and works and wanders, so I hardly know where to begin! Perhaps if I rifle through this satchel and pull out chapters one by one?...

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CHAPTER 1 :: LUKAS

So first and most delightfully of all, I'd like to introduce you to a dear new member of my family! I am an aunt for the first time, and quite amazed to meet this beautiful little boy, born in July to my brother Jan and his Maria. This is Lukas Jacob Staines, here just one day old. I cannot quite believe it, since I remember waiting for his father to come home from hospital when he was the same number of hours old (and I was just two)!


We waited a while for him to come, and while we waited, I stitched him seven linen mice. Slightly patched, askew, and lace-collared, they hang all in a row from a piece of linen-wrapped wire (so that they can be hooked anywhere) upon which I stitched words... there's still space at the end for me to add his name, which at the time of giving, had not yet been decided! There are seven mice for seven stories (and the thousand different ways of telling them...)

(do click to enlarge these)

I so look forward to seeing this dear little soul grow, and to see familiar and new in him. He has his father's useful crooked little fingers. He'll be tall. And he will be loved ♥

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CHAPTER 2 :: JERICHO & HANNAH

And second, a painting! Made for Jericho and Hannah, who are wonderful artists and good friends too across the miles, though we've not met. This watercolour of the dear couple flew all the way to them in the Philippines, where they lose themselves in fascinating artistic endeavour, bluebell woods of their imaginations and sometimes run away together as cat and rabbit. I'm quite pleased with the blue of Hannah's dress amid my usual rust-and-moss pallette. And it is painted on Two Rivers hand milled watercolour paper from Somerset. It was a joy to make a painting for two artists who appreciate my work so, and who also make beautiful works themselves.




Here above you can see my progress: pencil, then light washes, then finer more concentrated detail, then done. (Although, in reality, as you can imagine, it took far longer than that!)

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CHAPTER 3 :: LANVAL

And third, a trip across the sea to Brittany! Do you remember these Arthurian-Breton gold and red and black and white paintings that I found such a struggle to finish a month or so ago? Well, they now hang in the most exquisite chateau exhibition in the middle of the Breton forest of Brocéliande, and I was lucky enough to join some of the English and French artists taking part on a trip to this Nest of Myth and see the exhibition opening amid a fanfare of wonderful events: horse displays, storytelling, harp recitals, Breton music. All the while we enjoyed hospitality of the highest order, with wines and food and good things apparently springing up whenever we looked round!

This is the chateau pictured above, seen from across the lake. We watched moonrise over this lake, and heard how many pieces of the Arthurian myth are woven through this place.. Here the Oak that held Merlin, there the lake that hides the crystal cave. We were taken by horse and cart to the Valley of No Return... but came back nonetheless, wide-eyed mostly at the generous funding and support the arts are given in France compared to the UK.



Inside the castle, the works were hung beautifully. I think I had warmed to my paintings after not having seen them for a while, though had I had paint and brush with me, I might still have been tempted to tinker.


There were beautiful windows all around, I looked out across the lake through deliciously atticy cobwebs, or soft summer-breezed curtains to see audiences being told tales below, and boys playing bagpipes.


I was delighted too to meet a jovial old elf called Pierre Dubois, whose book The Great Encyclopedia of Faeries I owned some years ago. I got to practice lots of French and learned many intriguing things from him about Lutins and all the mischiefs of their realm. Pierre was also responsible for a forbidden foray with a few of us beyond this Interdit sign to find a beautiful old myth-soaked Oak tree and this lilied lake.








We stayed in La Gacilly, a town full to the brim with art. There were photographic exhibitions in the streets, art and craft shops everywhere, and cobblestones and hanging baskets too.



And all of our work, along with tales of the making of the accompanying film were put together in a beautifully produced book of the exhibition. The show continues in France until the end of August and the film will premiere there in October. Then for the winter, the exhibition comes to Exeter in December, and we look forward to welcoming our French friends here then and returning their wonderful hospitality. Much appreciation goes to all who put such efforts into this wondrous sharing of legends.

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CHAPTER 4 :: HOTCHIWITCHI

Now fourth, I bring more artwork, and pages too. A while ago I wrote about hedgehogs, telling of their significance amongst Gypsies and the superstitions that bristle around them. This in turn inspired Sam Rawlings to make a piece of writing about the hedgehog, and I was asked to illustrate it. This handsome little booklet which houses my hedgehoggery is the latest in the short story series produced by London based Arts collective Lazy Gramophone. Their books are beautifully done, with thoughtful letterpress and an eye for a good font. I am delighted to be involved with such an enthusiastic and creative bunch. You can buy a copy of this limited edition publication here for £4.99.


And I am selling prints of my drawing here in my etsy shop. He is a shaman hedgehog, with not apples, but amulets, collected on his wise old spines.

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CHAPTER 5 :: THINGS TO COME

And so fifth, and onwards! Life is full colour at the moment, and blooming with all kinds of delights. I am busy selling work, and making work, as ever trying to dream up projects in between the ones I must make for pennies. Next weekend I will be hawking my wares at the Harlequin Fayre in Norfolk. The next chapter, I'll tell of soon. It has wonder-books and earth-adventures and beloved patchworks and cauldrons of goodness and the threetoed footprints of Baba Yaga's house in it...

Les Amanz

(Les Amanz - final works on my front door)

ONCE UPON A TIME in twelfth century Brittany (and England too, in fact) lived and wrote a poet lady named Marie. Marie de France she is called, though not much is known about her. She rewrote (in a form of Anglo-Norman) Arthurian legends, Aesop's fables and her best known works are probably the Lais de Marie de France. Many moons ago when I studied languages, I read some of these in Old French, and I still have my text with faint spiders of my pencil notes in the margins.


The stories are romances often, or bawdy tales, and one of them, Lanval, is being made into a film by the wonderful Chagford Filmmaking Group. It is part of a joint Shared Legends project with the Centre de l'Imaginaire Arthurien in Brittany and there's to be an art exhibition inspired by the tale in conjunction with it, which will be held both in France and the UK later this year.
Many excellent artists will be taking part, and I seem to have snuck in amongst them!


The story of Lanval is one of love and fairyland, and honour and knighthood. And can be read here {PDF} in English, and (for the keenest linguists!) here in Old French.

I have been working for many many weeks on my two paintings for the exhibition, and they are now at long last over in Brittany making their way with all the other artwork into a book about the project, before they are hung on the walls of the castle.

(Laval paintings unfinished, showing wooden frames before staining)

These works have been a struggle for me. I'm not sure why. I began with two beautiful wooden frames given to me that seemed to suit the purpose perfectly as we were asked to do two works rather than one. And so I embarked on much larger paintings than I would've normally attempted given the constraints of time and other (frankly daunting amount of) work.

(Lanval work just begun - pencil outlines)

But I did it anyway, and chose for my subjects the two lovers central to the tale. Lanval himself: the good and true knight, and Tryamour: the most beautiful fairy who captures his heart. The frames were long and narrow and so seemed to suggest full figure medieval portraits to me. They stand facing each other, and I have dressed them in a version of Breton costume. Of course my romantic characters of fairyland have somehow become beclogged peasant lovers, beautiful in a human way, and more than a little melancholic!

(above: Tryamour and Lanval close-ups finished)

I took inspiration from the indescribable skill of Rogier Van Der Weyden, Netherlandish master of the emotional medieval portrait. (To be honest, looking through books of his work makes you simultaneously glory in its sheer brilliance and want to give up altogether!)

(above: Tryamour in progress, with Rogier Van der Weyden & Domenico Ghirlandaio inspiration)

I soldiered on, with time running out, and a large area of hardboard to cover with oil paint.
The figures stand on rhyming couplets of Old French from the original story:

Fais fu d'un mult gentil vassal;
en Bretanz l'apelent Lanval
{Old French}

et dont le héros, un noble chevalier,
a pour nom Lanval en breton.
{Modern French}

It tells of a very nice nobleman,
And it's called Lanval in Breton
{English}

(above: Lanval finished)

tut a cheval une pucele;
en tut le siecle n'ot si bele.
{Old French}

une jeune fille à cheval,
la plus belle du monde.
{Modern French}

all on horseback rode a young maiden,
in the whole century there was none so beautiful.
{my English translation}

(above: Tryamour finished)

I had also planned involved scenes charting the story under the words too, but at a certain point in the process I realised I'd have to curb my ambitious and unrealistic plans and keep it much more simple.


The backgrounds I painted blood red in preparation for the gold wax that was to cover it. And the clothing was simple white and red and black. And I stained the wooden frames dark oak with a bit of black boot polish to finish.


Gold dust was in the air for days while I applied the gold wax. I had golden fingers and found smudges of gold all over the place...


And my deadline was overshot by a fair few days... I had become rather stretched out with all my work and had got to that point where you can no longer see what you've done.
But it had to be sent off anyway, and I hope that by the time the exhibition comes round I might have forgotten what my paintings look like and be pleasantly surprised after a helpful hiatus from them! (If not, I shall be hanging my head in shame amid such salubrious artistic company!)
Even my rushed photos of the work are dreadful - I do apologise! The day was sunnier than sunny outside and so glared on the gold, and inside I tried to hang the paintings on my old wooden walls, but couldn't get back far enough to capture the whole works. The photos taken with flash obliterated half of my detail, and, oh! - what an all round frustration!
What I would have done with more time!

(above: hands and paint surface in close up, finished)

We all have our days of creative work-doubt I suppose. And this was brought on for me by having too much to do in too little time. I have learnt from this that breaks and escapes up the hills and into the forests need to be part of my working practice, not postponed until completion! I have breathed sighs of relief amid the green since these works were collected by the courier, and my creative eyes are refreshed anew for the next works.
These pieces are titled Les Amanz ~ which means The Lovers in Old French.
Soon I shall show you summer beginning, bluebells perhaps, new creations and.. well.. who knows what else!

I leave you with the last lines of Marie de France's Lanval:

With her he's gone to Avalon -
Or so say the poets in Breton -
To the fair island far away
She ravished that noble youth;
No-one can say any more with truth,
And I have no more to tell of this lay.

(Les Amanz finished - a better photo by the French exhibition team! - click to enlarge)