The Collected Letters

I've finished the last volume of The Collected Letters of William Morris edited by Norman Kelvin.  Only one mention in this volume of the walk to Buscot Wood that he often took with his daughter Jenny.  Now that I have my OS Explorer Map with Kelmscott in the middle and the borders of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire laid out on one sheet, I can see where they walked to. I think I've been drawing the woods from "the big field" between the Manor and the river: the dark shape on the left and middle left in the drawings below.

The most detailed descriptions in the last volume are connected to the Kelmscott Press, the collecting of illuminated books and manuscripts and the designing of borders and lettering. The tiny scale of his drawings when you see the real things is incredible.

WM illustrations from the Collected Letters

I've done a few drawings of the vines on Kelmscott Manor and just spent an absorbing hour on a brush and ink copy of the "y" from a set of initial letters with vines (above right). 

These two drawings are mine.

WM on the Tour de France route

I found two churches with William Morris windows on the Stage One Tour de France route. I watched the riders come through Otley this morning, then went to visit the churches. The first one, St. Wilfrid in Pool in Wharfedale, was decorated with bicycles and had a "Le church, le tour, le welcome !" sign but was locked.

The second, St. Margaret's in Ilkley, is a Norman Shaw church. There are lots of good windows inside, including one of four angels (below) designed by WM and made in 1894. It looks great and in composition is so much simpler than the rest of the windows (mostly made by Powell & Sons) in the church.

Inspiration from May

I am particularly drawn to the case of May Morris' possessions in one of the attics. Box Cottage, above and below, is giving me lots of ideas for projects while I am at Kelmscott.

Below : Part of May's frieze of Kelmscott and The Manor with WM's words (from The Earthly Paradise) embroidered in the 1890s and now in the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow.

"As a keen watercolorist, her intimate knowledge of nature came from personal observation, en plein air, an experience that her father found either uncomfortable or unnecessary." Linda Parry, May Morris, embroidery and Kelmscott.

"You see  William Morris could design embroideries but he could not embroider, any way not as well as Miss Morris could, Mrs. Morris could embroider but couldn't design, Miss Morris could and did both design as well as William Morris and embroider as well as any one possibly could..." Mary Lobb, from a letter to Eric Maclagen.

Signatures progress

The current project is progressing well, I have more then a hundred signatures. Above you can see a family who all signed their names using a diamond tipped pen on a piece of white glass. I have picked out scraps of coloured glass in pale and neutral colours for visitors to choose from, so that when I trim the pieces to fit against each none of them will jar or jump out. 

The design for the finished panel is made up of blocks of stripes which follow the dimensions of the signatures. I have started with the darkest colours for the central section, below left. The other photo, from Martin & Wendy Hiscock, I will piece in near the border with other pale bits.

The diamond tipped pen comes from www.bandhservices.co.uk and is called a lunzer lancer pen.

Portraits of real country

"The only limitations I should put upon subjects would be upon landscape painters; and to them I should insist on all their pictures being real portraits of real country. I mean I take no interest in made-up landscapes: where is it? is my first question when I see a landscape."                        

From a letter from William Morris to Thomas Coglan Horsfall, April 7th 1881.

I want to come up with a design during this residency that captures the characteristics of the landscape around Kelmscott. So far, I have been drawn to the River Thames and the rows of trees that line its banks. My drawing above was done from the path towards Buscot, looking back to the river that is hidden in the line of trees that I also photographed on my walk to Lechlade.