WM at Marlborough College

This is where William Morris was at school for 3 years, he lived in A house (interior, above left) with its simple winding staircase - now no longer a boarding house and filled with flags. The College Chapel has one window commissioned from Morris & Co. in 1875. As usual what I look for are the WM designed background patterns, a lovely dark green with bright orange fruit in the centre and a familiar looking acanthus leaf below.

In the library archive is a shelf of rare Morris related books, including a vellum bound Kelmscott Press "Sidonia the Sorceress" presented by WM and shown below. (Click to enlarge)

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"The fact is, my dear fellow, that at present the absolute duties of my life are summed up in the necessity of taking care of my wife and my daughter, both of whom in one way or other are in bad health. My work of all kinds is really simply an amusement taken when I can out of my duty time". From a letter from WM to John Bruce Glasier, 1892.

In the 1890s this amusing work was mainly for the Kelmscott Press, and as I read these late letters I became increasingly interested in the ornamental capitals that he was designing at that time. There are different plant types used seemingly randomly around the letters, as you can see in the open pages above, and also different ways of integrating the letter with the background foliage. 

The four letters on the left (above) are separate from the foliage, the next two show stems twining around the letters (and making them less legible as far as I'm concerned), while the two on the right are pierced by the stems of flowers and vine tendrils. There are lots of these pierced letters, their appearance is, to me, disturbing and 3-dimensional.

Assisi windows and walls

The Basilica of St Francis in Assisi - Lower Church

The stained glass photo above was in the first stained glass book I remember getting. I have always wanted to visit these windows that are in the Lower Church in Assisi, and unbelievably the experience was even better than I could have imagined. The vaulted ceilings covered with frescoes that I know so well from my equally treasured Giotto book turned out to be my favourite part of the whole place.

The atmosphere upstairs is more like a Gothic cathedral, with the first and largest set of stained glass windows in Italy (all heavily restored) surrounded by Giotto's frescoes of the Legend of Francis. The pastel coloured glass in combination with the wall painting was so exciting to see. Photography is banned inside - great not to be surrounded by people with cameras and to know that I'll have to return for a longer visit to draw the colours and rich detail working together.

The Basilica of St Francis in Assisi - Nave of the Upper Church

Being the artist in residence

The Brewhouse on Saturday was busy as it always is, with visitors of all ages drawing on polystyrene tiles which they used as printing block to make strips of wallpaper. Last time, we used the wallpaper to line the walls of the cardboard playhouse, this time we left them fluttering on the line in the beautiful courtyard.

This brings me to the end of my time in The Brewhouse and the answer to my new most frequently asked question: " What are you making this (or that) for ?" 

The answer is that the things I have been making have not been commissioned - as my work usually is - for a particular place. Sometimes I say, "it's supposed to be art, to look nice". And the point of the activity day was in the doing not in the end result; the point of my residency was in the experience we had as much as in the things that we made.

Kelmscott Design No. 2

This design shows the rooves of Kelmscott Manor from the south, where the huge vine grows. I have included the background stripes that I see in the Oxfordshire landscape, especially now when the low sun shines through rows of trees. I wanted the design block to rotate 180˚, so it could be used for a tape : above is the design for packing tape now in production: below is my installation in the brewhouse window of the wallpaper version of the design with a central section taken out for the corresponding glass panel. I was delighted that the lines joined up and that the white ground on the paper and glass did not make the room too dark.

Brewhouse window from the outside at dusk, lights on, looks intriguing.

William Morris' bed curtains

The bed: My drawing of a caterpillar embroidered on the bedcover: One of the curtains.

I have been skirting around WM's imposing bed with the beautiful curtains and cover, placed provocatively between my favourite DGR drawing and Jane's embroidered version of it (see my earlier blog post). I have also admired the embroidered details on the cover by May and Jane of the river and of local flora and fauna in an observational style.

The design of the curtains is linked to WM's trellis wallpaper, but their style has always reminded me of the 17th century crewel work curtains by Abigail Pett in the V&A Museum. In a time when most of our art book illustrations were in black & white, I used to go to the V&A for children's Saturday sessions. I have never forgotten the name of Abigail Pett - a rare non anonymous woman. I have also continued to find inspiration in textiles, carpets, printed sources and all manner of decorative arts, as William Morris did. My first glass commission for a public building (Lansdowne Hospital in Cardiff, still in the black & white era), shows the same influences I think - the birds were drawn from my stamp collection.

Above: Abigail Pett's curtains in the V&A. Below left: A favourite book. Below right: My first public commission.