Following on from the last few months of colour charts that I have created documenting colours growing in the garden I have made a July 13 one too. The weather has been hot and dry but somehow the slugs have enjoyed the marigolds so there is a lack of orange in this colour palette this year. The Foxgloves are pretty much over but the Hollyhocks and Dahlias are stunning in their part of the garden relay race through the summer schedule.
I posted a ‘yellow’ set of photographs of flowers from our garden for the month of April a few weeks ago and have since noticed quite a change of colour in the garden over the weeks. I have created a May (pinks and purples) and June (reds, orange and magenta) record of flowers too. With such gloomy weather recently its worth noting that some refer to June as ‘flaming June’ – not my thoughts in this particular June 2013!
It is a very exciting time for me. It has been about two years in the planning and preparation stages and now we are a week in to my show at Tinsmiths. For those of you unfamiliar with Tinsmiths, it is a beautiful textile and lighting shop in the lovely Herefordshire market town of Ledbury. It is a beautifully considered shop, owned by Phoebe Clive, selling a wide range of fabrics as well as home wares, crafted pieces and artists prints.
I have worked closely with Phoebe to translate my lino printed designs inspired by allotments, to become a collection of heavy weight linen, hand screen printed textiles available to buy as cushions. We have also created larger showroom pieces as curtains and upholstered chairs in preparation for selling some of the designs by the metre later in the year.
Phoebe and the team have styled my products throughout the top floor of the premises in such a way as to create a clean and fresh interior space, working with the other products and furniture pieces in the shop. My prints and drawings are set amongst other exciting colour statements in the form of ceramics & lighting with an understated aesthetic. With plenty of positive feedback at the PV as well as sales throughout the first week it’s a really exciting reward for the long journey to this point.
My creative practice has been inspired by National Trust gardens for the last few years and as a result I’ve had a number of people suggest I visit Hanbury Hall – finally I got round to it at the weekend. Despite the poor weather it was a delight to discover all the pockets of gardens, each carefully considered, and demonstrating the wide variety of formal and informal planting the National Trust excels at.
Armed with my sketchbook and camera I gathered plenty of inspiration for new prints and will definitely be back later in the season.
Its also a fantastic building inside and out. I dashed around the inside and a particular wallpaper caught my attention.
All in all, I left feeling excited about making new work again having spent so long preparing for my solo show at Tinsmiths, opening later this month… now where did I put that lino?
Having noticed this week that the garden has suddenly started to change colour, I set about documenting all the yellow in the garden. Its not surprising at all that the photographs of the same flowers taken at different times of the day varied hugely, but I also recorded the range of yellows in the flowers of this very YELLOW season.
One of the things that has inspired and influenced my creative practice is how we work with the land; to farm, build roads, wear the paths where we shouldn’t walk as well as create boundaries. These are signs of man asserting influence over nature, and the natural landscape. Of course the way things were thousands of years ago will never return but modern-day farm machinery and larger field sizes are two things that have shaped our contemporary countryside.
I have never quite understood topiary but am intrigued when I see orchards with heavily structured boughs, turning a natural system in to a geometric diagram. We ask nature to do what it does not naturally want to do. We expect plants to grow in the wrong soils, because we like the look of them despite our climate, and we can be unforgiving if a ‘weed’ dares to grow where we don’t want it to.
With this in mind I do like to see subversive and anarchic challenges from nature, and nature trying to make its mark where it shouldn’t. Like graffiti on the wrong walls; art in a gallery, vandalism on the streets, plants do sometimes have their own agenda. I found this beautiful plant surviving, flourishing even, in the mortar of a very old wall in Ledbury. It made me laugh. It wasn’t the usual ivy or buddleia, but a beautiful primula, proud as punch of its achievements. Okay, so the leaves are rather small relative to the flower heads but I couldnt help feeling rather pleased for it too.
At the start of the harvest time last year I shared with you our first crops of the season. Today I cleared the brassicas that have been under attack from pigeons all winter – much to my distress, and planted in their place the potatoes for the coming year. It was a sign of handing over the baton to another year of potential, involving the weather, our effort, opportunities for head-space and the reward in what we get to eat.
Each year we start with a revised planting plan, more back ache, a new set of gloves and opportunities for me to draw and record the plants to provide further inspiration for my art and design work. As I have also spent the last few days designing, cutting and printing new lino blocks, the creative process of doing so reminds me very much of being a gardener; working with the elements and using knowledge, intuition, skill, time and desire to create something from small beginnings.
I remain positive about the growing season ahead, surely there cant be as many slugs and pigeons this year… can there? And as for cutting lino, I’m in it for the long haul.
Today was my first plot visit of the year and I set about digging over the strawberry patch – an important job given the lousy harvest of last year. I also took time to survey the rather heartless cabbages we have managed to grow and this inspired me to record the beautiful colours of the season from all round the plot. This reminded me of my Autumn survey some months ago, recorded on this blog. No doubt these colours will inspire my drawings and prints of the year to come. Sadly I didn’t get a picture of the robin who hopped about glad of the worms I uncovered but he made me smile all the same.
I thought I ought to explain the project…
On Twitter I am exploring my interaction with colour in my everyday life using the Pantone references of colour – the coated and uncoated has become the play on words. Here’s the first few to give you an idea of how things may be going.
Seeing red. @pantone Red 032 Coated and with the wet look… again. https://katefarley.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/having-fun-with-colour/ … pic.twitter.com/RLzW1cQ
the next colour is @pantone 2985 U – of course uncoated, while we waited for @therealjohncale @hmvinstitute last night. pic.twitter.com/g097anMj
I was uncoated and really should have been wearing the apron! @pantone 200 U – coping with excess raspberry harvest pic.twitter.com/84rE5rSX
Wet! @pantone 427U certainly coated AND with waterproof trousers on. pic.twitter.com/9Rl0ABUj
What a Brum blue sky day to be in the office! @pantone 284U – definitely uncoated, and sandals! Hooray for the weekend. pic.twitter.com/HiHUzTQV
With the Autumn equinox upon us and a definite chill on the breeze a trip to the allotment today made me think of the preconceptions of seasonal colours we have, emphasised through school as we made ‘splodged’ leaf paintings and we sang the harvest songs having managed to pass on the marrow glut from home to the local community who would have preferred the old tin of sardines!
This morning we picked boxes of raspberries and bunches of sweet peas as well as carrots and beans so I thought I would provide an alternative to the conker colours and rusty hues we expect at this time of year, in acknowledgement to the Autumn sun, with the frost just round the corner…
The tip we received from the wise old-timers at the allotment today was to whistle while you pick raspberries to save yourself from eating too many. I understand the truth in that!
Kate Farley @katefarleyprint 
Kate Farley - drawn to design 