Art, Design & Life on the Moors with Kim Tillyer.
Welcome to the beautiful world of Witchmountain on the
North York Moors of England.
Hand printed and embroidered textiles, original mixed media art, limited edition prints and inspirational writing.
Read more on the BLOG and visit the SHOP for hand made gifts
& future heirlooms.
Kim Tillyer is a freelance artist and designer, living and working in a remote area of the North York Moors. In 2008 she graduated with a BA (Hons) in Textiles and Surface Design and spent a year producing printed and embroidered designs for a children’s wear agent, selling work in Japan and North America.
Her work is inspired by the plants and animals of the North. Myth and superstition, dark forests, broken hearts, and traditional folk tales in which lovers are transformed into bears and owls wish to be flowers.
She has exhibited and sold work in various galleries in North
Yorkshire, taken part in the Sketchbook Project and undertaken
special commissions for local businesses as well as selling her range of hand
made, printed and embroidered accessories online via Etsy. She is currently working at the Joe Cornish Gallery in North Yorkshire where she organises a program of creative workshops.
Kim also writes about her inspirations, trials and tribulations, the joys of moorland life and her very creative family in her blog “Witchmountain”
Suddenly the world outside the window is a big green explosion with everything bursting into life and singing its heart out.It feels like being part of that speeded up nature film, with leaves unfolding before your very eyes and seasonal flowers urgently rushing from bud to bloom in a day, to make up for their late arrival. Unfortunately I’m also part of this, feeling that time is passing so quickly that there isn’t a moment left to get everything done…after work one can either write or draw or garden but not all three (and these more often give way to cooking and trying to hold back the tsunami of neglected housework ). This is my apology for neglecting Witchmountain and allowing the gallery to steal my life. I miss my days of hermitage.
Still,I guess most of us are discontented and frustrated by the day job and I’m lucky that at least mine has some perks… I was recently able to use my “Wren” design on some bags printed to promote the gallery’s creative workshops and now that the cafe is almost complete, the shiny new coffee machine is helping to feed my addiction, while my own stove top “Mooka”pot sits lonely and cold on the shelf at home. At the moment I’m making some digital prints ready for Art in the Shed in Osmotherley on Bank Holiday Weekend which is now in its third year, raising money for Street Child Africa and celebrating a wide variety of talent from the village. The same weekend sees the opening of the cafe at the Joe Cornish Gallery with a talk by Joe, so I imagine I’ll be living on cake and coffee. And meanwhile, whenever the sun shines in the evenings I’m flitting in and out making cyanotype prints and getting carried away digging the garden and dreaming of new planting schemes.
So you see I have been wanting to write and share Spring thoughts from the Moors for weeks but always ended up doing gallery stuff and wasting hours looking at other people’s lives on Facebook instead of living my own. It may sound selfish or arrogant or even lazy but from now on I’m promising to be nice to myself and I will leave work behind at 5pm, take a deep breath and head for the hills…after all my heart and soul belong to Witchmountain not my weekly wage cheque.
I wanted to tell you all about the wonderful birthday trip to the Lakes, of scrambling about in icy cold becks wearing unflattering wetsuits, of eating flapjack in a hailstorm on the top of Rannerdale Knotts with my daughter, of the swallows return and the arrival of buzzards, of Lomography experiments and cake accidents… but already the windows are dark-as-night-blue and the heating has clicked off. I think I can hear a curlew outside but it must be flying home to bed.
Thank you for reading where ever you are.
Reading:- “The Hobbit” J.R.R.Tolkein Listening To:- “Kaleidophonica” Spiro
Last weekend it was Easter and the clocks changed, so all of a sudden the fact that it is not yet spring became more obvious because you could actually SEE the wintery proof on the drive home from work. It’s been winter since the beginning of time but today the sun came out, in a clear blue sky and it shone with some real warmth… so warm that Mr Tortoise came out to help me in the garden.The poor old cat was amazed and once again regretted eating the things it found on the floor after a particularly wild party years ago… is that stone talking to me?!
It felt so good to be outside, there was something very sweet in the air (willow pollen perhaps?) and small discoveries made with every handful of dried leaves and dead foliage removed…”ah, so you survived Snake’s Head Fritilary?”, “Happy April Pasque Flower”. Meanwhile the tortoise found a rabbit’s jawbone on the lawn and began to eat it in a way that made me glad he’s only the size of a small cheese pasty.
I’ve been so sleepy after work lately that creativity had really taken a back seat until I frightened myself by deciding to rent some wall space in the Joe Cornish Gallery, along with Jane Thorniley-Walker. It was a spur of the moment thing, partly to help get the new “Long Gallery” looking ready for it’s opening day. Imagine my surprise when both Jane and I sold work on the first day, and in such illustrious company ! The piece I sold was a cyanotype which I still enjoy experimenting with, although I’ve got a lot to learn and my methods are haphazard.
I felt encouraged and finally got around to making a start on a cushion that someone commissioned months ago and made some tiny bird and feather prints, with stitch, that may or may not make it to the gallery.
Anyway, here is part of our section in the Long Gallery…Jane’s mosaic owl looks perfect. The wonderful black and white work on the far wall is by photographer Neil Bage and you can also see work by Lizzie Shepherd, Prints For Arts Sake and Mark Banks in this room.
Now I must tend to my battered hands which resemble the tortoise’s legs and sting from pulling up nettles with bare fingers (gloves never work do they), I may seal them in plastic bags full of hand cream! Here is a message to those of you on Facebook… my brother and I have recently got the password for my daddy’s page ( from his gallery) and are now in charge of running it. We’re building it up steadily and it would be great if you could go and take a look…like, share and all that stuff. Thank you and I hope spring has sprung where you are. x
https://www.facebook.com/WilliamTillyer
This week the long awaited curlews returned to the moor. Getting home from work in the rain and fumbling with my key in the lock, I was stopped short by the mournful, undulating song of the bird that, more than any other, symbolizes spring on Witchmountain. Suddenly the drizzle didn’t seem so depressing, I stood there smiling,getting wet and breathing in the warm damp air. Well, March is cruel and likes to tease, so today I turned my back for a moment only to look out of the window and see huge flakes of snow, falling fast and in time to the music on the radio! The world was soon blanketed again, leaving my “spring cleaned” rugs gathering a covering of snow where I had hung them on the line earlier. I’ve left them there and retreated to the kitchen to bake a chocolate cake and try to remember what sunshine felt like.
It’s been nearly six months now since I started working at the gallery and if anyone is still reading this blog it will be a miracle!Posts are becoming few and far between and I still haven’t achieved the balance between my own work and payed work that would be ideal. I am learning a lot about the realities of selling work however … record keeping, VAT rates, trying to display things properly. This week I decided to try one last time with some new necklaces I’ve been making… just for fun…well, they will fill a gap in the shop until some new stock comes in.
One of the best things about being in the gallery is when new things arrive and it’s been so exciting to get this little display together from three of the people who are also running workshop days. Muddy Fingers Pottery, Hunt and Gather Designs and Jenny Pepper Felt all make beautiful work which it is a genuine pleasure to talk to customers about. I really hope their workshops are a success for all our sakes!!
Now I’m going to take a look outside and see what has become of the world. Tomorrow I bet this sudden snowstorm will have melted away leaving nothing but a slightly stressful drive to work. Meanwhile I’m going to look for something good on the radio, make a pot of tea and daydream about the day when I have my own little gallery with coffee on the Sweetheart stove and a garden full of birds. Here is a link to my Pinterest page where you can see the shape my daydream is taking!
Reading :- “Waiting for Sunrise” William Boyd Listening To :- birdsong
I seem to begin every post with surprise at how quickly time has passed since I last wrote. This time I looked back at previous March writings and felt an even bigger jolt as I compared notes and re-evaluated how I had felt, what I had hoped for and where I am now. Mostly what I learned was that this time last year the daffodils were already out and the curlews had returned, that fresh air does you good and that March, for me, is a time of soaring highs and crushing lows.
This weekend I have definitely had my fair share of fresh air and exercise, with a much needed escape to the Lakes yesterday and a day in the garden today, doing all the jobs I should have done in November. Goodness, it feels good to stand on the top of something tall that you’ve climbed up! We even had time to visit the Heaton Cooper Studio where I spent a fortune on two bottles of ink and a paint brush, justifying the expense by telling myself I would be inspired by my trip and would have a burning desire to draw things with bright blue ink. I’ve mentioned before the amazing selection of art materials in this tiny shop, including the most gorgeous boxes of water colours and pastels, blue squirrel brushes and inks made from natural pigments such as walnut and elderberry.
When I got back to civilization I was amazed to see that I had suddenly been “liked” by loads of new people on Facebook after my page was kindly shared by “Love and Buttons“. This surge of interest, as well as a commission resulting from a previous post, has made me keen to make some new work and stop devoting all my waking (and sometimes sleeping) hours to worrying about my day job. At least I feel as though I’m learning a lot from being at the gallery and the program of workshops that I’m organizing seems to be coming together, fingers crossed! I’m also really pleased to have been able to work with people I knew from CCAD to get their work in to the shop, Lauren Cherice‘s screen printed bags and kits have started selling already and it really makes my day when people chose to buy from a designer maker…it gives me hope!
My apologies for not sending out prints to the winners of the last giveaway yet, I’ve actually given them to the gallery’s framer to mount properly; which was extravagant but I thought they deserved it.Hopefully they’ll be back this week and in the post to you. One of the winners, Michelle from Elephantattic, also has her work in the New Beginnings exhibition which is on until April at Dacre Banks near Harrogate.
Soon it will be time for me to curl up like this fox and prepare for another working week. Until then I will be doing bright blue drawings, eating biscuits and waiting for Guy Garvey to play some tunes to serenade me in the bath (6music 10pm). Have a great week and enjoy the slow, teasing arrival of spring.
Reading:- “There But For The” Ali Smith Listening To :- Birds getting all loved up and noisy in the garden. Neil Young on repeat. Looking At :- An exhibition by Claire A Baker opens in Hartlepool next week and is not to be missed, her work is always stunning and her attention to detail is enough to make me want to donate my embroidery stuff to a charity shop! Have a look…see what I mean.
Here we are in February once again and I have been so busy that I forgot to celebrate the February festival of Imbolc (pretty neglectful for someone who goes by the name Witchmountain)however, since all the light bulbs in the house seem to have popped at the same time I did light lots of candles by default…
Already the drive home from work is almost completed in daylight and I passed fields that in a certain light were slowly changing from brown, bare earth to green. A good time then to be taking part in an exhibition called New Beginnings.
I drove over to Nidderdale yesterday afternoon and with the “help” of my phone sat.nav. (“GPS signal is lost” was all it could tell me) I found the studio gallery of Frances Payne exactly where I would have found it earlier, had I just looked at a map made of paper.Once the village shop in Dacre Banks, the gallery has 4 panels of beautiful, delicate stained glass with hand painted birds and it’s the perfect setting for this tiny gallery where Frances also paints and holds workshops. In fact, its tininess gave a renewed spark to the smoldering embers of my own shed dream.
I’m hoping to make the preview evening if I have the energy and enough petrol, after work on Friday, so that I can see everybody else’s work and met the other artists; it’s been good to do something with my own work again and I’m very grateful to have been asked to take part.
And so here is a story that warms my heart and makes me happy in so many ways.Remember the photo competition that Temporary Measure held to celebrate joining Facebook? Well Emma has now made some of the entries in to a new range of Short Story Cards , including this one of little me! I feel like a supermodel ( well, not right now, or in fact ever but if I could time travel…)and the caption is perfect…although the others are very,very funny and this is much more wistful.It’s a bit uncanny because I think that is exactly what I was like as a child, probably humming the theme tune to Black Beauty annoyingly and being incredibly serious about my imaginary horse. We happened to be in Keswick on the very day they were announced so it was a perfect excuse to call by for tea and a bit of chat about the weather, infectious diseases, dealing with “the public” and the joys of self employment. The cards aren’t on the website yet but you can see them on the Facebook page… look out for Womble Girl, my favorite, and be sure to get your order in!
Sadly no mountain pictures as we were stuck down by a mystery fever that left us looking forlornly at the snow dusted,sunlit peaks, too weak to walk further than from one coffee shop to the next and contemplating a future filled with park benches,tartan rugs and thermos flasks ( get well soon Rupert! x).
Now, I promised to giveaway a print when I reached 600 followers on Facebook and suddenly there even more than that! So in honour of all those lovely supporters, my daughter’s 21st birthday and my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary I will pick a winner at random next Saturday.Just leave a comment here or on the Facebook post and I’ll be making up some surprize,prize parcels.
Pink skies and wedding cake fields have been replaced by grey and mud, a rash of molehills and the wind, trapped in the chimney. Somehow there is nothing colder than wind howling through a keyhole, not even ice and snow.
This week I have been thinking “I ONLY WANT TO LIVE IN PEACE AND PLANT POTATOES AND DREAM!”, one of my favorite Moomin quotes and perhaps the reason I am not rich and famous,with an attitude like that! When I look at the things that inspire me the most and make me happiest they are often simple things – a loaf of new bread,the smell of coffee,snowdrops discovered after clearing a pile of dead leaves, a line from a song…I was clearly never destined for a high flying career in investment banking.
While the snow kept me trapped on Witchmountain I returned to drawing bears and cutting out phrases from the Guardian like a poetic blackmailer. I was excited to receive an e-mail from Frances Payne who invited me to take part in a group exhibition in her studio gallery in Dacre Banks, Nidderdale. The “New Beginnings” exhibition opens on February the 8th and will also include Jane Carlisle Bellerby ( silk collage), Anna Lileengen (photography),Inside Out Woodart (wood art) and Michelle of Elephantattic ( jewellery).
Another potentially exciting development is the offer to write a guest blog post for Derwent Pencils! I have written a hazy outline, a rambling piece about sulking in Keswick (because my friend bought a bigger box of pencils), sniffing fruit scented erasers in a South London stationers and falling in love with the Lake District via forced marches up mountains and trips to Ruskin’s House. If they publish it I’ll be sure to let you know!
Now these wintery scenes seem a little out of date and it will soon be time to marvel at the first signs of Spring.It’s time to throw another log on the fire and lay tomorrow’s clothes on the radiator ready for the start of another working week.
By the way, thank you all for your lovely comments, continued support and all the new “likes” on Facebook.You are much appreciated… and Rachel, how do you stop the wallpaper peeling off the walls when making marmalade!?
Today has been almost perfect. It snowed last night,as forecast and I had planned ahead by bringing some work home with me on Friday. I still feel a little guilty for not braving the roads but for the first time I’ve probably achieved my ideal… being paid to do something useful, from home! I even got dressed properly and stayed at “my desk” without being tempted too much by the eternal excitement of slowly falling snowflakes;inconvenient it may be, but snow never ceases to be magical.
Working in a photographic gallery hasn’t improved my technical skills with the phone camera I’m afraid but I overheard Joe talking the other day and he said something about the most important starting point being the “feeling” not the method or the equipment -so that’s a relief, feeling is not something I’m short of!
So, I’m sitting here under my green blanket with the Moomin hot-water-bottle tucked up my jumper and a warm MacBook on my knee. The stove has been going all day but for some reason, perhaps the atmosphere outside, it is throwing out little heat. I’ve switched the radio off and all I can hear are various electrical hums and crackling logs. Chai tea and left over Christmas biscuits by my side, I feel happier than I have for days; like a bear in its den, shutting out the rest of the world. A nasty experience with Twitter last week (details withheld, or I would be no better than them) left me seriously questioning, not the social networking platforms specifically but the need for some people to provoke, bad-mouth others and be generally aggressive and ignorant in a public space.It’s disheartening that while you can gain so much support and inspiration from internet connections it can also serve as a wall for people to hide behind while throwing their rubbish and worse still, that this seems to be human nature.
Enough of this negative speak! My somewhat lowered mood and attack by a small “black dog” ( probably just a miniature poodle rather than an actual hound of hell) seemed to spur me in to creative action and I found myself scribbling on the back of envelopes, dripping ink and drawing bears at half past three in the morning. This makes me wonder about the link between some sort of inner turmoil and the need to create, since there is no doubt that I have been drawing less since I became fat and contented!( This is not said to tempt fate!)
Some of the quick doodles that people have reacted to with the most positive comments have been done when I’m in the worst kind of mood…What do you think? I’m probably talking rubbish and feeding the myth of unbalanced, over emotional “arty” types? Right, I’m off to drink some Absinthe and smoke a few Gauloise while I wash my smock and beret! I hope you’re keeping warm where ever you are.
I will be giving away a print of this bear when I reach 600 “likes” on Facebook. No rush.
Listening To: “In Search of Peter Pan” Kate Bush ,for the line …” she tells me I’m too sensitive; it makes me sad.”
Reading: Not quite yet but I’m looking forward to reading “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” illustrated by Jackie Morris. Look here for a very,very special prize draw! Watching : Moominland Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson.
The sun set on New Year’s Day 2013 after a day full of rare sunshine on Witchmountain. We’re back on the upswing to light and Spring and fresh starts; crisp new diary pages, notebooks and calendars waiting to be filled and resolutions to resolve…
*draw more *do some pinhole photography *be outside more *start playing my mandolin again *drink more whiskey *keep in touch with friends
I had a lovely “festive season” despite the dreaded Christmas cold and the fact that the heating boiler keeps blowing out. It’s particularly important that the house is warm at the moment because Father Christmas delivered a small creature …one who strongly resembles the picture above…!
In fact I uploaded the pictures for this post and then realised they made quite a good mood board by accident…yes, my new little friend is a two year old Horsfield tortoise who fits in the palm of my hand and has a passion for rocket leaves and sunbathing under a lightbulb.
I have been searching for names and remembering the children’s book by Micheal Bond “Olga da Polga” which our teacher read out loud to us at school, while my dad recommended “À Rebours” which features a tragic tortoise encrusted with jewels (bad choice Daddy!).Then there are all the stories of tortoises and turtles carrying the universe on their backs… It turns out that tortoises are almost as prolific as bears when it comes to inspiring myth, legend and literature and better still I managed to find a moment to be inspired by the little creature myself….
It was a first attempt in a stolen moment between cooking and washing and going to work but already I want to take a month off and self indulgently,explore tortoisey possibilities with print and stitch and jewels.If only I was a student again or that there were more hours in each day or I was a more energetic type of person!
So, as the first week in January slips away I am resolving to make time for my own work and reading “Deep Country, 5 Years in the Welsh Hills” by Neil Ansell which I first heard on the radio in the winter of 2010 , wrapped in a blanket by the stove surrounded by deep snow and ice and the sensation of being alone and safe in my nest. It takes me back to those days of solitude and reminds me how important it is to be alone occasionally. I’m sure I heard someone on the radio this Christmas claim that solitude, freely chosen, was one of the luxuries of modern life ( choice being the important word ). However, I’m very pleased you have chosen to read my ramblings, and don’t take me at my word, I love your company :- virtual, distant, near and far, friends and occasional readers; Happy 2013.
“We called him Tortoise because he taught us.”
- Lewis Carroll
This morning I woke up at 6am and was huddled in the kitchen, with a Moomin hot water bottle up my jumper, brewing cold remedies before the sun came up ( I think I’ve mentioned Trevor Swales’s delicious Osmotherley Heather Honey here before). Anyway, I’ve been busy all day, icing cakes and covering the kitchen in a thin film of icing sugar and lustre powder so something in that remedy must have worked.
I took these photos a week or two ago when the world was bright and crispy and leaving it all behind to go to work in the foggy lowlands was a real struggle…
I can’t believe I’ve been at the gallery two months already, time has really flown and I’m still loving it. We all went to Joe Cornish‘s last week for a meal and a really interesting demonstration of part of his work process; I felt pretty lucky as I not only learned something but we were all given our choice of a print for our Christmas present… mine is a version of this view which shows the hill I can see from Witchmountain!
Austerity measures mean that this year instead of a traditional tree we have been collecting sticks and branches, pine cones and seed heads which actually look lovely.So, another Christmas is upon us, another year over and another threatened apocalypse survived.I’m listening to Gil Scot Heron and hoping the world is a better place in 2013.
It’s time to feed the teenagers (again) so I will leave you with these pictures of my bags, which have sneakily snuck into the gallery shop, and wish you all a very happy festive season and a peaceful new year.
Much Love from Witchmountain and thank you for reading x
Today I got up for work in the dark and ate my Marmite toast and green tea while reading a three day old newspaper. In the review section was a piece by Esther Freud about Tove Jansson’s first Moomin book “The Moomins and the Great Flood”. The piece was called “Where to Spend the Winter” and it made me even more nostalgic for the winters when being snowed-in filled me with energy and inspiration rather than the dread of trying to drive to work on icy roads. It’s snowing as I write and I have just spent a weeks wages on winter tyres.The car is stocked with blankets,shovel,ice scrapers,wellies and even a box with flapjack and nuts… I love working at the gallery but goodness I really wish I had been able to make working from home a success !
I haven’t written for ages because I had no new work to share and it was almost always dark so no photographs of outdoors were possible either.Then last week it snowed and the sun shone and everything on Witchmountain was magical.
The kind of winter sunshine that makes you want to clean all the windows. The kind of days that make you want to bring home branches to paint white and hang up pine cones and fill the house with spicy, boozy smells and brew coffee on the stove while listening to The Count of Monte Cristo on the radio.
Somewhere in the middle of this I was taken to Salt’s Mill in Saltaire, near Bradford where there was a fabulous bookshop and then,through a door we weren’t going to open, a huge room which smelled of linseed oil and vetiver,pencils and print. I bought myself the promised sketchbook and some ink…hoping something good would come of it. So far just an angry fox and the realisation that my handwriting is ambiguous…I had written “Orange” but to me it now reads “Change”
Things have been listed on Etsy as planned and Lindsey and I took part in the most godawful craft fair on the planet which seemed to involve a few people eating bacon sandwiches and drinking tea in a freezing cold village hall, whilst keeping a safe distance from the five sorry and dejected stalls. The whole proceedings were watched over by a selection of five (one for each stall holder) depressed or insane looking ,stuffed wildebeest/antelope/deer creatures whose antlers were draped in tinsel. All in all, it is a relief to know that I am not relying on sales to feed me this winter , it is so much easier to enthusiastically sell other people’s work; I’m just regretting not signing up for the Sketchbook Project again as it has become a bit of a Winter tradition.
Now I must go and tend to my raspberry vinegar, put the kettle on and spend a moment with that ink and a clean page.
Reading :- Last weeks papers Listening To :- Beth Orton “Call me the Breeze”