I got a notification yesterday from Wordpress congratulating me on NINE years of blogging! Today my writing desk is the bench behind the house where I'm baring my pasty limbs for the first time this year and dazzling the birds with their alabaster hue. Its not peaceful out here, it's a riot of activity and sensations - blazing sunshine, blustery wind battering the trees and blowing sycamore flowers on to my keyboard, birds seeing who can sing the loudest and the scent of bluebells, sappy green ferns and azaleas.There is a squeaky branch somewhere that sounds like the horn on a clown car and a helicopter circling the fell; I know I'd be more comfortable inside but it's dark in there and we people of Northern Britain tend to panic that the sun will never shine quite like this again and so across the land pale people are turning rapidly pink ( "like Strawberry Mivi's" Rupert likes to say).
Since I last wrote I have become 50. It was all pretty traumatic because I haven't really accepted adulthood yet and milestone birthdays are an introspective time for everyone aren't they... am I where I expected/hoped/planned to be in my life, what does the future hold, unhealthy comparisons with others and of course a dose of guilt for good measure because I'm here and others are not. Not for the first time I realised that what miss more than anything is friendship and most vitally the friendship other women who have known me as a young woman as I enter a new phase in my life- our lives. Anyway, some pretty lovely things happened too and once I'd stopped sulking like a baby it all seemed like a fuss over nothing.My parents had arranged for us to meet them in Morecambe so that we could stay in the Midland Hotel, an amazing Art Deco building that I last saw when it was a derelict ruin in the 90's (when I went to a WOMAD festival in the town). I thought they were mad. Morcambe is not the Riviera of the North but maybe it should be... the views across the bay to the Mountains were breathtaking and the hotel had been beautifully restored so that it felt like being in an ocean liner. Lying in bed I could only see the sea and sky (and Poirot which we had to watch because an episode was filmed there). A favourite detail was the Eric Gill map mural which is really very special and made me feel very sentimental about the Lake District. We watched a film of the town in it's heyday and in particular it's huge open air pool which has since been filled in: it seemed like such an innocent time, before I suppose air travel made holidays abroad more appealing and the idea of sunbathing on the North West coast less so. The legacy of our night at the Midland has been that this song, from the vintage film, has been stuck in our heads to the point of madness... listen at your peril!
Back home it feels as though the year is on fast forward and while I've completed all the wholesale orders from BCTF I've now got to start working on some new pieces for the exhibitions I'll be sending work to later in the year as well as Art in the Pen which is in July and August. I bought myself an A3 printer so I can now make some small affordable prints as well as making digital transparencies for my cyanotypes. Lots of fun and experimenting and hopefully some sales to keep the wolf from the door.This birdhouse design started out as a big A1 size sketch I did of the nest box outside the window. I taped the paper to the glass and forced myself to draw even though I kept having to walk away and drink coffee and have words with myself about motivation and self confidence, I think it shows that despite feeling at the time as though the drawing was rubbish and that I was useless and stuck in a rut, the end result was really satisfying. I know I need to learn from this and the lesson is "draw more and don't be so mean to yourself".
Here is the original sketch and my attempts to make a garden ...
Well now the sun has moved around the house and the goose pimples are making me look like an anaemic hedgehog so it's time to go inside and make some coffee... or maybe I just need to go and admire the way the light is filtering through those ferns up the lane...May is such a beautiful month.
Reading: " The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper" by Phaedra Patrick ( a lovely surprise random act of kindness from my friend Leti) and a book about th Midland Hotel.
I should have written notes while I was away, or I should have spent the evenings writing instead of watching murder mysteries, because now, less than a week since got home, I've so much to tell you but it's all jumbled up with how it feels to be home. Things have burst into flower and leaf , houseplants are leaning towards the light and people have moved into the birdhouse we put up last spring - they have been busy dusting and bringing in new nesting equipment.The return to Witchmountain, after British Craft Trade Fair, was delayed by a trip to London; so that altogether I was out of my nest for nine whole days! This only happens once a year and I should probably do it more often so that the feelings anxiety beforehand and unsettled flatness afterwards are less intense. I had such a good time and so many adventures. After all the build up to a big event it's not surprising it feels a little odd to be back with no imminent deadlines and just a sleeping cat for company during the day (and the owl who likes to hoot in the daytime).
This year BCTF was back in a permanent hall rather than a marquee and we'd been given an extra metre of space due to a cancellation, so it was a massive relief that the calico backdrops I'd made last year fitted perfectly. We found it much easier to set up this year, although it's never quite how you imagine it on paper.I'd mended the ladders with string but they still felt pretty dodgy and my mum told me yesterday that my grandad made them himself in the war or something...no wonder they were wobbly. Here are three generations of Tillyer women- I need to work on my body language a little don't I, you can see the discomfort in my white knuckled, clenched fist!
Of course I got severe stand envy as I looked around at what other people had done and it's the hardest thing in the world not to compare and lose confidence; it is for me anyway. My friend Bridget Wilkinson was there for the first time and the simplicity and neatness of her stand design really let her work shine ... it was also easier to set up, so If I do the show again I may do some reinventing ( mine was done with fabric, mostly because I have no power tools except a sewing machine and my dreadful measuring skills are more easily forgiven in fabric ).
Well we had a good show and met so many lovely, inspiring people - makers and gallery owners- I can't even begin to list them all (but I will be adding new dates and stockists to the exhibitions page on the website soon) I began to think I should give London a miss and head straight home to start on orders. This year is going to be busy and exciting; I just hope it starts to even out financially because there's no doubt it's been an expensive journey. BCTF is cheap compared to the bigger events like Top Drawer but I reckon it cost over £1,000 to stand, which is an awful lot when you don't have a guaranteed income. We treated ourselves to a hotel with a pool and I swam every night, imagining myself looking like Esther Williams until I put my glasses back on and saw the reality-sometimes it's better to live inside your head and dream.
And so from Harrogate to London where the weather made everything seem like we could have been in Italy. We ate tiny overpriced cakes cut into 3 pieces in the Royal Academy members rooms, marvelled at the marmalade at Fortnum's , lusted over everything in Anthropologie and visited the Bernard Jacobson Gallery where there was an exhibition by a rather special artist. London glittered in the sunlight and I insisted we went to Kew Gardens after a tip off there might be Moomins there. We must have walked for miles and I do wish I was able to go everyday for a month with a sketchbook and a picnic and a good map and plant guide.
There was a Moomin event at Kew but the real reason we were in London was to go to the Southbank Centre's Adventures in Moominland. Ok, I may have lost you by now; to a lot of people the Moomins was just a slightly creepy kids cartoon or a childhood paperback but I didn't even discover the books by Tove Jansson, apart from the semi autobiographical "The Summer Book", until I was 42. For some reason we missed them as children so my first Moomin experience is of reading all the stories one deep, white winter, with a bottle or two of whisky for company, snowed in and heartbroken after a relationship breakup. They are children's stories yes, but as the exhibition makes clear they are also about existential crisis, fear and loss, love and friendship, family and acceptance of difference, home and security. Many of the stories are actually about Tove's own life and relationships. Lots of the characters are misfits and outsiders but all are welcomed into the "family". Don't tell anyone but at a couple of points along the guided "adventure" I nearly cried- it was so beautifly done, with little illuminated tableaux in each room containing exquisite original drawings... some hidden in suitcases like Thingumy and Bob's "content", the love that they kept secret. There were no filming or photography allowed which I can understand but I wish I could show you how magical it was to literally walk into a favourite book; the whole experience was gentle and tactile with the smell of woodsmoke and clever use of light and sound. It could have been tacky and theme parky, or full of cynical kids but in our group of 15 there were only two very sweet children and the rest were grown ups - which just goes to prove my point.
Almost every year and in times of need I re-read Tove Jansson's books, especially Moominland Midwinter and feel grateful for the magic of a story that can transport you to another reality and put a different spin on your own. I think it's no exaggeration to say those books saved my life that winter, because whilst reading it was as though I pressed "pause" and took the time out I needed to feel stronger.OK, enough of the soppy stuff. I'm back in the Lakes now and busily making orders to send to all the lovely new galleries. There is a giveaway on my Facebook page at the moment to win a candle lantern... it's in the spirit of Hobbit birthdays because I'll be picking a winner at random the day after my birthday next week. If you have time have a look... you're in with a good chance because despite paying to promote the post only about 11 people have entered! The mysteries of Facebook algorithms.Happy Spring, Easter, Eostre - whatever you celebrate x
Reading: "The Bear and the Nightingale" Katherine Arden and " Work and Love" Tuula Karjalainen Website: I met Heidi Vilkman at BCTF, she is from Finland and apart from her art she has built the most amazing little cottage which could easily have been in a Tove Jansson book- honestly you have to look! http://cobdreams.blogspot.co.uk
The colour is just seeping back in to the day, as the morning snow gives way to more seasonal rain and I've settled by the stove to write. Slowly, outside the big window, the delicate prettiness of pink blossom and ice has returned to over saturated green and yellow ( is it a crime to live in the Lake District and not like daffodils? shhh, don't tell ). It's been a day of little tasks, printing order forms and making price labels, sorting out boxes of exhibition "stuff"; the kind of things that make it seem as though I've been busy all day but haven't achieved very much. It was exciting to wake up to snow this morning and the cat was beside herself with joy, skittering about like a kitten, staring wide eyed through the window and asking to go out ( and immediately back in again) at least 20 times. Cat has always loved snow but there seems to be much less of it these days and certainly less than some of the winters in our old home. I miss it and the strange excitement and magic it brings. But it's unseasonal now, and mostly I suppose, unwelcome after all the celebrations of the first day of Spring. Yesterday was so cold I gave in and put the heating on early. I'd spent the morning sharing a chair and a hot water bottle with that cat- neither of us normally so affectionate- until the Archers came on the radio and the sound of hounds sent her clawing herself free to hide under the table.
Some really lovely things have been happening lately. I'm now recognised in Keswick Post Office, or at least the red bear stamp on most of my parcels is, which must mean that sales are getting a bit more regular. This week for the first time since leaving the Herdy shop I earned the same as I would have done had I stayed - a combined income from my own sales and the almost unbelievable treat of a day's work at Sam Read's Bookshop in Grasmere. I think you could begin to understand the strangeness of finding myself looking OUT of the bookshop from behind the desk, rather than IN through the postcardy door, if you looked back at previous posts or searched "Grasmere" in the side bar. The happy/sad of being here in the Lakes instead of "home", the feeling of unreality and uprootedness that comes from building a new life where there are no familiar touchstones, the lack of confidence after various "work" events - sometimes something nice happens out of the blue and you find yourself looking over your shoulder to check for Fairy Godmothers. Anyway, it was a fun day and I'm very grateful to Will for thinking I might be able to help out... especially as we only really know each other through Twitter and there was that time I was in the shop and mentioned the possibility of assassinating him so I could steal his job (social anxiety can make you say the dumbest things).
Well, I'm sure all work can become mundane (and I've always resisted applying for jobs in places I really love in case familiarity breeds contempt) but it was so nice to have interesting conversations and learn new things and it seemed auspicious that as I drove over Dunmail Raise, before the signal gave out, someone was reading Wordsworth's "Daffodils" on the radio.
Back on Witchmountain with less than two weeks until Harrogate I'm busily doing last minute preparations for the show as well as trying to learn how to use my new camera... an early birthday present to myself because I'm suppose to try and take proper product photographs. The wooden jewellery has been really popular and I can't wait to get some more designs made. The special "design sample" price ends this weekend but I'm sure will still want them at the real RRP. which properly reflects the costs. How I wish I was a hardened business woman with no qualms about pricing, instead of a bit of a hippy idealist with a basic mistrust of Capitalism! Yesterday I listened to a radio programme that talked about spending and "peak stuff" and found that I agreed so much with the philosophy that we all have too much "stuff" and that we buy too much, waste too much. How can I reconcile this with trying to sell my own stuff?! I wanted to call the programme and say that maybe if people chose to buy more from smaller independent businesses, to choose for love rather than being on the "upgrade" treadmill - could that work? Perhaps I need to look for a good book on economics and philosophy...
The hungry stove is asking for another log, the radio's brought unwelcome news from London and Rupert has just got back from a chilly day at work in the mines across the valley (as an outdoor educator not a miner) so it's time for tea. Apparently the sun will reappear later this week and the brief brake on Spring will be released.
Reading:- "Basic Nest Architecture" Polly Atkin ( from Grasmere - poems that have kept me awake at night searching the internet for Moon pianos and memories of home) and "Swell, A Waterbiography" Jenny Landreth ( to be published on May 4th )