Thursday, April 1, 2010

Inside, outside and fine china cups.



Last night the moon rose late into a clear darkness-pinned-to-the-sky-with-stars cloth of dreams. It was pale lemon, beautiful. Now the world has darkened and outside the lambs are running for cover as sleet falls in a fast wind.
And that is the weather report today from Treleddyd Fawr.
Inside there will be dormice in teacups.
Yesterday the accountant gave me a gold star. Might be premature, but I treasure it to my heart anyway. 
And my flowers are still beautiful, well cared for and every time I see them it makes me pause and smile, inside and outside.



Today I have contacted one of the descendants of Grace Stevens, whose young hand helped to stitch the Rajah Quilt so many years ago, I have drawn dormice and found a new theme of dormice sleeping in teacups to occupy my time and I have received my catalogue from teh V&A. The book fell open at the page that shows the Rajah Quilt, just as I was beginning to wonder whether it would be possible to make the story into a picture book. There can sometimes be something quite haunting about being taken over by a story. I think this one wishes to be written.



All the work above is destined for the Alice in Wonderland Exhibition at The Imagine Gallery. Would love to be able to go as John has gathered together such incredible things, including work by Graham Piggott. I have a polar bear of his and I think this was the first thing of Graham's that John saw when he came to collect work from me.

9 comments:

  1. I like your pencil work--and this March Hare is a good one!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love your Dormouse:) So cute in his teacup!
    Alice exhibitions are popping up all over the place now...just goes to show that everyone loves fairy tales & fantasy :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love the sketches-particularly the pencil drawing-comfortable as a bug in a rug- Angie

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love that doormouse! Can't wait to see you :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your doormouse in a teacup is perfectly adorable. That would be a wonderful exhibition to attend.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Erin, get a blog! I will follow you. See you Monday and hopefully will have done some work on big hares and also have Christmas almost finished. Any requests for supper?

    ReplyDelete
  7. What lovely, lovely dormice, but then all of your drawings and paintings are lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think the Rajah quilt is going to haunt you until you write its story. Although i only saw the brief explanation on the V&A website, the piscture intrigued me. I have done a quilt with some of the same pattern....an ancient one...but with the advantage of modern sewing machine and cutting tools. I have visions of these sad souls working these tiny squares as they sail further and further from home. But mostly I love the freedom implicit in the flying birds!

    Many of us quilters say the quiet repetetive work of quilting soothes our souls; this quilt may have actually saved the sanity of these women.

    I look forward to more tales of the Rajah quilt.

    ReplyDelete
  9. You edited the post after I looked, I guess because I didn't see the other drawings until this morning. The doormouse is adorable! The drawing is exquisite and the painting lovely. Your work is such a pleasure to look at!

    ReplyDelete