A new Exhibition on the Prairies :
Jill Tattersall will be coming to Sussex Prairies at the beginning of our open garden season (June 2013 ) bringing her glorious artworks to exhibit in our Garden Room. As an avid fairy tale connoisseur I am intrigued by Jill’s alter ego the fantastic Mr Wolf . But we shall be talking about the Red Riding Hood factor later !
Jill opens her house every year as part of the Artists Open Houses season (now on until the end of may 2013 ! )and the Wolf at the Door welcomes all manner of talented artists and crafts people to exhibit in an airy and lovely home and garden setting. So we feel very honoured that Jill has chosen us as the next crumb in the trail of breadcrumbs through the forest .
Who is this Madame Lupino ?
Jill says :
I’m a compulsive taker of cuttings, sower of seeds and maker of gardens. I used to earn my living as a medievalist and became interested in herbals and old books and encyclopaedias describing plants and their properties.
I also loved seeing how people imagined and depicted gardens in earlier civilisations, before perspective complicated things! Egyptian tomb-paintings, Persian garden rugs, the hortus conclusus of roman or medieval times…. Allotments haven’t changed that much over the millennia. In hot climates with the desire for a place of coolness, privacy, quiet, and luxuriant growth the idea of the garden of paradise was never far away.
So plants and gardens, their patterns and colours , their ebb and flow with the seasons, have been an important part of my art. Recently
I designed a curative herb garden in the shape of a medieval world map at the inspirational Dilston Physic Garden in Northumberland. Drawing, history and plants all in one!
Most of my work is quite time-consuming. I often make the paper for a piece before I even start painting. Colour is a predominating consideration in everything I do or make, and I use many combinations of paints, inks, dyes and pure pigment to build up intense colour. I also use recycled and found bits and pieces where I can.
I’ve had many solo exhibitions all over the country and done quite a few garden- or plant-based commissions. Ask me if you’re interested – recent examples include fig, medlar, quince, aubergine, kiwis, ginkgo.
How Jill Works : in her own words
Mixed media is a polite term for a messy and complicated way of working. For a start, I often make the paper I work on. Then, for any one piece I may decide I need plaster, glue, paints of various sorts, pigments, inks and dyes and a range of found or reclaimed materials.
I make the paper I use in my pieces outdoors when I can. It’s a watery process involving multiple splashes and puddles and needs lots of drying space. I start off with sheets of cotton fibres which I soak, pulp and then form into sheets – or cast over shapes – using a wire mesh screen. The water has to be squeezed out and the sheets pressed flat. This makes a beautiful and slightly unpredictable surface to paint on.
If you’re interested, ask and I’ll tell you more!
www.facebook.com/MadameLupino (Wolf at the Door)
It all started very innocently, if dramatically, by a mass breakout of the ram lambs (but not my favourites : Curly, Curly’s Brother or Wills), from the Little Field, through the thick spiny hedge, on to the main road. Alerted and aided by our favourite Jewsons delivery man, and concerned passers by, we managed to herd the rest of the misfits back into the field with copious amounts of sheeep food. By awesome detective work (wool on barbed wire) we located the hole that they had made in the hedge and set about effecting repairs. The small ram lambs kept sidling back to see if they could escape again once our backs were turned but were easily shooed away once we had thrown hammers and sickles at them! But there lurked a far greater danger in waiting. An evil brown monster bent on trouble. Like a perverted dirty old man he ambled along the hedge line supposedly minding his own business but obviously pitching for a fight. Being shooed away was not in his game plan as he took the initiative to mount a full scale full on attack. This involved running at us full pelt with horns and knee breaking boulder sized thick head at the ready to do serious damage. Thank fully , Paul is not only a master gardener but fully versed in the wily arts of matedor cape swirling. (all learnt from Strictly Come Dancing ) and was able to deflect the onslaught by dexterous Barbour jacket moves which unnerved the ovine tornado bearing down upon us. A couple of passes and he managed to catch hold of his lethal horns and manhandle him unceremoniously to the ground and sit on him. So far so good but sitting on him was like sitting on an unexploded bomb as the heaving mass of testosterone fuelled muscle quivered in rage. To avoid counter attacks from the young bucks I managed to get them all into the garden field and then grabbed hold of a horn each and dragged the fuming mass of machismo in with them.
But dark clouds were brewing and it was only a matter of minutes before the boys (led by evil personified , Othello), had broken out of the field again and were up at the house garden looking for trouble. In fact looking for a dear old unsuspecting pensioner, Pat, my mum. Ignoring mum and her enticing bucket of food the devil incarnate knocked her to the ground and set about beating her up. Being a tough old farmers wife , mum managed to grab his horns and drag herself up and away from the battering to alert us to his antics.
It was only later when we discovered what had happenend during his sex fuelled rape and pillage ploy as the poor old sheep sculptures will testify. Horribly abused by hooves and wilful uncontrolled lust they lay scattered and abused on the ground.
Snacks to go on the train…. the smallest stop in the middle of nowhere and a veritable army of sellers with loaded trayful of munchies leap on and their market cries echo through the train as they ply their wares ….cripy parings so awfully chilli hot the fear and the craving to eat them work in a strange harmony of doom …… ….
The Burmese must have a very sweet tooth as the achingly sticky sweetmeats you see piled like glutinous mountains of tooth decay are neverending and numerous wherever you are .. cloying coconut, unctious unknown unfurling circles of doom for dental care….
