We've had a William Morris Activity Day, yesterday. Eleanor spied my funky William Morris book (bought from a charity shop for £1, so we can cut it up without guilt) and demanded some pages for her own pattern, which she took to school today for her teacher. I took it on the patio table outside where you get the best light, this morning, before she went to school. It is something to do with swans giving birth to their egg and putting it on the tree in the centre.Second is my entry for Environment Day and I will scan Rima my polished entry with typed caption 'People need green spaces' before that date.
William Morris was an English pattern maker who disliked the often shoddy workmanship and industrialism of the Victorian age and put nature back into his own patterns for wallpaper and furniture. For all that many are now cloistered in the Victoria and Albert or seen as clintzy in English Country Homes, they are really very funky and almost psychedelic, as Eleanor appreciated.
I have secretly cut out a Generation X couple (apposite as a couple from the computer age are put back into nature, as Morris, from the former industrial age, if he had lived to see the computer age, would have appreciated) from one of Jack's Computer Magazines and placed them in a psychedelic Garden of Eden Wonderland, with a Tree of Knowledge to the left with fruit and peacock, a medieval sunflower sun, psychedelic oak leaves and giant flower and a giant bird stealing a strawberry to the right.
Third pic, I thought the people making mandalas would appreciate this. You can't see it very well from my photo sessions on the patio table with a cheap digital camera, but in the book this vine wall paper does seem to be moving and growing, which is a phenomenon I have noticed with many of the patterens which you have been creating.
12 comments:
Wow and double wow! I love your "People Need Green Spaces". You have taken your idea and polished it nicely. I love your daughter's collage also, I see this artsyness is a family trait!
you found a william morris book for one pound? wow. good find.
i love the swans.
That is lovely - okay so it is neater and prettier than your other one, so you are forgiven for chickening out - tee hee.
Congratulations - now you are officially an artsy-fartsy blogger!
Frances, funny the coincidences which seem to occur in blog land. At the time you must have been making your Lebanese House with the fabrics I was tootling about buying a William Morris book to make a picture with his wallpaper. Or did I see your house first, I can't remember....
Laurie, I certainly did find it for a pound as I don't think William Morris books are in great demand round here. It was from a Relate Charity Shop near here which I go to all the time. It is or was a very nice book and I enjoyed reading it yesterday. I remember you brousing in a bookshop in Paris and I like bookshops and shops like this. Apart from the satisfaction of getting a book for virtually nothing they often, being second hand, come with a history. Interesting things are left in as bookmarks, and, if they are kid's books, amusing scribbling.
I remember visiting the William Morris gallery in East London.The colours and designs were fantastic.
You certainly got a bargain book:-)
Bev, I think you are probably right, little demand for that type of book in Hull. In the environment in which I work I find many scribbles in books, and on tables, sometimes about me! You are right,our new drummer takes no prisoners and managed to destroy his kit while he was playing it. Something to behold! Wez grew up on a farm near Tetney, and apparently didnt even bother to dress for most of the Summer. He used to ride ride on farmyard machinery taking potshots at his brother (also shooting at him, and on his own tractor). Incidentaly, he is about the nicest guy you could ever meet.
Thanks for putting my favourite picture back!
what a find in that book! Great pictues and good to meet you.
It's funny how the old themes of fertility and nature worship always return to us in one form or another. They can not be forgotten and left behind. Somewhere there is always the Mother Goddess and there is always the tree of wisdom. Gaya is with us even in our Christian beliefs. I am so happy to see her back in our environmental struggle. Our awareness of the earth and the flora and the fauna. And our big role in it. Let's hope the She Goddess is forgiving.
I agree, Sweet Irene. I think these things are archetypes and ring a collective bell through all cultures and ages.
hi this is eleanor! the picture with the swans in is what made so dont think my mums got all the talent lol!
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