And so....
With severe weather conditions, election fever and Christmas craziness occupying all our minds we wanted to get a quick newsletter out whilst we still had breath. We do hope all our participants, past and future, are staying safe across the continents but if help is needed do let us know and we will try to spread the word through our network and, of course, if there is anything we can do for you this end do let us know.
If, however, you want something to take your mind off the instability and unpredictability of life at the moment, perhaps you might like to consider a break with us next summer. In April and May we have great food and comedy to lift your spirits; and in June we will be hosting our first workshop to be led by two incredibly talented and creative women: Kerry Larkin and Edie Ure - By Hand: Plant to Fiber. (We are offering our newsletter readers a 100€/$110 discount for bookings made before Christmas - just add the code BHPTF to your booking form.)
A little bit about Kerry and Edie to whet your appeite: Edie is originally from London, but after graduating in fashion and textiles from Central St Martins, she worked as a designer in Milan, Paris and then New York, working at Ralph Lauren Home. After a move from the city to the countryside with her young family, Edie fell in love with the spectrum of natural plant colours readily available all around her and started to use them to create designs on a freelance basis for many major brands including Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, GAP, Ulla Johnson, and Tocca. She is passionate about sharing the excitement, skills and knowledge she has since developed using “natural” dyeing with the most suitable organic fabrics for each dye colour, whether it be for clothing or interior textiles. She is looking forward to exploring and “cropping” the abundant plants and flowers in our large, mature gardens for use during the 5 Day / 6 Night workshop with us next summer!
Meanwhile, we have long been fans of Kerry Larkin and her Comma Workshop, a modern quilt design and manufacturing studio originally based in Boulder, Colorado (we have a fabulous example hanging in one of our bedrooms!). Stitching thousands of words into stunningly stylish but functional quilts Kerry brought a fresh perspective to the time-honoured tradition of quilting which quickly became a little media darling, featured in The New York Times, Martha Stewart Whole Living, and American Craft among others. Incorporating original poems and stories about life and adventure, the quilts are timeless, sophisticated and often playful. For her collaboration with Edie Ure for this workshop she will be concentrating on hand-stitching and the “architecture” of quilt-makiing, working in harmony with Edie’s creative organic colouring to help participants produce individual pieces of organic style and simplicity.
You may well be a global warming sceptic, but no one can deny the ferocity of nature once she is angry and these magnificent large-scale aquatic photographs by Luke Shadbolt capture the fierce strength of ocean waves. Printed at 150 x 100 cm (nearly 6 feet by 3.3 feet), the colour and black-and-white images show the dramatic shapes and dynamic textures of open water when agitated by major weather events. In a statement on the artist’s website, the Maelstrom series is described as “a cursory glimpse of the exchange, cycle and balance of power fundamental to the functioning of our planet and its oceans… Maelstrom encourages the viewer to reflect upon our own naivety and place as a species within the greater natural balance of power.”
If you are wondering which way to exercise your creativity next and you haven’t yet tried it, watercolours are a great medium to explore. You only need a few things to start (Father Christmas might be able to stretch to a Meeden or Windsor & Newton palette?) and there are no boundaries to where it can take you. Tap into your inner child and make marks, write, play with colours, play with textures, layering. Lessons are helpful but not entirely necessary, just a willingness to let go, and the possibilities are endless, as well as intensely personal; pick up the brush feeling stressed and unable to stop thinking and you’ll end up feeling lighter, and more present. There is no wrong way….
Returning to the subject of nature and colour, this towering ginkgo tree, located within the walls of the Gu Guanyin Buddhist Temple in the Zhongnan Mountains in China is over 1,400-year-old. In late autumn every year its leaves turn bright yellow and fall into a golden heap on the temple grounds drawing tourists from the surrounding area.
With the holidays ahead of us food, and more importantly menus, are often on our thoughts. With numerous cookbooks under her belt and many years of preparing meals for special occasions, Louise Pickford of Come Cook in France, writes a regular blog with seasonal recipes. All you have to do is subscribe to her blog and she’ll keep you busy with delicious suggestions for the festivities ahead. For a more hands-on approach, Louise will be leading two 3-Day workshops with us next summer and we still have a few places left on two of them: Spring Cuisine and Autumn Cuisine.
Those of you who have already been to one of our workshops will no doubt remember the little maison d'été that sits alongside the Maison de Maître, and which Susu keeps in sparkling order. With many more brocantes coming up on the horizon down here and new gems arriving, we have decided to put some of the current items on our website shop. If you are looking for an original small gift it might be worth popping along to have a peep…… Here are some of our favourites:
