Tim's print

I met Tim before I came to garden at Spa Hill - I attended one of his organic gardening courses. He taught me how to make compost - just like cooking really. Afterwards we ate some of his home-made nettle soup in the allotment hall. It tasted awful to me. Last year he organised a really wonderful apple day where we scrumped loads of apples off the allotments and made community cider.

You can also meet into Tim on the 250 bus, which he sometimes drives - when he's not making cider. Tim loves trees. Half his plot is an orchard really - with quince and hazel and apple trees. Once I bumped into him at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall - he was carrying a tray of blackberry fools which he had brought all the way from Spa Hill. Blackberry - plant of the undergrowth and woods.

When I came to make his print I knew it would involve the delicate tracery of hazel branches, their flying pollen and Tim's unmistakable boiler suit - which he is never without. I imagined Tim's trees growing up within him - like one of those stories from Ovid, growing from winter to spring to summer to autumn. I also want to print with the rich and wondrous soil - which Tim is such an expert.

Tim kindly has loaned me a spare and very well worn suit and I've designed and started sampling his print. I'm going to show him this Wednesday. Fingers crossed.

 

Meeting Eileen

Over a month has passed since my last post and I have started trying out my recipe with lots of new people - including and especially Eileen.

Eileen and her husband John have been coming past my door for years - her full of sauce and him looking like a prize fighter. Whenever I bump into her on the allotment I always pick her brains for tips on the children - she has brought 5 into the world. Her early life was tough - she was brought up in an orphanage but she became independent very young, cycling everywhere because she had no cash. Her favourite cycle ride is between London and Brighton - and that is where she met John - at the Lido in Brighton. Apart from her 5 children, she worked as a store detective and still has a grip of iron. She is a champion cactus grower and a stalwart of Spa Hill.

I hadn't seen John for a while and knew he wasn't well so when I got together with Eileen, I  knew she had a lot on her mind. As well as making her a print, I thought I could help out a bit on her allotment. The storms had blown a lot of the glass off her green house. Her plot needed tidying up and there was some rhubarb she wanted to shift.

As we worked Eileen's colours, patterns and mood came into focus: I made her a sundial print - the pattern of the sun moving across the broken grass of her greenhouse and dyed her cloth with rhubarb.
I wanted to make her something protective as well as soft to the touch. An ancient rain jacket hung off the door of her greenhouse - inspiring me to make her a silky mac, quilted to keep her warm and cosy