bees – Switch the Kettle on, Love

All my life I have been lucky enough to have access to the newspapers and their magazines. I am sure it is partly from these magazines that I discovered a world of fashion, music, art, beauty, photography, nature and culture really, that has fascinated and informed me over the years.

Visiting the 2022 Zandra Rhodes Exhibition.

One person from those magazines I often read about, was Zandra Rhodes. Of course it was her pink hair that caught my attention at first and I admit, I didn’t know much about her designs, but in 2022 an exhibition came to Aberdeen Art Gallery. It was a fabulously bright and colourful celebration of her fifty year career.

To then discover the (always a wonderful source of inspiration) Aberdeen Art Gallery, has an exhibition on at the moment, until the 13th of April on Textiles: Picasso to Warhol, well. I had to go. I was interested to learn that so many of the artists we still admire today, Matisse, Henry Moore, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall. Picasso and Warhol, designed textiles for the fashion industry.

Needless to say, I have been once, or twice, or so (!) to the exhibition. What a super piece of social history, and what’s more, the work of Zandra Rhodes was also featured.

This time, I was on the ball and managed to get tickets for my sister and I to go to the talk with curator Dennis Nothdruft and Zandra Rhodes. So, many, many years after sitting at home in a village on the West Coast of Scotland, reading about this innovative and inspiring woman, I finally got to meet her. What a powerhouse. It was an absolute treat.

Of course, it was World Book Day so I felt I had to buy her book, ‘Iconic’! Interestingly enough, to me, her dedication included her mum and her sister. My mum was a true inspiration to me, particularly when it came to creativity. She sewed, knitted and crocheted constantly, even making her own gorgeous wedding dress. Skills she handed on to all my siblings.

How blown away was I to then read the first chapter of ‘Iconic’. I’ll leave it to you to discover why.

I think it was a lucky combination for me; a dad who loved newspapers and a mum who loved textiles. Writing this I begin to see where I started on this path of loving so many differing types of creativity.

The textiles were so interesting partly because, pattern has always fascinated me. Ever since handwriting practice at school I think, and when I doodle, I return to these two. The first is like a relaxing, calming movement, the second I then fill in with a variety of dots and lines. Life has patterns too and I am always on the lookout for them.

So as the weather has warmed up this week and it is time to choose lighter, and perhaps brighter, clothes, I will be thinking about not only the dress designers but also those who have designed the textiles that will be chosen.

Nature of course has so many patterns and they have been proven to have a therapeutic effect, like gardening can!

I have been out in the garden doing a bit of tidying. Sowing teasel seeds although I am always a bit early and optimistic with seed sowing! Fingers crossed.

It has been a great time to watch wildlife and I have spotted huge bumblebees including a Tree bumblebee and a Garden bumblebee. Also, to my total excitement, goldfinches have arrived! Yay! After years of putting out niger seed with no luck, it is the sunflower hearts that has brought them in.

Wishing you all a happy, peaceful and creative time.

Is there a doodle you always do?

I am watching

Icons of Style on BBC Scotland with Kirsty Wark.

I am reading

Iconic: My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects by Zandra Rhodes

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

The Lost Spells by Robert MacFarlane, illustrated by Jackie Morris

It would be lovely if you would like to pop over to www.mybookcorner.co.uk where you can read my reviews of books for children. There is the opportunity to sign up for the newsletter there as well, providing you with great recommendations sent straight to your inbox.

I began this post in the summer. For some reason, I couldn’t get my head around what the thread of it was until I realised, that was the point. This is about meandering.

In gardens that have been specially designed, the aim seems to be to have a winding path. One to deliberately make you slow down and take your time. Along the way, there will be side shoots, leading you to ‘moments of interest’ in the garden. At the end of the path there may be an area that was at first hidden from sight.

I confess to not knowing much about garden design, despite the many I have visited! One designer I have read and heard mention of over the years is Gertrude Jekyll. On a visit to the Holy Island (Lindisfarne) on the North East Coast of England, I was delighted to learn there was a garden she had designed. Oh, how beautiful it is too! Filled with an abundance of summer blooms in a riot of colour, it was an absolute treat to see. Fragrant sweet peas and roses, poppies, daisies and flowering Lamb’s Ears (Stachys Byzantina)amidst others.

Garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll at Lindesfarne (Holy Island).

A long time ago I planted Lamb’s Ears in my garden after admiring them in the walled garden at Drum Castle: the leaves are so soft to touch. So it is with gardens, each one I visit inspires me to do something more with my own. Returning home with renewed determination to try sweet peas again, I think of how amazing their perfume is and how they are so pretty in a posy.

I am a meandering sort of a person, I think. The years have taught me that I do get there, slowly, following paths I choose, often without a clear idea of how it will all turn out but willing to give it a try. Perhaps my way is like the butterflies and moths I enjoy spotting, flitting from one stem to the next but with an overall sense of purpose.

Often I am inspired by others who have followed their own paths. Watching the documentary on the writer Joan Didion, reading about the photographer Imogen Cunningham and Kate Bradbury’s ‘The Bumblebee Flies Anyway’ have set the tone for my summer.

Always one to enjoy a learning opportunity, the talk by Annie Ives on identifying bumble bees for the Scottish Wildlife Trust was right up my street.

Writing this blog has given me the perfect opportunity to use some of the photos of the natural world around us that I love to take. This love of photography combined with writing meant I very much enjoyed running a ‘Scrawl and Crawl’ workshop with SCBWI‘s Karen McDonald at the wonderful Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at Aberdeen Art Gallery. I am hoping the exercises we did will get me writing!

As ever, the garden provides me with so many opportunities to take photos, it is hard to resist! Here are a selection of September moments. Sunshine, spiders and sunflowers, a white-tailed bee on the Sedum (Hylotelephium) and stunning white anemones.

To see the wild flowers amongst the apples this summer was a delight.

I wondered whether to post this or not, time has run away with me but today, as I swept up piles of leaves to let the grass breathe I thought, why not. Perhaps this is a summer/autumn round up.

Leaving the leaves (!) on the flower beds with the aim that they will break down as a natural mulch, I gathered a couple of bags full to hopefully create leaf mould. Making sure there were holes in the bags, I poured in some water from the rainwater butt and am keeping my fingers crossed.

Outside, in the October sunshine, I heard the honks, quacks and barks of pink-footed geese flying in a ‘v’ formation overhead. As I swept the leaves, a beautiful light green frog moved to hide in between the cracks in the wall. So that was the end of my clearing up. I left the rest for the frogs.

The Fuchsia are still going strong but are there any ‘froggy friends’ lurking underneath the beech leaves?

I am reading:

‘Haddo Reimagined‘ by Rae Cowie and Susan Orr this is a wonderful collaboration between writer and photographer.

Do you have a book recommendation which would be perfect for this time of year?

Tag: bees

Fascinating Icons and Patterns

Gardens, Photography, Reading, Writing and Learning- of course!

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