Terri Windling's Blog, page 252

On Your Desk

Today's workspace photos come from our friend Chris Back, a fine woodworker and amazing musician/song-writer who lives in Moretonhampstead, the next village over.  Our two villages are traditional rivals (dating back to the English Civil War, when Moretonhampstead supported the Parliamentarians and Chagford was a Royalist town), but both villages have strong art and music scenes with a lot of backing-and-forthing between them.

"I make furniture and other wooden things," Chris says, "from my home granite workshop looking out over my small garden in the the middle of Moretonhampstead. It's small but it's warm and light and the kettle is not far away for my too-often and too-long tea breaks."

"Larger things I have to make to commission, but the smaller pieces I design on the spot when I come across an interesting piece of wood. I'm still finding my way with design and technique (isn't everyone?). A lot of my stuff is quite contemporary looking, with clean lines and a mix of woods; but I actually love history, and I'm soon going to make some more historically-inspired pieces -- even if, because of space, they're only models. In fact, I'm currently making a model bookcase for local artist Hazel Brown's beautiful miniature books. [Hazel was one of the "Faery Godmothers" whose desks were featured in this previous post.] The photos below are of two jewellery boxes that I've just finished."

"My other 'workshop' is my upstairs lounge overlooking the Dartmoor hills, where I write and practice on my guitars. I'm in two bands: a three piece acoustic band, The Levi Moretons, and an electric blues band, The Johnsons Blues Explosion -- both soon to be playing in Terri's wonderful village of Chagford."

Howard and I are big fans of The Levi Moretons, by the way, whose music ranges from roots rock and blues to English folk and American bluegrass. Since I know a lot of you out there are Richard Thompson fans, here's their gorgeous version of "Down Where the Drunkards Roll":

On Your Desk

Today's desk comes from another old friend here in my village, Jason Hancox. Jason is a silversmith and goldsmith who makes beautiful "runic jewelry" under the name Jason of England, creating art that is steeped in the myths and ancient spiritual traditions of northern Euorpe. (He is also the artist behind the mystical totems--made of silver and natural objects--adorning the pages of  The Runes of Elfland by Brian Froud and Ari Berk.) Like Yuli and Dhevdhas in last week's photos, Jason works out of an old granite barn rich in Devonian history and atmosphere. The back door opens onto a rolling green field bordered by old stone walls --  the same field where Jason and his partner Ruth hosted the spring equinox celebration that I wrote about last month.

Jason's description of his workspace comes to us in the form of the following poem:

Order from chaos create,
the Gods example set,
Water, Fire, Earth, and Air,
Hler, Loge, Erda, Kari.
Befriend the Primal Powers,
and with the will
forge shimmering, shifting elements,
to hold together, for a time,
in beauteous form.

"If I order the tools of my workbench," Jason says, "I remove the desire to create. I do not enjoy or embrace chaos, I use it to inspire my need to change it, to create form and beauty."

Above: a selection of Jason's tools. Below: the gorgeous objects he makes with them. To see more of his mythic jewelry, please visit the Jason of England website.

More  desks, from the village and elsewhere, in the days ahead....

A basket full of wonders:

My friend Charles Vess asked me to post the following information, and I'm very happy to do so. . . .

Charles says: Every year my local library has a fundraiser called A Tisket, A Tasket, A Literary Basket. Hundreds of literary themed baskets are assembled by interested patrons and auctioned off at a live event raising much need funds to purchase books and refurbish the various public library locations around Washington Co. Virginia. This year I thought that I would jump in and help:

A Bit of English Magic

A Susanna Clarke/Charles Vess Literary Basket for a charity auction to benefit The Washington Co. Public Library Foundation.

Bidding will open Monday, April 4 at 12:01 AM EST

Auction closes on Saturday, April 9 at 4:00 PM EST.

Included in the basket is:

• US first edition of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (signed by the author),

• British first edition of The Ladies of Grace Adieu (signed by the artist),

• US first edition of The Ladies of Grace Adieu (signed by the artist),

• One framed original pencil drawing for the title page design of The Ladies of Grace Adieu (signed by the artist),

• Assorted promotional material for The Ladies of Grace Adieu,

• A Fall of Stardust, a benefit portfolio including 30 art plates* and one chapbook written by Neil Gaiman (signed by the artist) and one chapbook written by Susanna Clarke (signed by the artist).

• Drawing Down the Moon, The Art of Charles Vess with foreword by Susanna Clarke, signed by the artist with a remarque.

Any of the books illustrated by the artist can be personalized on request.

To view details of all books and the original art, and for how-to-bid information, please go here.

* One of those art plates is by me. - TW

Tune for a Monday Morning

Today's tune comes from my dear friends Charles de Lint and MaryAnn Harris, who have a just completed the lovely video above for "Cherokee Girl" -- a song from from Charles' brand new, much-anticipated CD, Old Blue Truck. Go here to give a listen to other tunes on the CD -- as well as from MaryAnn's new EP, Crow Girls. Both musicians play on both recordings, along with the amazing Brock Zeman and others.

The video was filmed in Tucson, Arizona (with the help of Tucson photographer Stu Jenks), much of it out at the ranch in the Rincon foothills where I live when I'm in the desert, and where friends like Charles and MaryAnn often stay. I've been told that I was part of the inspiration behind the song (I'm Cherokee on my father's side), which is an honor indeed.

The Sonoran Desert has also inspired some of Charles' finest books and tales (including Medicine Road, illustrated by Charles Vess; Forests of the Heart; and The Mystery of Grace), as well as poetry you can read online in the JoMA archives here, here, and here.

For more desert magic, check out Stu Jenk's photography books on the Fezziwig Press website....

The drawing and painting above are by Charles Vess, from Medicine Road.

On Your Desk

The desktop photos in today's post come from the two men behind the John Barleycorn blog (and the John Barleycorn Must Die graphic-novel-in-progress): artist Rex Van Ryn, and my husband Howard Gayton. One of their desktops is our yellow kitchen table (above), where they meet every weekday morning to do collaborative work on the comic and the blog. Afterward, they return to their individual workspaces: Rex to a drawing table in an atmospheric old cottage on the other side of the village; Howard to his cabin on the hillside behind us, which (like my cabin-studio in the garden next door) sits up against the trees of a little woodland.

First, here's Rex's drawing table:

"I've worked in a wide variety of studios over my life," he says, "ranging from advertising and film studios in London and L.A. to the painting studio in the village square that I shared for awhile with Terri, and Rima Staines. I can basically work anywhere; I'm not precious or fussy about it. At the moment I find it convenient to work from home. "

"When I'm drawing comics, I like to cover my work table with stuff that triggers memories of my childhood: old comics, bubblegum cards, toys and the like. Everything I draw comes from my head so I need my 'head space' to be one of 'limitless potential' -- the way I understood the world when I was three years old."

"When I'm inking a drawn comic page, I work on a drawing board -- often away from my workplace. I ink with a number two sable hair brush and black Indian ink."

"Though I'm focused on graphic art at the moment, I also paint with oils and sculpt with clay. When I'm painting or sculpting, I tend to set up my workspace very differently: I  prefer to have my work table or easel area entirely clear, with minimal distractions around me. "

Next, the desk where Howard works when he's writing text for the comic:

"My desk is in a two-room cabin," he says, "with a balcony porch where I can sit and work on sunny days. One room is for writing, studying, and music: it's a sound-proofed space crowded with instruments, music and film equipment, books, my computer, and work supplies. The other room, used for theatre and martial arts practice, is kept clear and almost empty -- with theatre matting on the floor and Commedia dell'Arte masks from my old theatre company hanging on the wall."

"In the pictures here, my computer screen is full of notes for the John Barleycorn project. The computer sits on an antique writing desk that once belonged to my grandmother, who was a painter and a poet. Some of my instruments hang on the wall behind the desk; and on the opposite wall, an original painting by Terri, called Coyote Woman, is a peaceful presence."

"A Hopi 'storyteller' kachina (from one of my trips to Arizona) stands on my desktop, and a statue of  Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, looks down from a nearby shelf.  The cabin is cozy, but occasionally leaky --  so the towel you see stuffed under the window here is needed to keep out the Dartmoor rain!"

"In addition to working on the comic at this desk, I also edit videos, record and mix music, and I'm preparing for a teaching/directing gig in Portugal, where Geoff Beale (my theatre partner) and I will be directing a Commedia dell'Arte version of The Tempest in June.

Looking through the window beside the desk, with Dartmoor and Kes Tor visible in the distance....

Friday's Recommended Reading:

A miscellaneous assortment of interesting things....

* Katherine Langrish on "anti-tales," Bluebeard, Mr. Fox, and the Scandinavian folkroots of her novel West of the Moon at The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond. It's a fabulous post -- and it's also the last day of her blog tour, so please have a visit and leave a comment to celebrate the end of a great, folklore-rich tour!  (And if Kath's post whets your appetite for more on Bluebeard and Mr. Fox, go here, here, here, and here.)

* Stephen Marche on How Shakespeare Invented Teenagers in The New York Times Magazine. A fascinating little piece.

* Alex Clark on The Lost Art of Editing in The Guardian. Alternately depressing and encouraging, and so true on both counts. (Yes, I know that's contradictory, but so is the publishing industry these days.)

* Fiona MacCarthy on the Victorian "Cult of Beauty," a new exhibition at the V&A, in The Guardian. Note to self: do not miss this.

* Natalie Grant's Open Letter to Madeline L'Engle in McSweeney's. Very touching.

* Mike Allen interviews Erzebet YellowBoy Carr on the IAF blog. (There are other good interviews here too.)

* Maria Shriver interviews poet Mary Oliver at Oprah.com, of all places (via Colleen Mondor).

* Justine Lee Monk on why fiction is important and kicking procrastination at Tribal X and Tribal Writer (via Gwenda Bond). Good advice for writers/creators.

* Rose Fox on Going Digital: A Personal Journey in Publishers Weekly. Learning to love ebooks.

* Colleen Mondor on Under the Poppy, Kathe Koja's amazing new novel, at Chasing Ray; which I also highly rcommend.

* Laura Miller on The Last Ringbearer, a Russian novel based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, at Salon.com.

* Evan Ratliff on Taming the Wild: the strange saga of breeding tame foxes in Siberia, in National Geographic magazine.

* The discussion on magic continues at John Barleycorn and Astrotabletalk.  A new "Moveable Feast" in the making?

* And for something completely different: four clothing sites that are fun to poke around in, all with a vintage, whimsical, folkloric or fairy tale feel: Gypsy Moon, Gudrun Sjödén, Ewa Y Walla and Mori Girl (the latter two via Angela Bell). Also, here's a dress made of beetles' wings at Hermes' Pre-Raphaelite Art blog. 

Have a good weekend.

On Your Desk

Carrying on from yesterday's post, today's desktop/workspace photos come from Susie Yorke, who is also part of the new generation of artists here in the village. Susie is an amazingly multi-talented woman who paints, writes, and sings with the all-girl acapella group The Wild Violets, all while maintaining a busy acupuncture practice, occasionally teaching both acupuncture and yoga, and raising her daughter Sylvie.

"My workspace," she says, "is in the Old School House, which used to be the primary school for the village about seventy years ago or so. It is an old granite building that has now been converted into three houses, and I live in the first house. My workspace (which these days is also my living room and my bedroom) has a high beamed ceiling and a view from a lovely window seat across to beautiful, brooding Meldon Hill and Kes Tor on the moor. I love lounging here, and reading in the warm sunshine given any opportunity. Books are vital to my inspiration. Hung above the desk are paintings by the wonderful Virginia Lee [whose desktop is here] and Natalia Pierandrei [whose desktop is here], as well as one of my own paintings that is too big to store anywhere!

"I often have my PA set up for practicing singing. In addition to singing with The Wild Violets, I also do a little bit of folk with the (amazing) artist David Wyatt [whose desktop is here] and currently I'm working on some blues tracks with Bobby Gilbert on piano. I have a big old woodburner in here that has kept us warm and cozy on warm winter nights while we make merry music."

"My desk is a 'no go' area for my nearly-four-year-old daughter, and so I know I can put anything on it that I want to keep safe. I have had butterfly wings, a perfect emperor dragonfly, fox skulls and tiny bones and leaves that I have found whilst out walking the land tucked up there -- and so it is a place for delicate precious inspirational things as well as dirty painty things!"

"My paintings are an expression of myth, of magic, of archetype, and of the spirit of the land. My music is anything that moves and grooves my soul. I see both these things as necessary to my well-being and to my functioning; without them, even in the small, time-constrained way motherhood forces upon me, I would be empty."

On Your Desk

I was in my twenties when I first visited the village I now live in and lost my heart to it; and I'd just entered into my thirties when I managed to move here, in 1990. At that time, I remember looking at the work of older, more established artists, and hoping that I, too, would be able to fashion a life here with my art at its center -- while also forging a path that was uniquely my own (as discussed in January's On Influence posts).

One of the pleasures of growing older (besides finding that path) is taking on a different role in village life: My generation is now becoming the "older generation," while a new group of younger artists is establishing and defining itself.*  These younger artists (in their twenties and thirties) are amazingly talented, accomplished, and visionary; and it is exciting and inspiring to watch as their art, careers, and lives evolve. They, not us, will make this village whatever it is going to be in this new century...and I'm personally praying for a long, long life, because I want to be around to watch and enjoy it!

Danielle Barlowe, whose workspace is pictured above and below, is one of this new generation of artists. Raised here in the hills of Devon, and now raising a young family of her own, she's a painter, textile artist, gardener, cook, naturalist, keeper of ponies and dogs, and she writes beautifully about all these things on her Notes from the Rookery blog.

Danielle says: "After years of working on the dining room table, or in a damp and mouldy shed, I've just taken the bold (and rather scary) step of renting a studio, sharing with my sister. It's proving to be a wonderfully positive and liberating experience. I love the fact I don't have to put my things away after me! I can walk out of the studio, and know that when I return, no small fingers will have helpfully tried to improve a piece I've been working on. Or borrowed my pencils to draw in the garden, scattering them over the lawn on the way. Or absent-mindedly used my stanley knife to slash a piece of jaw-droppingly expensive watercolour paper into tiny shreds. So it's fabulous. I've been able to indulge myself, and paint very personal pieces, on BIG pieces of paper. And sketch. Lots.

"The studio is in the centre of the village, so I can step outside the door and talk to people - something I had almost forgotten how to do, locked away in my shed. I can even pop next door for a real cup of coffee, to bring back to my desk. Oh what luxury! All the while quite deliberately forgetting that actually, I am supposed to be doing paintings to sell, in order to pay the rent on my lovely new studio. Otherwise I shall have to return to my tiny corner at home, and paints will again have to share with sewing threads."

To see more of Danielle's enchanting work, please visit her blog and her Etsy shop -- where you can support her new studio, by the way, by purchasing a lovely print or two. Also please visit her sister Angharad's blog, Sustainable Styling, to see photos of the other rooms in their shared studio, and more of the others wonders created within it. Angharad is a clothing and costume designer (and fashion photographer) who specializes in working with recycled materials -- and her work, too, is terrific.

* Footnote: We've seen desktop photos from some of these younger village artists already: painters Virginia Lee, David Wyatt, and Rima Staines, and jewelry designer Miriam Boy.

On Your Desk

This week, all the "Desktop" photos come from friends who live and work here in my village....

The first desk belongs to textile artist Yuli Somme, who designs and makes felt products ranging from clothes, tea cosies, and wall-hangings to wool burial shrouds.

"My workspace is a large, drafty and damp granite barn beside the village church," says Yuli. "It's called Bellacouche, meaning 'beautiful resting place' in Clerks Latin. At one time coffins were made and stored here. I am continuing the tradition by making 'soft coffins,' made of locally sourced wool and wood.

"Within the barn I built interior walls and a roof to create a smaller, warmer, drier studio, which takes up two thirds of the barn's space. The outer part is used as an exhibition space every September; the rest of the time it's for storing twenty large rolls of felt and other useful things.

"At first the barn seemed so neglected and gloomy. In previous decades it's been used as a garage and the floor is still oily; then it was abandoned for years. Despite the topic of my work I feel I have breathed new life into the space, helped by the occasional visitor and also the variety of industry going on inside: the making of hot water bottle covers, oven gloves, and tea cosies amidst the strange clutter of a busy workshop. I also usually listen to Radio 4, or put on music as I work."

"Around the walls: a very old Norwegian tapestry, rescued from the back of a farm horse in Norway by my Norwegian grandpa; a Turkish 'kepenek' - Kurdish shepherds cape; test samples to remind me of old and new ways of working. It's like an open sketch book, life sized. For six weeks during our cold spell this winter I was kept company by a featherless chicken, now reunited with her flock (of three!)."

"There's a tub for offcuts, another for composting; others hold rolls ready for hat-making and other creations. There are stacks of naturally dyed felt, arranged by colour but rarely orderly. My recently adopted rule is to tidy up on Fridays so that I get a feeling of order and space to help with clear thinking on a Monday morning. It helps, but I wish it hadn't taken me twenty years to learn this trick!"

To see more of Yuli's beautiful work, visit the Bellacouch website, and the Bellacouch Etsy Shop. You also find an article about Yuli here (in the archives of the Journal of Mythic Arts), and you can read about her wonderful "Felt Feet on Dartmoor" project here and here.

Our second workspace today, which is also in an old stone barn, belongs to Dhevdhas Nair. Dhev is a brilliant pianist and percussionist who has toured all across Europe, Africa, and India -- both as a solo artist, and with various jazz, African, rock, and World music groups. He is also a composer, a teacher, and a member of the medieval music & dance troupe Daughters of Elvin, based here on Dartmoor.

"My studio is in a barn is next to the large Victorian house where I live on the edge of the village," he says. "I rehearse with bands, teach, write, record and sometimes just doodle around in here. Some years ago, on a warm July day, when I was working on some music for a film, I happened to glance up out of my window across the valley towards Dartmoor's Kes Tor in the distance. With one hand on the mixing desk, the other hovering over the hammered dulcimer, I suddenly saw where I was, and realised it was where I had always wanted to be - in a beautiful place, doing what I love."

"It's actually the former coach house with very thick stone walls. Having stored some of Katy Marchant's cloth sculptures in here for a couple of years previously and discovered that it was totally dry, I realised it would be a good environment for a piano, so I triple glazed it, insulated the floor and ceiling, and - musician's dream - can play at any time without disturbing anyone!"

"It has the advantage of large wooden doors through which I can load my gear directly into the car to go for gigs. It's a ramshackle sort of place, but it suits my way of working, which often includes walking in the surrounding hills and coming back to give the resulting inspiration directly to the music."

Visit Dhev's MySpace page to hear some of his gorgeous original compositions.

More desktops and workspaces from our  in the days ahead....

Tune for a Monday Morning

Today's tune is "The Lights Will Stay On" by The Walkabouts (with thanks for Charles Vess for the recommendation, some time ago) -- a lovely, poignant song that references an old folk rhyme commonly attributed to crows and magpies.

Today's song is for the incomparable Diana Wynne Jones, one of the finest mythic fiction writers of our age, who left us too early (due to cancer) two days ago. I'm so grateful to her for the extraordinary books she has left behind, which have inspired a whole generation of younger writers. Diana will be terribly missed, but through her magical stories, her light will stay on.

"If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine."  - Diana Wynne Jones