Unbought Delicacies: Peasant Arts

Friday, 25 May 2012

Peasant Arts

I came across this really interesting blog a couple of weeks ago when I was searching for something else -love the serendipity of the internet!
http://peasant-arts.blogspot.co.uk/

Anything to do with arts and crafts has always interested me, and I could read for hours on it and related subjects. Also a big fan of William Morris, pre-Raphaelites, Bloomsbury set - all those sorts of creative endeavours. One day I'll get to Kelmscott Manor; so far I've been lucky enough to go to Charleston, and when I lived in Paisley managed to see quite a lot of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's work. I managed to get to London too as part of an OU course to a pre-Raphaelite exhibition. Always inspiring, bringing beauty to the day :) How wonderful would it be to have your own printing press? To spend your days designing textiles and furniture, painting and drawing............. these were different times, though, and a lot of such people had servants to cook and clean for them.For now, I have to fit my creative bits in with animals and gardening, laundry and cooking. But it's the managing to fit it in that's important to me, I can't stop creating, it's such a large part of me.

http://www.kelmscottmanor.org.uk/home

http://www.charleston.org.uk/

1 comment:

Julie said...: Kelmscott Manor is only about 3/4 of an hour from here. I have visited ( and his grave is in the parish church and also worth a look ) and it's simpler than you'd imagine but that's not a cristiscm. Lovely place.

Also at nearby Buscott House ( NT) you'll find the briar rose series of paintings by Edward Burne-Jones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Briar_Rose. So worth a visit round here. :-)

Julie
x; 25 May 2012 at 13:04

I have found such joy

I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through the door.
I have found such joy in things that fill
My quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,
A potted plant upon my window sill,
A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;
A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
And books I long have loved beside me there.
Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might
Tell every woman who goes seeking far
For some elusive, feverish delight,
That very close to home the great joys are:
The elemental things- old as the race,
Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.

~ Grace Noll Crowell

Ideas for handmade gifts

Small knitteds - gloves, scarves, hot water bottle covers, hats, tea cosies, phone covers, little toys,,cushion covers, bags. Some of these can be felted/fulled for extra interest.
Edibles - chutneys and jams, pickles, nice teas in a vintage/retro tin, sweeties, toffees, mustard, home made wine and liqueurs, home dried fruits, ketchups.
For the home - trimmed tea towels, handknitted dishcloths, quilted wallhangings, small samplers, restored picture frames, pot pourri, lavender bags, covered coathangers, little scented bags for hanging on handles, framed photos of family,etc you've taken yourself, pincushion,needle book, scissor keeper, book of promises (eg babysitting, 1 hour's housework, the ironing, etc)
Bathtime - homemade soap, bath oils, bath salts, knitted washcloths, herbal bags for the bath, hand sewn toilet bags, trimmed hand towels, homemade lotions and potions packed in pretty jars and bottles.
For the garden - home saved seed in handmade decorated packets; homemade handcream, exfoliating soap, wheat bag for those digger's aches and pains!

Handmade books, personalised printed notepaper and envelopes.
Hamper of bits and bobs from the above lists, packed in a pretty lined basket.

I'll add some more as and when I think of them; These can be used all year round and easily tailored to the recipient - everyone loves a homemade gift. :)

Inspiring thoughts.............

I saw a man, an old Cilician, who occupied an acre or two of land that no one wanted.
A patch not worth the ploughing, unrewarding for flocks, unfit for vineyards;
he, however, by planting here and there among the scrub cabbages or white lilies and verbena and flimsy poppies, fancied himself a king in wealth, and coming home late in the evening, loaded his board with unbought delicacies.
Virgil

I had no theories to prove. I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, independently as far as possible from a system of division of labour in which the participant loses most of the pleasure of making and growing things for himself. I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smell as it burned in the hearth I had made. I wanted to grow my own food, or forage after it. In short I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, because I had already realised from partial experience the inexpressible joy of doing so.

Harlan Hubbard, Shantyboat: A River Way of Life

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Friday, 25 May 2012

Peasant Arts

1 comment: