Jane Wheeler's Blog sheds

clearing the sheds

Posted jane -->on 25th Aug 2020

goes on for ever, inner circles of dirt/slip and glaze splash/limewash crumble/cobweb. then one suddenly notices the filthy state of all the windows, never before thought of.

my veg garden is full of sunflowers this year. a very long time ago I grew sunflowers up here. they were a bit bigger that time.

then I had all these sheds pulled down and rebuilt. they were put up originally on the site of an old post mill which is documented by an auction notice from 1845 (on a website about Norfolk mills). the previous owners, the Hudsons, kept seven sows and their offspring, a pony and chickens in them. plus one of the sheds was especially for onions, equipped with shelves. they were fascinating, made with old doors and windows, bits of wood from Reg Hudson’s forestry job, and corrugated iron from when part of Stiffkey army camp was dismantled. a few bicycle chains helped to hold things together, plus an enormous number of nails. but they were leaking when I got them. I definitely bought the house because of the garden and sheds though.

charming as they were, the roofs had gone, and they were unusable in the winter.

this was the first to go, the old chicken shed. I got some nasty flea bites from the straw in there.

the long range of sheds were the last, except that the one on the end became my kiln shed and had some alterations before anything else was done, and basically was the inspiration for the rest.

the big studio was the next to be sorted out, with three panels of double glazing in the roof. I had a contact who worked for a hardwood conservatory company in Aylsham, and he retrieved several useful things which would have been skipped, like the huge doors which are a little twisted and let a bit of cold wind through when it’s from the East, and the roof lights. now I am giving up all this space I have been cleaning it out, and realising that it’s better to do a regular clean and not have a box of pigments lurking under your plan chest, entirely forgotten and the paper packaging eaten by mice. weirdly this shed suffers from house mice, whereas the house only gets visits from wood mice. the local vermin controller did a good job on them three years ago, but then left for Scotland. however, the first to die are always the voles, and if you are using poison it’s not good for our barn owls. Bimba found several almost dead voles in the garden.

on a happier note, going through the old stuff one always finds treasures, like this sketch book from my last year at Corsham.

after two storms the garden is not looking too wonderful, but I had a lovely second flowering from all the roses, and the dahlias are, as seen doing their thing. I don’t understand why the red ones I bought produce these purple flowers.

the wind is currently giving everything a good thrashing, so I am not sure my sunflowers will be upright now.

you can see photos of the long range of sheds being rebuilt in my blog here

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April come she will

Posted jane -->on 17th Apr 2020

and so she has with all her early flowers and leaves, which are two weeks early by my estimation.

we are so lucky here in the countryside that self-isolation means (for me) a closer look at where I walk – now voluntarily restricted to not going in the car to close places, but to the two very beautiful 3 mile-ish loops I can do from the house. and lucky that it is spring, and dry weather with a lot of sunshine. of course my experience of the pandemic is incredibly privileged by my sex, age, financial standing, retired status and all the other things that have me here in North Norfolk in a quiet village with super-helpful neighbours. In fact as everyone is around all day, every day, and doing my shopping for me, I don’t feel at all lonely, and I have more time to write and paint.

wood anemones, not in a wood but in a bank of primroses in the lane below Bullfer Grove, whereas I have not seen any of these flowers so diagnostic of ancient woodland in the actual wood. I have managed to establish a little patch of them in my garden, under the hazel which I coppice (I just sawed off some young poles to support the runner beans).

Bullfer is locally famous for its bluebells which are certainly very early this year, and it is full of birds

there is a less obvious path that takes you to the full glory of the bluebells.

a path which seems to have been maintained better this year, around various fallen trees and bramble patches

a little scan of one part of the wood this morning, in the chilly east wind.

Bimba patiently follows me around, hopping over the fallen trunks. on the lead of course.

I made this little video clip on the 11th, of the very loud thrush in the wood, with wren accompaniment, and the wild cherry blossom which is lovely here but doesn’t last long. I always trot out A E Housman’s poem –

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

with its memes of youth and beauty and loss

there is just one early purple every year. last year I saw so many of these in Fife, in Scotland – in the dunes fringing Tentsmuir beach, even in my daughter’s lawn, and in the wilderness near her house, Lumbo den.

Bullfer grove, with its dog mercury and wild garlic is maintained by its owners, the National trust, in a way that produces great habitat for wildlife. the neighbouring landowner, Albanwise Ltd, has more commercial priorities and has recently cut all the mature oaks on its local estates, including a few on the fringes of Bullfer. they won’t regenerate on their own, as oaks do not grow from acorns dropped/hidden by jays and squirrels under the canopy, they don’t get enough light, and are further inhibited by oak mildew which affects seedlings and saplings much more than fully grown trees.

in contrast Bale wood is untouched, and browsed by deer to the extent that there is no underwood to speak of. recently I prowled through this part, which is actually overgrown wet meadow, looking for a little patch of primroses amongst the hazels.

the floor of the wood is so curiously bare and dry, all dead leaves and sticks. on the edge there are a lot of small ash trees that are badly affected by die off.

deer paths everywhere. the next section is full of elm and ash. the elms get to a certain size and then attract the beetle that allows the fungus that stops them being able to transport water up the trunk and so they die. then regenerate by cloning. so the wood is full of fallen elm that is all smaller trunks and branches. it is quite honestly a mess. but from it in recent years, hatch the most wonderful butterflies – the silverwashed fritilliary. the caterpillars live on the leaves of dog violet, having hibernated in rough bark crevices over the winter.

and now the oaks are pushing out their leaves and flowers

ash flowers have been evident for a couple of weeks, but birds/ squirrels? something has been ripping them off.

at home the garden is full of wild flowers – the cow parsley is just out, and the cowslips are still looking good

a couple of weeks ago I found this unfamiliar shiny black bee whizzing around a patch of cowslips. I looked it up – a carpenter bee, solitary, just out of hibernation.

pear blossom out early as usual, I wonder whether any will get pollenated, it’s a very young tree, and there was no fruit last year, after a lot of blossom. it is Moonglow, a fireblight resistant variety. I may have moved to Scotland before I get a chance to find out what its fruit tastes like. or on the other hand, I probably won’t have, considering the future eighteen months or so of COVID-19 disruption.

I found this painting “Pink Garden” by Elisabeth Cummings, an Australian painter (for me mostly it is Ozzie painters I find most inspiring at the moment) and so I sat in the garden and tried to draw an impression of its burgeoning blossom and leaves.

pen and ink and then acrylic

here’s the bee

another sheet

and now I’m finding working on paper quite a nice change from canvas

this is on fabriano paper, the lovely tough creamy paper I bought in a ten metre roll for making folded books. it does need stretching on a board with gummed tape, which is trickier than you’d think.

having such large pieces of paper means I can work as large as some of my recent canvases. this is 74 x 82 cm. I had to stretch it after I’d painted it (pencil, charcoal and acrylic) as I hadn’t taken it very seriously until I’d finished it. expensive to frame of course, mount and glass as well as frame. and decent glass which gives you accurate colour, is really expensive. it would probably cost twice what I’d ask for the painting. but there is that freedom from the surface you are potentially messing up not costing £ 40.

and the brush slides around nicely on the smooth paper

however I did invest in three Italian-made nice box canvases with deep sides 70 x 70 cm before the virus got hold. (now you can’t get them, I suppose the factory has been badly affected and Jacksons have no stock)

so I have a trio of landscape abstracts finished

all three have ink and paper collaged under the acrylic, and some oil pastel and charcoal drawing … the top one is from the field at the top of the road with the view of the sea at Blakeney and on a bright day the wind farm masts poke up from beyond the horizon.

the one in the middle is the pond in the wood, and this last one the huge prairie field that my friend Henry Carter sold to Albanwise, which has winter wheat making a shallow triangle if you are standing at the top of it from the road, and spring barley just coming through as a green veil,

here a veil of paint.

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the vernal equinox

Posted jane -->on 21st Mar 2020

two days ago this thrush was singing so loudly in my garden I heard him over the Sibelius the radio was playing, and rushed out of my studio to record him.

now we are self-distancing, and in my case, being ten days off seventy, self-isolating, I am spending more time enjoying the spring light, and some of the time sunshine, in my garden and studio, as I’m not off to art groups and writing workshops. I’m very happy at home at this time of the year, the cowslips and primroses are coming up in the garden

I’m not restricting my dog walking;

we have these beautiful violets in the lanes

especially Clip street

and overflowing clumps of primroses, both in Clip street and our moss-lined road, and of course in Cakes lane

the fields have dried out at last, enough for tractors to be ploughing and harrowing on every farm this morning

there is a second later flush of blackthorn blossom

and some oak trees have thickening buds

the chiffchaffs are back in Cakes too, and a yellowhammer in ensemble in this clip, though mostly minus his wheeeze at the end of the classic “a little bit of bread and no cheese” song.

the sun strong enough to compensate for the blast of cold easterly wind today when walking, but not if you are just standing around,

and dazzling in and out of tree shadow

the primroses are not so obvious in the bright light as they are on a grey day.

the pond in the wood is still quite full – I love the reflections of the oak trees that surround it. a strange and spooky scene ….

we have been walking at Holkham twice a week too – I should say galloping in Bims’ case – finding the western side quieter

yesterday there were heavy showers scudding in from the east

making theatrical reflections on wet sand

luckily we weren’t caught out by them. it was a refreshing and energising walk

they are fencing off the areas where oystercatchers and gulls nest now

but there’s plenty of room for us to keep away

on the foreshore and the dunes. Bims is more settled once she’s let those powerful muscles and long legs do what they are meant to.

I had the usual battle with this painting (don’t you love the pink chair! from an app which puts your picture on the wall of various unfeasibly smart rooms)

I think I’m quite settled on it now (Hilly with branches, 76 cm x 60 cm). there is something female and landscapey about it which is all to the good.

now I’m not dragging all the equipment off out two afternoons a week I feel more committed to the studio and have been having a tidy up today. see the crap on the floor under the table –

well now you don’t! a wheelbarrow full of ceramics detritus gone into the grey bin.

and some paintings up here instead of in the “gallery” (my old office)

I do love this little one, it was very quick to do but it’s enough and I managed to keep my paws off it somehow. Paintings which have got to the paws off stage are all for sale, just email me from the link on the website www.janewheeler.co.uk – I will have to be more pro-active about selling online, now that Open Studios is cancelled.

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Ty Newydd again

Posted jane -->on 13th Aug 2019

Back to Ty Newydd, the National Writing Centre of Wales for a nature writing course with Mark Cocker and Kathleen Jamie (with Horatio Clare as the guest writer/reader) last week. when I was there in the autumn it was late October and quite a different feel to everything. and this was such a different course to the rather alternative storytelling retreat with Hugh Lupton and Eric Madden.

last week it was warm and we had a lot of sun

the lavender in flower and filled with bees – honey, and several different bumblebees

I think this is a carder bee

and this is a white-tailed bumble. One of our morning workshops with Mark had us looking hard at the bees for at least fifteen minutes to write something really concentrated about them.

there were also dragonflies – this is a dead one found in the house

and a few moths. this rosy footman was stranded in the house overnight

having entered and become confused by the glass the night before. there are so many moths with wonderful names; it was great to have someone (Mark) who is an expert on insects to share information.

this time I managed a walk to the beach almost every morning – the circular walk is just over two miles, taking in small paths

through tree-edged fields of grass

under the single railway line

past brambles – ripe blackberries one morning for breakfast –

bracken, grazing cows

a deliciously tarry hut

down to where the river Dwyfor comes out into Cardigan Bay

and along the coastal path

beside burling water (burly water described by Norman MacCaig) that in spate into a high tide must be quite a sight –

but the tide was out or going out in the mornings last week – and one morning a heron flapped across low to the little waves

there’s always a special light in the mornings

and back up to the house, David Lloyd George’s last home

a lawn full of self-heal, and the semi-circular porch and window echoed by lines of flat pebbles set on end raying out in another semicircle before the grass starts

the house is surrounded by mature trees, but this walnut is my favourite, its branch across the stone steps down to the kitchen and utility part of the house.

I omitted to take photos of the wood and the river where we spent one morning making notes, leaving me with a few close-up portraits of Himalayan balsam flowers – extraordinary sexy glutinous objects.

full of thoughts about my own writing and about the very good insights into the poems we worked on, from the whole group of writers, and from Kathleen Jamie. I drove home in a gale, shreds of leaves flying across the road. these damsons blown early off the tree in my garden went into a cake. the next lot will be gin.

those blues seem to have got under my skin

yesterday I tackled a large oil painting (48 x 48 inches) which has been waiting for me to know what to do to it. the large emulsion brush turned out to be the key.

it’s good to have a break from something like painting. doors open, just like that!

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open studio starts tomorrow

Posted jane -->on 26th May 2017

I’m waiting for the evening to set up my signs – I have a mallet, but the ground is a bit hard, I just tried one ..

this morning’s early walk brought one of the most magical things that’s ever happened to me – two hares on the lane above Bullfer Grove ran towards me instead of away.

I think they were intrigued by the beep of the video button on my iphone, and my leaf contact print dress blended in in the dappled shade of the hedge – their sight is not thought to be very good. so here is my Hare poem (in the Rialto) come to life!

they hovered and looked and sniffed and dithered for about five minutes,

in the end deciding to bound away back to the field.

earlier this week I walked down Cakes lane – got soaking wet feet and trouser legs, the rain has made the grass, cow parsley, docks, hogweed and the odd nettle, shoot up.

everything in full leaf, even the ash trees have decided it’s worth the risk.

Bullfer Grove is a better bet for dry feet on an early walk

I recorded a thrush singing in Cakes yesterday morning

it sounds quite nightingale-like at times

the hedgerows are as pretty as gardens.

I’m filling mine up with pots for Open Studios.

which has liberated the shed, I even cleaned out all the spiders and dead flies –

the shelves are still full

it’s so sad that some pots have been hanging about in there for ten years

so I am open to offers

and I think they look much better out in the garden than crowded on the floor of the shed.

two for tea

and tea for two

some wood-fired

some last year’s experiments

some just old friends.

some that have very definitely been overlooked, up on a high shelf. they need to be on their own.

the office has been de-officed and cleaned up, and will be my painting studio after this.

these are all from the last seven or eight months

the abstracts!

the evolution of the landscapes

from winter

and autumn to spring.

I do hope I see a few people! then tomorrow afternoon Bimba is arriving. she will deserve a whole blog to herself

for the time being, this was taken in Spain. a slight lens distortion making her nose even longer than it really is.

It’s just been pointed out to me that I haven’t given the address of this event (which is on for 3 consecutive weekends by the way including this bank holiday Monday). I’m in the Norwich and Norfolk Open Studios catalogue, number 103. I am at The Granary, Sharrington Road, Bale, Norfolk, NR21 0QY

for hare afficionados, here is Cowper’s account of his tame hares – link

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archaeology

Posted jane -->on 21st May 2017

I’m clearing the old office out, to make it into a summer studio and a gallery for Open Studios, which starts next weekend (27th May). I’m opening studio and garden for 3 days the first weekend, as it’s a bank holiday Monday, then the next two weekend just Saturday and Sunday. I had the old photocopier removed for recycling (expensive!) and amongst the old paper carrier bags and wrapping paper tucked behind it was a watercolour I painted in 2001.

I painted a series, and when I looked in the plan chest I found five more, two red, and two blue the same size, and bigger square red one. I remember enjoying how the pure colours behaved on the paper, sometimes drowning in water, sometimes very intense, and planning the bare paper areas. lovely paper to paint on too.

four are mounted, the first red one has gone to the framers. it is going to be very expensive, using clearglass because it makes such a difference to the colour.

then I found something much older. I went to Norwich Art School for summer school in 1985 and got very involved in the print department, especially etching. they had a fantastic etching studio, with a very big press, and I was liberated by two weeks of life-drawing before I started on these.

the three make a triptych. obviously Picasso’s Vollard Suite was a big influence too, but previous to this I had made a huge painting on a roll of brown paper of human figures with animal heads, more influenced by Assyrian bas-relief.

these three coloured etchings are one-offs, artist’s proofs, but I also have an edition of 25 in black.

I have to mention a particularly pleasurable outing, in The Rialto, one of the most respected poetry magazines. This is the cover, which is lovely; they always have great covers. I have FOUR pages and a mention on the back! wholly amazing and wonderful. I would encourage anyone interested in poetry to buy the magazine, and subscribe, not because I want you to read my work especially, although of course that would be very nice, but because it is a wonderful and beautiful publication, and the Arts Council’s support depends on there being more subscriptions and sales.

meanwhile I’m still walking solo, although in six days that will no longer be the case. as she will be on the lead you won’t see Bimba trotting ahead like Tilda. we shall see how her recall and attachment to me progresses, but when a dog goes off after something it’s seen, one’s heart is in one’s mouth, and I am less prepared to take the risk this time. This photo interestingly echoes the stormy etchings above.

I caught a few drops that time, but this cloud looked like soaking me for most of the walk.

lastly, a rare find in the churchyard

meadow saxifrage

rare because there are so few unsprayed meadows with ancient turf left

after a very dry spring we have had rain at last and there are plenty of puddles reflecting the sky!

even so the ash trees are only just coming out.

a weeks ago the oaks had very young leaves still but now they are well covered

in my garden the buttercups are replacing the cowslips

for Open Studios most of the pots for sale will be in the garden. I hope to see plenty of people. Bimba is arriving on the first afternoon, which will be interesting – she is an easy dog, sweet and affectionate, so although I will have to keep her on a lead while I have the gates open for visitors, it will be good to have her meeting lots of humans.

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how I got started with ceramics

Posted jane -->on 16th Jan 2016

At my school there was no 3D art, so the first time I touched clay was at Great Yarmouth art college on their foundation course, with Barbara Balls. Having left school wanting to write and illustrate historical novels I made a complete about-turn and spent the next three years studying ceramics at Bath Academy of Art, or Corsham, as it was mostly known then.

an early piece, made in 2006

Clay touched off some deeper practical need, that of making things in a medium which is so receptive and versatile, it can use all of the skills you might have learnt in other media or disciplines – drawing, sculpture, design, printmaking, painting, chemistry, engineering, geology – and combine them, using your intuition, into your own burgeoning ceramic practice. And it is a medium which keeps you humble, there are always new and old things to learn, mistakes to make, fruitful and not so much!

2007, I’m getting some good results with this shino

Although, with huge regret, I was not able to continue with ceramics as a career, what I had learnt allowed me to make a living designing knitwear for forty odd years, and doing this also meant that I could pursue other interests and threads, (such as painting), but in my fifties I came back to ceramics, largely through my friendship with Stephen Parry whom I met when I returned to Norfolk in 2000.

2008, the shino again.

Doing a raku workshop with Stephen opened my eyes to the possibility of building a gas kiln for stoneware, and having a workshop in the ramshackle old pig sheds in my garden, and with his help I built a small gas kiln which I still use. He continues to be a generous help and I find potters in general open and unstinting in their advice and willingness to share. It is a wonderful world to be part of.

2009 extreme slab-building and my dry (poisonous) barium glaze

Returning to pottery I had very little idea of what had been going on in the world of ceramics since I was at college, but I had the resources of a life spent working in the field of textiles, and fine art, and the experience of selling my work abroad, travelling to fashion fairs, meeting designers from all over the world, and this has stood me in good stead, both in terms of influences and concepts and being able to expose my pots to different markets.

2009, experimenting with porcelain layers over grogged stoneware

However making pots again has enabled me to find my deepest roots here in Norfolk, in terms of the living landscape and its archaeology. This has become very important to all the things I do, including photography and writing.

2007, a large piece which lives in a collection in Japan

I would say that working with clay again has changed my life and my art/design practice radically, from the bottom up; it has not been a superficial application of design to another medium.

2014, experimenting with layers of oxide and slip under the pale chun glaze. this is in the same collection in Japan

The nitty gritty of attempting to find my own way of making, shaping, my own shapes, surfaces, combinations of clays, glaze and decoration, obstinately outside the dictates of functional ware, and throwing, though influenced by, and referring to these forms, informs what I do and make.

2014, the chun glaze can produce these lovely optical blues

I have settled on this hand built bottle shape in many sizes and proportions

2015, winged clematis imprint pearly grey chun bottle

sometimes adding extra bits, and recently I have got more interested in drawing and painting again,

2015, pearly rain clematis impressed bottle

so the pots are taking on a more painterly aspect. This year will see me slowing down on the knitwear front and I hope, finding more outlets for, and making more, pots.

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home

Posted jane -->on 16th Dec 2015

and at home there has been some sunshine in spite of the generally damp mild and grey late November/early December

early walks allow for sky appreciation

as well as catching up with a backlog of work, sending knitwear orders off in time for Christmas in the shops in Japan, Germany, Italy ….

there were still leaves on the trees

to shine in the sun’s backlight

hedgerows green

winter wheat and autumn barley coming through

but bare twigs make better patterns

one pauses to admire the trees

especially where there are people in them … my young friend Ben Carter, expert tree surgeon, spectacular and graceful in his element.

at last back in the shed making pots

though getting clay to dry enough

just to roll out without sticking to everything

never mind to stand up

has made for several days without being able to get on. however the mild weather means no extra heating is needed, all to the good.

then there has been the much anticipated publication of my calligramme poem Lunan’s Guardian in the Rialto. so exciting!

you can find the background to the writing of this in a post almost a year ago Lunan.

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the last journey south part one – Sens

Posted jane -->on 1st Dec 2015

this trip south to stay for the last time in my house in Spain involved more exploration of France than usual. my first

stop was to deliver pots to my dear friend Philippe Model, for his new shop Philippe Model Maison in the rue Condorcét in Paris, opening soon.

he lives in Sens, south of Paris, in his family home, a seventeenth century farmhouse with four hectares of

river

avenues

trees

ex-tanning factory

fascination

hat-making workshops (he is a famous hat designer)

theatrical sets (he does that too)

secret places

hoards

shambolics

objets/things

hidden floors

the king of the labyrinth

photo-scenic corners

and a delicious house

with its ancient high wood-lined vaulted ceilings and attics

and courtyards

after this adventure I drove all the way across France to the south west and over into Spain

where we stayed in a very nice hotel that allows dogs and doesn’t even charge extra

in the beautiful city of Vitoria-Gasteiz. from there a six hour drive to the finca.

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march is almost over

Posted jane -->on 23rd Mar 2015

most remarkable thing this month; the eclipse/new moon/equinox triangle.

I stood in my garden and I could see the eclipse – through cloud, so I didn’t need the unobtainable glasses. unfortunately the iphone I use as a camera could only record a very very white blob instead of the elegant crescent that was visible. at times the cloud got too thin, and I used a couple of sheets of paper with a pinhole, but a very small upside down image was pretty disappointing, compared with the cloud-veiled eclipse.

spring has been very cautious, with cold winds and a frost at night from time to time. the classic spring flowers are all out

hellebores, primroses, violets in Clip street, the japonica,

blackthorn, though the remaining bush in my garden which is covered in flower buds is in the shade, so it comes out later.

I am back in my shed too – a bisc firing last week cooked all but 2 of winter’s production.

today I’ve been washing some with iron oxide,

preparatory to slipping and glazing them, and there will be some glaze tests as well.

next I’m concentrating on bowls, mostly small

with little stem-type feet

and maybe some spoons

whilst birds and trees

and woods

get on with the spring business

secretly

but not so quietly in the case of the feathered sort

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