Frequently asked questions

On The Brewhouse wall I have written a list of answers to frequently asked questions; this is not because I am too grumpy to speak to people, but sometimes I am out. The technical questions are quite straightforward, the very frequent one that I am still struggling to answer is "What is an artist in residence ?"

I can describe - in this blog - what I have been doing at Kelmscott Manor, and emphasise that I am not actually living here, but I don't think that's the right answer. I do have a quote from the will of May Morris, bequeathing the Manor to Oxford University in 1926 with certain conditions.

"The condition of the bequest is that the house should be used by the university not to be let for profit, but as a rest-house for artists, men of letters, scholars and men of science, whether for shorter or longer periods". 

As you know, I am very anxious to please May, the quote is going on the wall and I'm hoping that will do the trick (despite the unfortunate "men of...." wording). 

Peacocks

One of WM's peacocks                                                         Drawing by Millie, aged 5

I have been asking people to draw something they like in the Manor and William Morris' pair of peacocks keeps coming up. Millie's superb drawing (above) is from observation, the other three are from memory and, in my view, all great in their own way.

Drawings by Mabel (5), Lara (5), Steff (8)

The blocks made during our wallpaper printing workshop last Saturday featured two separate peacock designs. You can see them inside the playhouse we made, in orange on the right and in blue on the left, below.

Old sketchbooks again

Three drawings of WM on his deathbed by CFM, dated 3rd, 3rd & 4th October 1896.

In William Morris' bedroom at Kelmscott Manor there is a pencil drawing of him by Charles Fairfax Murray who was there when he died in 1896. Looking at pages from my 1995 sketchbook below, you can probably see why it reminded my brother of the drawings I did at our father's deathbed in St. George's Hospital, Tooting. It's not the facial features that are similar, it's the pose or something more profound. As my fourth drawing in particular shows, I was fascinated by the "life support" and monitoring apparatus. 

Would WM approve ?

"Thank you very much for sending me the drawing of Kelmscott. I think some alterations are needed. The chimney-stack mixes up too much with the gable, & is much too small I should say. The markings of the stone work joints are too black and heavy, and would give the block a sooty look. The copings of the gables are wrong I should say; I think some indication of their mouldings must be shown I think. I think also that the stone path up to the porch might be drawn with more literality. Again the plants against the house wall are vines and should have some indication of the habit of vines".

From a letter by William Morris to Charles March Gere, December 20th 1892.

There are many such discouraging letters from WM to his illustrators for wood-cuts for The Kelmscott Press, so I  think I know the answer to the question of whether he would approve of my work. In my design (no 1. from the east) below, my chimney stacks are engulfed by the gables as I try to make sense of the geometry of the Manor.

Design 1 is nearly finished and will be used for the first part of my glass and wallpaper installation in the Brewhouse.

Would May approve ?

One of the first things I liked in Jane Morris' bedroom was not this portrait of her, a CFM watercolour copy of a DGR original, but her daughter May's comment displayed alongside. "It bothered me to have house and church and boathouse all brought together when they were really in different directions..."

Aided by aerial photographs of Kelmscott Manor in the 1972, I have been turning my drawings into designs that are topographically correct, and include paths and rivers where I have seen them in relation to the Manor.

Ink sketches above : design 1 (from the east), design 2 (from the south), design 3 (from the north east). Sketches for repeats based on designs 1, 2 & 3 below.