Familiar Figures

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West window, St. Helen's Church, Welton with Melton, Yorkshire. EBJ                   Malmesbury Abbey, 1901          Click to enlarge

Visiting churches with windows made by the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Company, and after 1874 by Morris & Company, throws up familiar figures. In St Helen's Church, Welton (about ten miles west of Hull) there are five Morris & Co. windows with figures mostly designed by Edward Burne-Jones who had a local family connection. The large west window has beautiful roundels above and King Ethelbert on the right who I immediately recognised from a recent trip to Malmesbury Abbey , initially by his magnificent leggings.

The St. Nicholas at Welton (below centre) was familiar to me from his facial features: when you look at the earlier window at Beaudesert you see a different portrait of the same figure. I find the background details particularly interesting - ways of depicting underfoot plants, borders and backgrounds. I love the illusionistic dark blue curtains on poles behind the Welton figures - this photo of Mary comes with a real decaying tassel and cobweb in front of the window. 

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The Virgin Mary and St. Nicholas from Welton Church, EBJ  : An earlier version of St. Nicholas from Beaudesert

Saints Ursula & Catherine from Welton Church, EBJ & WM                                                       The St. Catherine at Kelmscott Manor

In the same church I stood enthralled in front of St. Catherine, thinking how great the combination of book, sword and beautiful green dress was. Nothing interesting in the background to distract you here. The fun part of window spotting is remembering where you've seen someone before, and this St. Catherine is also on an embroidered brown velvet curtain at Kelmscott Manor, it is one of my favourite items there. I checked by putting the embroidered face on top of the stained glass one that the details are no different, only the size and the colour. Although I am reluctant to believe the guides, all the ones I have consulted attribute this figure to William Morris who supposedly couldn't do people.

Beaudesert

St Nicholas Beaudesert, Henley-in-Arden, the church in a place with a beautiful name and a hideous sign almost wrecking the Twelfth Century entrance. Inside I found other themes that appear every time I go to a church with windows designed by William Morris and his partners. For instance, is the curly haired, bearded St. Peter (below left) one of those figures that is based on a portrait of WM?

Entrance to St. Nicholas, Beaudesert                  2 of a set of 5 windows by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. 1865

1865 Beaudesert Virgin Mary                                                                            1873 Sopworth Virgin Mary

I'd seen Burne Jones' figure of the Virgin Mary in the north west window at Beaudesert before; she is in the window of the three Marys at St. Mary's Sopworth, and there is an earlier version of the same figure in Bradford Cathedral. It's not my photography, some of the paint has gone (borax problem) from the Beaudesert glass and because it is about half the size of the Sopworth Mary the details look less fine when comparing the images at the same size. 

Then there are some more fine shoes for the stained glass shoes collection,  these are on Saints Paul and George. A graphic version of what I call "the clump" makes a lovely repeat ground for all these figures to stand on. And there are angels wearing feathers and standing on wheels, which I have learnt puts them in the third ranking order of angels.

Two of five Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & co. angels

Before and After

Before - inside the old marquee

When I took what I thought was a great picture on a rainy day at Kelmscott Manor last summer (above), I thought with regret that I wouldn't be able to use it. To me, the damp and mould on the marquee ceiling in combination with willow leaves & pink petals that have blown in from somewhere else make a spectacular pattern.  I know that this sort of grot, although often celebrated by artists, is not to everyone's taste. So this summer, a new marquee has arrived (picture below), and the patterns on the ceiling only appear when the sun shines through the willow tree outside.  Inside, there is new bunting made from Morris patterns and the perfect white wall on which to hang a panel made from last year's wallpaper printing activity days.

After - inside the new marquee

Panel made of 38 different wallpapers

I included all the wallpapers in the panel, hoping that there would be some return visitors as well as members of Kelmscott staff who would enjoy seeing their designs on display. I wanted to keep a fluttering feel reminiscent of the way they looked hanging from the drying line (below). I've sewn them together in an overlapping arrangement so you can open up the pleats to see a whole panel and they can move around as the marquee sides flap in the wind.

Wallpapers drying last October

WM in Wimbledon

Although I like to imagine William Morris walking through Wimbledon when he went from his house in Hammersmith to his works at Merton Park by foot, that is not really the subject of this piece.

In the background of my parents' lives and my childhood in Wimbledon were William Morris designs. The earliest one I remember is Marigold in olive green on the sitting room walls, it looked very good with the tartan sofa the great aunts are sitting on (below) and with my tartan dress. When I saw the Marigold design used on the cover of Volume II of WM's Collected Letters last year, the memory made me shiver.

Dagmar, Clara and Norah (the great aunts)                                                   Sasha - Marigold wallpaper designed by WM, 1875

The photograph below of my mother's best friend Inge and a dog visiting her top floor flat in Wimbledon for tea is quite a recent one. It would be fantastic even without Pimpernel on the sloping wall - this wallpaper has lasted for as many years as I can remember.

Dog and Inge - Pimpernel wallpaper designed by WM, 1876

Chrysanthemum, seen on the chair below, is not such a favourite of mine. Maybe it's because the fabric on this chair deteriorated over the years, ending up completely hidden by shawls and cushions covered in oriental patterns. Shoving lots of different patterns together is something I am quite used to.

Ray and Kate - Chrysanthemum fabric designed by WM, 1877

I found countless pictures of family members around the dining room table with the Golden Lily curtains in the background. When I brought home my college stained glass panel "Dual Carriageway" in 1985 (below right), where better to put it than next to another set of rich, clashing patterns. The stained glass remained, then moved house with my mother, but the curtains soon went and were turned into drapes for other armchairs.

Peter, Elizabeth, Kate - Golden Lily fabric designed by J.H. Dearle for Morris and Company, 1899

Wild Tulips

Today's tulip drawings and photographs under the mulberry tree behind Kelmscott Manor

When I arrived at Kelmscott last year, I decided that I wasn't going to draw any flowers. I thought it would be inadvisable to start my own work with subject matter so closely linked to that of William Morris. However, I have been regretting the beautiful yellow wild tulips ever since, and am very happy that I managed to get back to see them in flower this year. 

Some of my favourite Morris designs feature the tulip, for example Garden Tulip, below left, one of a series of designs with a meandering line. In Wild Tulip, below right, you can see how closely he observed the shape of the flowers heads with their curled back petals and bobbing heads. Putting them in the background of the design suits their size and habit.

Some typically sensible tips from WM that I will try to remember when introducing tulips into my own pattern work,  "Rational growth is necessary to all patterns, or at least the hint of such growth;…Take heed in this growth that each member of it be strong and crisp, that the lines do not get thready or flabby or too far from their stock to sprout firmly and vigorously; even where a line ends it should look as if it had plenty of capacity for more growth if so it would". From 'Some hints on pattern designing" (1881).

William Morris : GardenTulip                                                                            William Morris : Wild Tulip