All Things Considered

Angelica
Posted by Kate Sullivan

A recent annual trip to Woottens Nursery close to Southwold makes me wish I had more soil and spaces in my garden to fill. The nursery is abundant with wonderful flora including a large greenhouse full of pelagoniums, a field of bearded iris and later when in bloom, another field of Hemerocallis (Day Lilies).

Due to the lack of space in my garden I came away with just a few plants, one of them being the impressive biennial Angelica Gigas to replace the Angelica which is flowering this year. This plant looks magnificent in my garden with bundles of ball-like flowers and umbrella foliage. It towers over the grasses and leaves wonderful seed heads in the winter months. When buying plants at Woottens, you are presented with printed information on your plant purchases telling you where to plant them and how to care for them and also what looks great growing alongside them - invaluable advice.

I'm going to preserve some of the stems this week. I'm intrigued to rediscover the taste and colour of candied angelica. You can find out more about the plant from Botanical.com

"The preparation of Angelica is a small but important industry in the south of France, its cultivation being centralized in Clermont Ferrand. Fairly large quantities are purchased by confectioners and high prices are easily obtainable. The flavour of Angelica suggests that of Juniper berries, and it is largely used in combination with Juniper berries, or in partial substitution for them by gin distillers. The stem is largely used in the preparation of preserved fruits and 'confitures' generally, and is also used as an aromatic garnish by confectioners. The seeds especially, which are aromatic and bitter in taste, are employed also in alcoholic distillates, especially in the preparation of Vermouth and similar preparations, as well as in other liqueurs, notably Chartreuse."

Posted by Kate Sullivan on May 26th, 2010

Elizabeth Merriman
Posted by Simon Lewin

Here's one of our favourites from our current exhibition of Elizabeth's paintings.

"They Say Snow Is Coming" is an oil on canvas, 410mm x 510mm. We've just updated our website to show which pieces are still available.

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 25th, 2010

Faber & Faber Poetry Collections 2010
Posted by Simon Lewin

It's great to see five of the printmakers we represent at St. Jude's illustrating covers for the latest collections of poetry published by Faber.

This series features:

Kid by Simon Armitage (cover by Peter Clayton)
Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis by Wendy Cope (cover by Ed Kluz)
The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin (cover by Michael Kirkman)
Dart by Alice Oswald (cover by Jonathan Gibbs)
Nil, Nil by Don Paterson (cover by Charles Shearer)
Ariel by Sylvia Plath (cover by Sarah Young)

You'll find prints from Peter, Ed, Michael, Jonathan and Sarah over at our online print store.

Find out more about the series and order the complete set online from Faber.

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 23rd, 2010

More from Elizabeth Merriman
Posted by Simon Lewin

Here's 'Goodbye Winter', another of our favourite paintings from our forthcoming exhibition of new work by Elizabeth Merriman which opens on Saturday 22nd May 2010.

“My new work is inspired by the age old tradition of still-life. Starting to paint small compositions of Winter and now Spring flowers in favourite jugs and pots, pushing them to various degrees of abstraction to allow each painting its own feeling and atmosphere, while also drawing upon the daily weather conditions.

The sense of colour used in each composition is very important to me and often dictates the beginning of a painting, however, sometimes this is only to be obliterated later on and the final painting can be much changed over a period of time.”

You can now view all of the paintings online

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 19th, 2010

Elizabeth Merriman
Posted by Simon Lewin

We're busy getting ready for our next solo exhibition at the gallery with a show of new work by painter Elizabeth Merriman.

'We Three' (below) is one of the paintings we'll be exhibiting.

Elizabeth completed her BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Canterbury College of Art and followed this with a post-graduate higher diploma at the Slade School of Fine Art where her work was shortlisted for the Barclays Young Painter award.

Her work has featured in several London galleries with work now in a number of private and corporate
 collections including Unilever’s.

Join us at the gallery on Saturday 22nd May 2010 from 11am for the opening of the exhibition. We'll be publishing further images online during the week.

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 17th, 2010

Charlotte Bawden
Posted by Simon Lewin

Here's another of our favourite images from the Fry Art Gallery's Women of Bardfield exhibition. It's a painting by Charlotte Bawden.

The exhibition runs until 4th July 2010 at the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden. Highly recommended.

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 13th, 2010

Rob Ryan at Pick Me Up
Posted by Simon Lewin

Rob Ryan and his team have just completed a stint at Somerset House where they moved their entire studio for the Pick Me Up exhibition.

Here's a time lapse film that Karl Sadler made of 7 days worth of paper-cutting. To put this in context, each second of the film represents about 20 minutes of cutting.

Although often sold a unique papercut pieces, some of Rob's papercuts are editioned as screenprints - you can view a selection online at our print store.

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 4th, 2010