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Rosslyn’s sycamore blank (a plain piece of wood, seasoned for minimum 3 years, 1 year per inch, ready to carve). Oak takes 10 years, and kiln drying speeds it up but creates cracks.
Another new house-museum has sprung up, displaying a Copeland collection. The beauty of this type of museum is the personal story, the resident curator, the cosy atmosphere and the accessibility of the exhibits. We have been invited and look forward to swapping stories and offering mutual support.
Sarah Goss’s plump, wheaty number with mouse! Jan 2018
Tom Samuel, famous wood sculptor celebrated by the Art’s Workers’ Guild in gold in their Great Hall, has spent his life defying precedent and convention. While curating the collection, he came across two ‘blanks’ (lumps of wood ready for carving) and took them off to his marvelous workshop to work his magic. Months later, he has just dropped off four unique works of art, two inspired from a Roman architectural device, the Vitruvian scroll, the others reminiscent of fresh dough with receding balls and swirls. We have now established a Tom Samuel Wing, next to the George Wing Wing and the Michael Taylor Wing, to showcase his creations in the hope of finding patrons who are keen to support contemporary wood sculptors. They take two weeks each from design sketch to finish, and are for sale at £800 each. They would make the most beautiful wedding gifts if guests could pool resources, or a stunning centrepiece for any kitchen, whether it be cosy-rustic or steely-concrete.
Quite by chance, I found an oil painting called ‘Bread and Water’ by Michael Taylor, Member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, in which the bread is placed on an attractive little breadboard. I contacted the artist, asking about the significance of his breadboard, and he very generously sent no less than SIX other paintings featuring this self-same breadboard! I joyfully reproduce them below and they can also be viewed in miniature in the ABM in our newly unveiled Michael Taylor Wing. I hope to be able to thank him in person at the RSPP Annual Exhibition. He kindly wrote:
About the breadboard:
Looking around the house for a circular compositional device for Girl with Jug, I found a breadboard which had belonged to my wife’s Grandmother. Having commandeered it and painted it, I found it’s lovely buttery colour, delicately turned engraved rings and smoothly worn texture very appealing and wanted to explore it further. A desire to tackle a Bread and Water subject two years later gave me the perfect excuse. Still lifes are a very contemplative pursuit, and during many weeks of communing with it I became more and more involved. The circular rhythms set up by the rings had for me echoes of the prehistoric causewayed enclosures that abound in the landscape around my Dorset studio. I began to feel that elements in the painting were divided into those that were included within it’s boundaries, or excluded: breaking the circle or just coinciding with it. Add the geometry and tack shaft straightness of a century of knife cuts, and I had a wonderfully expressive device which I ended up using and ruthlessly but lovingly distorting again and again. I never tire of painting it. I’ve tried other boards, but always return to this, my favourite.
Hope that isn’t to waffly. Feel free to edit!
April 2018
Contemporary British figurative painter
African doll with mushrooms; Broken camera; Camera with olives; Clock pieces; Girl with jug; Mincer-grinder; Bread and water
Fred sent his inventive new product as a donation to the museum and we are glad to show it off here. He has sold over 1,000 all over the world. ‘A perfect slice every time’. And cheap at £15.
Andrew’s breadboard, a very stylish item from Josephjoseph, which flips over to double up as the breadbin lid. March 2018
Nora Pate, a famous artist in concrete who innovated concrete tableware in the 1980s, spent some nights in out museum and designed a breadboard with two layers, the top slatted to let the crumbs fall through to the lower level. What would yours look like?
breadboard vintage carved Victorian wood wooden rustic home and colonial kitchenalia antique cutting chopping cottage interior design kitchen period decorative collecting woodworking woodcarving wood art wood sculpture woodcraft
Breathing new life into antique breadboards 