#charlestontrust

A CONVERSATION: what a pleasure to find this in my post... a 1934 first edition of Virginia Woolf’s essay on Walter Sickert, with a cover by her sister Vanessa Bell. It was published by the Hogarth Press and has the wonderful opening line: ‘Though talk is a common habit and much enjoyed, those who try to record it are aware that it runs hither and thither, seldom sticks to the point, abounds in exaggeration and inaccuracy, and has frequent stretches of extreme fullness.’ I am very grateful to Bloomsbury scholar @mholliday_esq who has generously auctioned it on Instagram in order to support @charlestontrust where I am a Trustee. Charleston needs all our support right now: without an endowment or public funding, it has been badly hit by closure and the cancellation of its May Literary Festival due to coronavirus. You can made a donation to their emergency appeal via the website: the aim is raise £400,000. The book is displayed here on a cushion made from Vanessa Bell’s White fabric, which can also be purchased online from the Charleston shop: it all helps. #charlestontrust #bloomsburygroup #vanessabell #virginiawoolf #hogarthpress #charlestonfarmhouse #design #instabook #booklover #modernbritishart #waltersickert #sickert (at Brighton and Hove) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_AD36DF5TE/?igshid=oc0xsuqotz14

On 16 October it will be exactly 100 years since the artist Vanessa Bell moved to Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex with her two children, fellow artist Duncan Grant and his then-lover Bunny Garnett, plus housemaid and cook. It was to become the country home of the Bloomsbury Group: visited by family and friends such as Virginia Woolf, EM Forster, Maynard Keynes and all kinds of writers and artists. Bell was to write to Roger Fry: 'It’s most lovely, very solid & simple, with flat walls in that lovely mixture of brick & flint that they use about here, & perfectly flat windows in the walls & wonderful tiled roofs. The pond is most beautiful with a willow at one side & a stone – or flint – wall edging it all round the garden part, & a little lawn sloping down to it, with formal bushes on it. Then there’s a small orchard & the walled garden…& another lawn or bit of field railed in beyond. There’s a wall of trees – one single line of elms all round two sides which shelters us from west winds.' I was at Charleston this week for a Trustees meeting, and although it was a grey day signalling the end of summer, the gardens were still verdant, with blousy flowers spilling over the pathways and vibrant dahlias popping up to animate the greenery. We were discussing the plans for an inspiring new gallery and development project in the Barns: the next 100 years of the Bloomsbury country home look very exciting indeed.

ART COMMISSION: A book paper covered moth that I made was photographed by Penny Fewster  and is being used on the cover of Small Wonder Festival programme and as a the website banner.