We Folk have turned our attention away from the sea and towards the land

photograph from old tear sheet source unknown

No mean feat as unlike our dear friends Lady Muck Digs http://www.ladymuckdigs.blogspot.co.uk and Aaron  Bertelsen http://dixtervegetablegarden.wordpress.com who has started a blog about his work in the kitchen garden at Great Dixter. We seem able to wilt a bloom by simply glancing in its direction or perish an entire bed of lettuce's by depriving them of basic needs. Notes need to be taken and to that end we have just received our consignment of lovely LEUCHTTURM 1917 note books in earth colours.
A word from the fourth generation of the Sturken family running the company today.

In a world in which we are digitally communicating and linked together, the desire to simply write a thought down to hold something in our hands becomes stronger than ever...

NEWS FROM THE GALLERY

Leah Fusco  has just returned from Florence where she was accompanying her grandmother
She is currently working on a series of seven paintings inspired by her trip. Along with Leah  and agreeing with the thoughts above we FOLK are working on a series of travel notebooks to compliment her work. The new show will be opening in June date coming...

Leah Fusco Gallery
 2 Needles passage Rye
  TN31 7EN


Open Friday Saturday & Sunday 12 - 4 pm

+44 (0) 7979927114
+44 (0) 7715611371

Map
www.leahfusco.co.uk
leah.fusco@network.rca.ac.uk

folkathome@gmail.com

The last thing on her mind

We are doing more on wednesday I've no idea what the gamekeeper has shot  I hope it's not a deer

When one reads articles about leaving the city for a more relaxed existence in the country the pleasures of jam making often gets mentioned, or a vegetable garden, perhaps for the more adventurous a few chickens. But I don't think I've ever come across squirrel stuffing or to give it it's correct title taxidermy. But a recent email from the depths of Gloucestershire proved I was wrong or at the very least missing out...

The FOLK at home stand at Selvedge

We Folk enjoyed our time in London last week at the Selvedge Spring Fair and made two new friends the lovely Molly Hogg who travels to Africa and Asia hunting out exquisite antique textiles mchogg@hotmail.com and the irrepressible Josephine Ryan who unbeknown to us was admiring the Folk stand while I was drooling over hers.
Back at  Folk HQ we are still piling logs on the fire and wrapping ourselves in blankets, staring out  the window and longing for spring...
We Folk will soon begin working on a private sale based on a series of  paintings by Leah Fusco inspired by the Allotment.

If you are interested in any of the items on this blog or seen at the Selvedge sale please contact us on

folkathome@gmail.com

Early one January morning about 1870

Image from google images

Scillonian farmer William Trevellick donned his heavy oilskin coat and boots and stepped outside his back door at Rocky Hill Farm and noticed gleaming in the half light all along the tracks and stone built hedges dafodils and narcissi. Although a familiar sight he had never seen them look so bright as they did that morning. An idea was born, might there be a market for dafodils on the mainland?
Trevellick gathered bunches and packed them into an old hat box labeled them Scilly, Penzance, Covent Garden, London. And so it began...

taken from Golden Harvest by Andrew Tompsett.

image from google images

Last week we Folk tore down to Cornwall to hunt out some rope fenders for the ending of our shipwreck exhibition. Having never visited cornwall at this time of year we were struck by the fields and fields of dafodils looking beautiful in the early spring sunshine.

The next day in St Ives and  reeling from the knick knackery of the high street,  we stumbled across the amazing Millenium Gallery www.millenniumgallery.co.uk showing the work of two incredible artists David Kemp and Andrew Hardwick. We loved the found object sculpture's by David Kemp.

image from www.davidkemp.uk.com

Later that evening we met some friends for super at the Old Coastguard Hotel Mousehole www.oldcoastguardhotel.co.uk which felt positively mediteraenian with it's palm trees sloping away to the sea.

View from the coastguards down to the sea

Back to our rather less salubrious lodgings for  sleep then up, onward with our bounty securely stored in the back of the Land Rover...

Our B & B Newlyn

Got them

Some fishermen's tankards ideal for storms at sea

Later this month we FOLK will be attending the Selvedge Spring Fair Chelsea...

folkathome@gmail.com

Happy New Year

It's Over...

We FOLK have been tearing around with the pick up back of the Land Rover cramned with seasonal wares. We started at the Selvedge sale at Chelsea Town Hall which was amazing and meet some equally amazing people

Looked in at The Monocle sale Marylebone and rushed back to meet up with Ancient Industries UK for the splendour of  the Great Dixter sale,we then joined the celebrations at the St Pauls Steiner project Islington and finished with our annual stint at the Homeworks sale West London.

Back home Leah Fusco and I got on with the pressing task of organising Shipwreck FOLK at homes first house sale. Leah hoped the weather would be wild and she certainly wasn't disapointed. What a tempest. We lit a hurricane lamp positioned it and our shipwreck sign at the end of the track and waited, sustaining ourselves with ale and herring while the wind howled and the storm raged.

The sale has now moved to the more accesible site of Leah's gallery/studio in Rye and we are hoping to stage an ending at a location and date to be revealed as soon as I find out where that beautifull world war 2 decoy ship that was in Rye harbour being restored has disapeared  too !

some cushions we made using the shipwreck images

Don't yer just....

    photograph from Vive Dieppe by pierre Le gall

Don't yer just hate it when this happens, but alas this is one problem I haven't had to worry about this year. As while the rest of my kin folk were sunning themselves at the San Clemente Palace Hotel Venice, I stayed at home to concentrate on getting my online store up and running a task that forever seems to allude me.

         Photographs of Venice taken by eldest son

So now the shadows in the garden are lengthening and there is a distinct hint of Autumn in the air.

Roaming around Rye I came across Leah Fusco's studio and gallery and immediately fell in love with her reportage illustrations depicting the weald landscape. Leah use's ink, gouache and charcoal layer upon layer to create moody misty land/ seascapes, and we are pleased to be able to add some of her limited edition prints posters and postcards to our autumn collection.

So excited did I become that Leah and I are hatching a plan to stage a private sale of her Shipwreck series and a collection of merchandise inspired by the tones and colours of her work here at FOLK HQ

For more information you can contact us on folkathome@gmail.com

Desperate Measures

last scene from The Birds Alfred Hitchcock google images

Earlier this month a good friend was visiting FOLK HQ and we took advantage of the sudden break in the deluge to visit the William the Conquerer pub Rye Harbour for a brisk walk and a crab sandwich.
No sooner had I sat down with afore-mentioned feast when, like a scene from the birds, I was engulfed in a flock of squalling gulls, one of whom landed a direct hit on my head, my friend saw this as an indication of good fortune and insisted I purchase a lottery ticket.
Later that day in Hastings and having not purchased a ticket before I was asking the news agent where and how and why....
He informed me the very same thing had happened to a friend of his last week who went on to win £100.00 he then tried to memorise my obviously winning numbers....

On the subject of Cock and Bull, pop up dining club Cock + Bull staged their first event over the Bastille weekend in Stroud look out for more fantastic themed feasts in unusual locations.

We FOLK had a wonderful time at Cottesbrook Plant Fair where I spotted the ultimate wheelbarrow from French company La Mule I exclaimed I have to have it I don't care how much it cost's and stormed over but at £ 580.00  I had to curtail my desire, perhaps I need another lottery ticket...

On a more affordable note our rope hammocks have been selling well they are hand knotted in India by a woman's fairtrade cooperative and the bar is made from the discarded wood from the rubber tree, making it a good ecological product

Rope Hammock £ 50.00 available from our pop up concession in Butlers Emporium, George Street, Hastings or send me an email on folkathome@gmail.com

Feel the Fear and do it anyway

Edward Munch the scream

google images

Last weekend we FOLK faced our fears and braved Le Shuttle to visit Paris. After a terrifying er ten minutes! we emerged in France. Spurred on by our desire to get to the Musee de la Chasse et de Nature and having left the land rover at home and rented a car, we glided rather than thundered onwards and soon arrived at the Hotel Regina a wonderful old Art Nouveau hotel resplendent with huge mirrored doors and lovely green tile work.

The Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature is formidable, reminiscent of the Pitt Rivers in Oxfordshire but much smaller. The museum combines modern sculpture on a natural theme with stuffed animals, paintings depicting hunting scenes and a surreal collection of photographs of a chimps tea party along with a stuffed gorilla and table set for lunch...

One of my favorite collections are the collars worn by hunting dogs displayed under paintings of the hounds at their favorite pastime.

As luck would have it the musee is also just around the corner from the Merci store, so I was able to do some hunting of my own.

Back in Angleterre

Last week or thereabouts at the jack in the green celebration in Hastings I bumped into Simon Costin director of The Museum of British Folklore fastly becoming one of my favorite blog's.

We FOLK are currently popped up in Butlers Emporium Hastings and will be exhibiting with our friends Ancient Industries at the Cottesbrooke Gardeners Fair  Northampton  June 22-24 2012