Saturday 28 May 2011

39...The best bits of Chelsea

Our daily changing living picture
Well it's come to an end and all we have to do now is break down the stand. It has been an incredibly interesting experience, and the next couple of months will show us how successful it has been. We have talked to literally hundreds of people and hopefully it will translate into some sales for us. There have been some ups and downs to the week and now we need to sleep for a couple of days at least. Today the Tourism minister from Malyasia asked us to go and set up an exhibition there...so you never know that could be an exciting opportunity....but yesterday someone tripped onto the stand and took a couple of sculptures down with them. Luckily they weren't badly hurt..not so the sculptures.

Here is a selection of my favourite plants and gardens from the show:
Brimstone yellow butterfly Aqualegia

Candlearbre primula

close up of a pitcher plant

2 hanging pitcher plants

the smell from this stand was like bathing in strawberries

radish heaven

stunning Primula Vialli

The two pictures below are of my favourite garden... the Sky Shades garden. It is how I would like my garden in France....once I've got rid of the brambles!


 

a very British affair


The Bunny Guiness garden

Beautiful planting in the Laurent Perrier garden

The Literary garden

The brilliant Postcard from Wales

such a lovely colour scheme
The South Africa Garden
and then finally at four o'clock the announcement comes for the sell off, and it's a bun fight! Within minutes people are staggering under the weight of plants bigger than them,

Delphiniums in flight

Finding her way to the bus stop
Up at the crack of 6 o'clock tomorrow to drive back up to London to dismantle, then I'm off to Edinburgh for a few days to not think about anything to do with work. See you all next week!

p.s...........just got back from break down, here is a pic of what the pavilion looked like this morning at 7.30 am


Thursday 26 May 2011

38...A rainy day at Chelsea

Today we experienced all sorts of weather, all at once. Sunshine, thunderstorms, hailstones and heavy rain. Hundreds of people were modelling these lovely poncho's given out at the entrance gate. Entrancing I'm sure you'll agree.

The walkways are packed, until it rains, then as one the crowds charge for the pavilion.
And on the National Trust stand opposite us, the staff cower in their shed.

Shona however on the stand next door, found ways to keep us amused with her balls of twine. What can I say...the days are long!

Find me now over at http://theceramicgardener.com

Wednesday 25 May 2011

37...Day 2 and 3 at Chelsea

It is incredible the amount of people that come through in a day. Chelsea sell 157,000 tickets for the week, and this year they sold out in 16 days. This is when we realise we could have done with a bigger stand, and if we do it again we shall certainly have to go up a size, but in the meantime we work with what we have. Its the bags that are a problem....especially for my work!
We have talked to hundreds of people and it's good to be getting our work seen by a larger audience...but we're certainly being put through our paces, and we have to keep going with the aid of the odd glass of Pimms secreted in our cupboard.

Dermuid Gavins flying garden

This seems to be the garden of the show. It has been based on Avatar I think, and Dermuid is to be seen around on his garden a lot of the time...at one point in a leather shirt. Working it for the ladies.
My favourite garden so far is the Sky Shades garden.It is a wild garden with little paths running through, and reminds me of my garden in France minus the nettles and brambles. I can't get near enough to get a good pic of it yet but I'm working on it.

one from a collection of flowery jockeys jackets

It is the Pavilion however which keeps drawing me back, I spot something new every time I go in there, and there is more room to see.

I adore these Mecanopsis, and this year they have a new purply blue one....stunning!


I also spotted these fab seed pods, and have got my name on the top one for the saturday sell off. I'm getting new ideas for sculpture forms all the time.

Chelsea ladies

Meanwhile the fashion parade continues, and these ladies fluttered by this afternoon, twittering and cheeping like a flock of exotic birds.


........and this was the best hair accessory of the day!

Tuesday 24 May 2011

36...Press day at Chelsea

Stand ready at last!
After much tweaking we are finally ready for the start of the show. The first day is press day and consequently quiet for us. This does mean though that we get the chance to nip around and see everything fresh and glorious.
There are camermen everywhere and you suddenly see groups forming around various gardens or people. At one point this morning, there was shouting and carrying on in the marquee, and I thought a fight was breaking out. But it was photographers trying to get a pic of Helen Mirren! The noise level was incredible as they were shouting 'to the left' or 'to the right'....blimey, imagine living with that.

Rachel de Thame
Meanwhile there were plenty of other slebs to see who weren't in the middle of a bun fight,
Alan Titchmarsh of course
Joe Swift who is everywhere

The Royal party wandered around in the evening, and we saw the Queen go by. Camilla visited the stand opposite. Of course some of the most interesting people are not necessarily the slebs.

 
This georgeous couple were strolling around all day...and kept on smiling.

And this striking dancer was striking poses in the Bunny Guiness garden.


This jockey looked almost good enough to eat.

What you may not know about Chelsea

Everyone coughs and sneezes because of the enormous amount of pollen from the Plane trees.
Green Paraqeets fly shrieking all around.
The gardens are much smaller and difficult to see than it appears on the telly.

By this morning we had scaffolding keeping our eyes open,and by this evening we needed support tights, but, it's good to finally be here and chatting to people about our work.

Friday 20 May 2011

35...Set up day at Chelsea Flower Show


An exhausting day setting up at Chelsea, but exciting too. Getting into the Chelsea grounds and around to our stand was like a military operation, involving circling around in Battersea park before crawling around the  show grounds at 5mph. I am sharing a stand with Shayama Ruffell and Lara Bowen, who is also my agent. They are both artists who paint floral and botanical themes in bold colours. Our work perfectly compliments each other.
The stands are judged by a voluntary panel once they are set up, so we've spent a long time designing what is in fact a very small space for the 3 of us...so it had to have impact and clarity. We decided to keep the walls white but with a central panel of Citrine.

Citrine central panel
Inside the frame on the wall, we are having a changing arrangment of plants in a collection of bottles and glasses..we may add some fruit and veg too.

It takes ages to get the show hung, especially when we all started out tired to begin with, but we've done this often enough now to be able to stay in good humour with each other and just problem solve as we go along.

Lara measuring up
Gradually it all starts to come together,
Globe Thistles and Shammys paintings
and things are manoeuvred to compliment each other.

Everyone here, including us are wearing fluoro vests...it is a sea of yellow, and everywhere there is the smell of Lilies and bark mulch.


Peering inside the Pavilion there so many exciting displays going up and I am already in lust with many plants.


Around the grounds everyone is getting on with setting up the gardens. This looks like a Japanese based design, and a team of young Japanese men were taking turns to break up these rocks (not terribly successfully at the time I was there, but I think it got better)
It all seemed surprisingly  calm although busy, and I can't wait until Monday when all the debris will be cleared away, and the gardens will be on full show.

www.shyamaruffell.co.uk
www.larabowen.co.uk

Find me now over at http://theceramicgardener.com

Sunday 15 May 2011

34...Prizes at our Open House

A very busy 2nd weekend at our Open House, chatting to lots of people and getting great feedback on all the work in the house. That's the good thing about this, there is more time to really discuss work with interested people.

Last week we had a small video made showcasing the work and ideas of three of us from the house, if you would like to check it out here is the link    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otQJy2kKhmw 
Please feel free to comment..but be kind!

Every year in order to build up a good emailing list, we run a prize draw each day that we open, with a chance to win a prize from one of the exhibiting artists.

Cherryl with Beechmast

Janice with Scabious

Carol with Rabbit Ears Lavender

This year so far these 3 lovely ladies have won one of my mini sculptures. With another 2 weeks to go, if you  haven't been to see us yet, why not pop along and have a go at winning a prize?

Setting up for the Chelsea Flower show will start at the end of this week, and my next blog will be from there. I am hoping to write a short daily blog from the show as I am so excited about being there, who knows, might even get to feature some slebs.....