Last month, the RHS Chelsea Flower show celebrated its centenary
year and for the second year running the Artisan Retreats invited well-known
artists and designers to decorate the summer houses, showcasing their work and
transforming the space to reflect their own unique style. With last years
artists including Orla Kiely, Kaffe Fassett and Nikki Tibbles we were honoured
to be invited to take part this year alongside Cath Kidston, Wayne Hemingway
and Pippa Small.
The summerhouses, donated by The Malvern Collection, were introduced
last year as part of the redevelopment of the Plateau as a place for relaxation
and refreshment, where visitors to the show can escape the busy crowds of the
main show-ground and hopefully be encouraged to transform their own outdoor
buildings and spaces.
Rob decided to use the space to re-create his own studio, a
sanctuary for creativity at the bottom of the garden. He describes his retreat:
'Here is a gentle,
sleepy place where I pick up loose ends once more and tie them onto something
new, where I come to think and dream and write and draw. My thoughts and ideas
cover the surface of every wall in here, because the inside of this summerhouse
is really an entire country of its own and that country is called…The Inside Of
My Brain. Surrounded by and immersed in the clutter of these beloved books and
records and scribbles and things I know and love is where I am finally free to
be myself. In my domain at the end of the garden, I feel confident enough to
create and create.'
The Ryantown team enjoyed decorating the space with all of our
beloved things from the studio, with Rob's drawings covering every surface. Rob
created a number of unique pieces especially for the retreat, including a
conversation seat, weather vane, deck chairs and tiled wall clock.
The conversation seat had previously been living in our print studio
and the show gave us the perfect opportunity to bring it to life again! Our
screen printers, Jackie and Tom, printed the repeat pattern on to a length
fabric before handing it over to our shop manager, Cynthia, who did a great job
re-upholstering the seat.
To make the wall clock, Rob’s drawings were screen printed in
sections; once the image is printed we use a special cover coat over the image
to create the transfer decal ready to be placed on each individual tile. This
process is quite lengthy as different parts of the design over lap and require
a number of firings in our studio kiln. For anyone who didn't get a chance to
see the wall clock in the flesh, it is now on permanent display behind the
counter at our shop on Columbia road.
In our retreat we gave out our own seed booklets, which included a
packet of wildflower seeds, (I will be writing a
post about the seed booklets later in the week) and for those of you who took one
away, I hope you have fun planting them. We planted some of the seeds here at
the studio and I can't wait to see what blossoms later in the year.
As part of the centenary celebrations, the Chelsea Centenary Appeal was
launched and designers and celebrities were asked to paint their own garden gnome
to be auctioned to raise money for the RHS for Schools Gardening. Rob painted
his gnome complete with Ray Ban glasses and lightning bolt jumper! This was
particularly special as gnomes are usually banned at Chelsea, so I hope they
raise a lot of money for a good cause.
Rob reflects on the show, ‘I must admit I was a little concerned about
how our presence would be received at Chelsea, I mean the studio has little or
nothing to do with flowers or gardening at all! But I was completely bowled
over by how positive peoples reactions were, people who have never seen my work
before came in and asked questions all about it. The great thing was it was
people from all over the country, from every social demographic, I’m really
glad we did it.’
Everyone at Ryantown enjoyed being involved in such a great event and talking to all the visitors to our retreat!
Louise Renforth
Studio Assistant
