Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Thursday 10 October 2013

Blue Ginger Gallery. An afternoon with The Sisterhood of Ruralists; and then an evening with Jackie Morris



I had a really lovely day out last week .

I had a meeting in the morning in the Frome valley near the Herefordshire/Worcestershire border, so after my meeting I went to Blue-Ginger Gallery in Cradley to meet up with Jackie Morris, Hannah Willow and Tamsin Abbott, who were all artists in residence for the afternoon creating postcard sized artwork in aid of The Big Draw.




This is the Dragon van of Jackie Morris in the car park  - Tell me a Dragon, in mobile form! I felt so excited when I saw it :)


Jackie, concentrating on painting a Hare


Jackie, Tamsin and Hannah all at work making beautiful things


Jackie working on the beautiful hare


Hannah cutting into some birthday cake :)



Some of Hannah's beautiful craft


All three of the artists were delightful to chat to, and I am amazed they were able to talk AND create wonderful art at the same time! I wish I could just create the art!

They are all lovely, lovely people and I felt very honoured that they were willing to chat to me and work. This was a drop in session so  I did not have to pay for the honour and, although I did buy some wonderful stuff, I did not have to and there was no fee involved :)

I SO love indy galleries and bookshops for putting on events like this :) Thank you to Jackie, Hannah and Tamsin and thank you to Sue for hosting the event.





Then later I went back for a magical evening (yes for this I paid for a ticket and was lucky to get one as they sold out really fast!) listening to Jackie telling tales from some of her latest books and talking about her craft and how she sets about writing. Magical, simply wonderful.


I also ate some lovely food and drank some nice wine provided by Sue Lim of Blue-Ginger Gallery, and had lovely conversations with other members in the audience.


It was a wonderful evening. If you ever have the chance to listen to Jackie speak and read from her books I urge you to go - she is a wonderful storyteller and is warm, witty and very engaging as a speaker. I had a magical evening listening to her read and talk and answer questions from the floor.

 Then I went home and when I got home despite being tired I started reading East of the Sun, West of the Moon; and I stayed up until 2 am so I could finish it in one sitting .I drank in the rhyme and the beauty and the words and feasted my eyes on the sumptuous illustrations which oh-so-perfectly enhanced the words.

I honestly could NOT put the book down until I had read to the end. And then I cried. THAT is how good a writer and illustrator Jackie is :)   

And then I went off to bed, to dream of bears and hares and cats.

Seriously, you need to go and listen to Jackie speak if you can -and you need to buy her books. All are so fabulous both as tales and as art.

I had SUCH a great evening. Thank you Jackie.


You can read more about Jackie's tour of the UK here 




4 comments:

  1. I've driven by Blue Ginger so many times and no idea what a wonderful place it is! Thanks for the tip - I'm going to look at their website and programme of events straight away. Jx

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    1. I live about 12 miles away so it is not a huge trip out for me and yes - it is a lovely place with very many beautiful things :)

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  2. These are some of my favourite artists! I've been following Jackie's blog for some time now and her watercolours amaze me. I aspire to someday join a similar "Sisterhood of Artists" someday.

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  3. I am not surprised you like them so much :) All three were inspiring to watch working

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