Nothing to do with boxes but.. the pure joy of shells!

Nothing to do with boxes but.. shells, oh the pure joy of shells.

Nothing to do with boxes but.. the handsomeness of slate!

Acrylic on slate. A view of one of my favorite places.

The lurcher measured about 14 feet long and 6ft head to toe.
A lurcher built on a hill using bits of slate I found lying around. The breadth of the different shapes I found really surprised me. If you were looking for a certain piece to fit in to the picture like a jigsaw, you mostly found the exact match pretty quickly.

A buffalo head put together from pieces of slate found near a deserted crumbling building.

Slate is something I have begun to love quite recently. It seems so versatile. The very fine layered slate can be wheedled, chipped and sanded into the kind of shape you require. Thick slate is somehow reassuringly solid and makes a good base to build on. Tiled slate a good medium to paint on and then helpfully stands up on its own without having to lean on anything. The options of slate do seem to be unending.

'DUNES AT YNYSLAS' BOX

The smaller boxes 'Wisteria' and 'Ynyslas'.

Box measures 9cm x 4.5cm x 7cm.

The back of the box.

Glass is on five sides.

The dunes at Ynyslas.

I brought some sand and tiny stones back from the beach and tried to replicate the view I saw.

Everything else in the box, including the grasses, are made out of pages of text.

The contents of this small glass box picture, with leather edging, was inspired by the sloping dunes on Ynyslas beach in Wales. The dunes, sand and sea there seem infinite.

'WISTERIA DOMINO' BOX

Poetry text is used for the leaves, branches and bricks.

The box measures 18cm x 6cm x 4cm

A bird, of-course,

had to be sitting

on a branch.

The print

covered

dominos at

the back of

the box

portray

house

bricks.

Different shades of ribbon are used to make the flowers.

This beautiful wisteria, climbing up a house near me, caught my eye.. well, you could hardly miss it.. this year, it practically took over the whole house. I made a small picture of it in an old domino box, using poetry pages, dominos and different shades of ribbons. I removed the lid from the box and replaced it with glass. The box is covered in soft purple leather.

'SPRING' BOX Private Commission

I used tiny beads to portray dew on the flower heads and bunches of beads and sequins for the blossom in the trees.

The box is glass fronted and backed, so the sunlight can shine through naturally.

Some of the birds are suspended by wire so they seem to be flying.

Close up of bird's nest.

The bird's nest has jewels sitting inside it and beaded blossom surrounding it.

The flowers were made out of different coloured ribbons, as were the leaves and blossom. The trees were made out of poetry book pages as were the insides of the box. Each poem related to spring.

The birds sit on the trees, the ground and fly through the air.

This 'SPRING BOX' was commissioned as a Christmas present for a person who travels extensively, a lot of the year. Their main regret when travelling, was that they missed the seasons, especially the English springtime. Therefore the idea was to let the person see 'spring' whenever they returned home, even if it was the wrong time of year or even take it with them.

The box measures 24cm x 19cm x 10cm.

'KING ARTHUR TRINKET' BOX Private Commission (4)

'Arthur' box just finished in workshop.

The tray compartments were painted in a mixture of distressed gold, green and red.

Limpets and scallops decorate the outside. I also used metal leaves to decorate the some of the corners and the top to make it have a more textured feel.

'KING ARTHUR TRINKET' BOX Private Commission (3)

Closed box shows the metal leaf used.

The person who commissioned this box wanted a token of their love to be inside it! So I made a heart of gemstones and fixed it in permanently.

Lift-out tray reveals a hidden compartment beneath it.

'KING ARTHUR TRINKET' BOX Private Commission (2)

I fixed the prettiest shells I found on the beach into the different sections and then varnished them. They are protected enough to have cufflinks etc stored on top of them.

A close-up of 'Arthur'. Each part of his clothing was made of different pages, some parts more layered than other to portray texture, especially for his armour and hair.

A close-up of 'Arthur and Camelot' behind glass.

'KING ARTHUR TRINKET' BOX Private Commission (1)

This GENTLEMAN'S TRINKET BOX was commissioned as a birthday present. The man for whom it was commissioned loves the sea and is very interested in the Legend of King Arthur. When I bought the box originally there were holes in the wood where the locks and inlay were supposed to be. These I replaced with shells I collected from an amazing beach in Wales (King Arthur country). I used pages from second hand books about Arthurian Legends and Tennyson's poem, 'Morte d'Arthur', to make the picture of Arthur and Camelot in the lid of the box, which I then set behind glass. My picture was inspired by a painting of Arthur by Charles Ernest Butler. The box measures 28cm x 19cm x 11cm.

A little more about me and this blog

There is something about a box, as you lift up or slide open the lid, that can transport you up to another lost world. You may find a hidden love letter (or a shopping list) secreted in a tiny drawer or slipped under the lining, a lost earring, or a dried flower given possibly by a long lost admirer. Treasures, loves, hopes and fears have been placed carefully or thrown willy-nilly into boxes of different sizes, shapes and purposes for thousands of years by women, men and children.

The other thing I collected as a child were books, preferably old second-hand ones. The first book I bought with my own money, aged eight, was a very tatty, broken spined copy of Dumas's The Man In The Iron Mask. I can still remember carrying it home with the pages falling out along the pavement, thinking that I had just bought the most precious thing possible. There is something about the printed page and especially an old printed page that is so very aesthetically pleasing... When I came across a very battered box one day, I decided to change its original function and add to it some pages from a similarly battered book and make something new and in someway rescue both.

I used to be an actress and found that I was very frustrated creatively when in between jobs. So I began to paint again, and to make things and write -- all things that didn't require a phone call from my agent to do. And it led to this.

Apart from the boxes and books I am inspired mostly by the sea, trees, the seasons, poetry and birds... Oh, and LOVE, of course!