Much Mooching in Moreton in Marsh
or
Iolanthe and Marbretherese’s excellent Cotswold Adventure
We both decided to take the train rather than face a long drive so we had a very early start with me dragging myself out of bed at 5.30am on a freezing, snowy day and wrapping myself up like an Eskimo (‘Oh to be in England now that April’s there…..’) and I did have a moment with the icy wind whipping around me on the station platform when I wondered why on earth we were bothering. But I’m very glad we did.
The Cotswold line is lovely, taking you through everything that Tolkien loved about the English countryside: gentle hills, winding rivers with overhanging willows, old villages built in the distinctive warm, yellow stone of the Cotswolds, little country stations which still had their old black and white station signs, lambs running around the fields on black knobbly legs. It was a great way to arrive in Moreton in Marsh – almost like journeying back in time. Great to know the Spirit of the Shire still exists somewhere! Even the snow had disappeared
.
The Redesdale Hall
We had no trouble finding the Redesdale Hall which dominates the centre of the town and as soon as we arrived outside we bumped into someone I’d met at Oxonmoot so we got a very friendly welcome. The exhibition is free and there is a sort of genuine fellowship at Tolkien events that springs from the Fellowship and Tolkien himself. I’ve felt it at everything I’ve gone to and it really is remarkable. We went in as soon as we learned that Jef Murray had already started talking about his art. The whole hall was full of colour with Gondorian and Rohan banners hanging everywhere and had a magnificent high pitched wooden roof.
The banners and Ruth Lacon's paintings
Jef Murray is from Georgia and his work is very vivid, textured and glowing. He has his own website at Mystical Realms. In his talk he explained how he uses oils because he can keep manipulating and blending the paint on the canvas. This is every different from Ted Nasmith and Ruth Lacon who use faster drying acrylic and gouache. There was some chat between Ted and Jef about this technique which was very funny with Jef acting out the panic of trying to get something right before the paint dries. Everyone has a medium that they are personally comfortable with and one they hate. Ted gets round fast-drying acrylic by meticulous planning, Jef goes more with the flow by using oils and seeing where the paint takes him as he moves it about. He described how paintings often go in unexpected directions, becoming things the artist never expects them to be (something Mabretherese really identifies with!). To Jef, painting is very mystical. He prepares with carefully selected music, candles to create atmosphere and readies himself for the muse to take him – being open to inspiration which may come or not come. But there is a discipline in being ready, giving painting a regular allotted time, so you don’t miss the moment because you’re not attentive or because you’re off doing something else. He likened paintings to a window to another mystical or mythical world, and the act of painting like being in a sacred space which is out of time with our busy lives. He made a comparison with Icon painting (which is done under specific, prayerful conditions with the part of Orthodox Church where Icons are displayed being regarded as a sacred realm beyond our own). To Jef, painting is a spiritual pleasure and you can see from his site that he does, indeed, do some paintings that are in the Icon tradition.
Jef Murray in his wonderful hat
His talk was very inspirational and also funny, describing the moment when you are so absorbed in a painting you completely lose track of time and get brought back to earth with a bump, and the moment when you are so into a painting that you fail to notice some mammothly big error until someone says – ‘hey, is her arm really supposed to be as long as that?’. Ted recommended holding your painting up to a mirror to get a different view – which I know can give you the most horrible shocks – and Jef described turning one of his paintings upside down because he thought something was wrong with it only to discover that all the towers where leaning sideways.
Jef also said that he’d discovered that some people could detect the mood the artist is in from the results, although someone listening said that all his paintings looked joyous and optimistic and his wife made the comment that he was hardly ever in anything but a happy mood. Ted made some comment about Tolkien’s writing being ultimately pessimistic – I couldn’t hear the exact question so I’m hoping Marbretherese can fill us in – and Jef’s answer was very interesting. He sees optimism throughout The Lord of the Rings and pointed out how Tolkien never tries to get into the minds of the Bad Guys. We don’t know much about the deepest thoughts of the Orcs and Sauron, it’s all from the perspective of the Good Guys. We don’t want to get into the mind of the Enemy, we don’t want to go there. Jef said that like Tolkien we instinctively want to be with the hopeful and fruitful, not the negative and destructive.
While Jef talked we could hear birds flapping around in the high rafters above our heads. There was a lot more interesting stuff in Jef’s talk but I’ve forgotten a lot already. Perhaps more will filter through later if I do some deep brain rummaging.
After the talk we went around the actual exhibition, heading first for Jef’s stuff as we were so interested in what he’s been saying. He’d completely emptied his studio (his wife had said it was like losing a lot of old friends) and there were a huge number of his paintings on display. They are all quite small in scale and like bright jewels. From a distance they made an impact like a huge stained glass window. I’m hoping Marbretherese has a photo of the display! She fell in love with a small painting of the Eagle of Manwë which had such thick paint layered on just the right parts of his wings that the light glancing across it looked like real sunlight catching his feathers as he flew. It can be seen on p.54 of the ADC Books Catalogue, if you’re curious. We were both also struck by a cut out of a dragon reading The Hobbit (scroll to p.48 ) and I loved his painting of Smaug looking both smug and evil in one go (p.58 ). He does terrific dragons!
We then had a look at Roger Garland’s, which were all prints, and it gave me a chance to see his fabulous panorama of Middle-earth on a large scale. If you remember it really captivated me in my essay on him. There was also a wonderful painting of Tom Bombadil leaning over a stream looking at a dragonfly, which neither of us had seen before. It was exquisite and detailed, and was one of the many paintings there that I really wanted to own.
Ted’s earlier work (foreground) and part of Roger Garland’s exhibit
Then it was on to Ted Nasmith’s paintings which were a mixture of prints and originals. Most of his newer originals are sold almost as soon as they come out. There were lots of his smaller gouache studies for sale (done as prep for his bigger paintings) but at about £250 - £400 each they were beyond temptation (thank goodness…). His finished originals are about £3000 - £4,000. His set of new paintings of fantasy castles are just amazing. I was fascinated by them but I don’t think they were Marbretherese’s cup of tea as she kept being drawn back to the Jef Murray’s as though attached to them by a piece of elastic. Ted’s paintings, especially his extraordinary landscapes, are whole worlds I could lose myself in and his technique, now I’ve had a chance to peer at the work close up over the top of my glasses, is simply stunning.
The final artist is Ruth Lacon, who is inspired by medieval art (like Tolkien’s favourite artist Pauline Baynes) and Persian miniatures and carpets. Her view of Tolkien’s world is filtered as though the stories have travelled to far away parts and been retold through Eastern eyes. It’s a very distinctive vision and very, very beautiful. I could look at them for hours and if we hadn’t been fainting from lack of nourishment I probably would have. Her newest painting is a large scale one of ‘Niggle’s first sight of the Tree’. It’s wonderful – even overpowering – with birds of all colours and squirrels in the tree and with every leaf painted in. I think we were both transfixed and it’s just as well the original was already sold otherwise I might have gone completely mad and reached for my cheque book while Mabretherese tried to tie me down. You can see it on p.45 of the ADC books catalogue if you keep scrolling down, although it’s no where near big enough to do it justice. She left the border at the top left unfinished in the same way that Niggle’s Tree could never be finished. I also fell completely in love with her Mumak of Harad and am thinking of getting a print as I have the perfect place to hang it. I can hear my bank balance crying as I type….
Ruth Lacon’s paintings
Then Marbertherese and I rounded the last corner of the exhibition and found something wonderful. Two little cases of display items from a family collection of Hilary Tolkien’s belongings (Tolkien’s brother). There was an original letter from Tolkien to Hilary, family photos (in which Marbretherese gleefully pointed out that like in all family photos someone had been cut off the edge by the photographer) and the original First Edition copy of The Hobbit which Tolkien had given him inscribed ‘To Hil from the author’ and insured for £100,000! There was also, joy of joys, Tolkien’s old Panama hat (seen in one of the family photos) over which my hand hovered like trying to get a blessing from a Relic. While I was nattering later in the afternoon to Ruth Lacon (more of which later) Marbertherese had another good look at a second letter we didn’t pay enough attention to the first time around and made – for us – an amazing discovery. I’ll let her tell you all about it in her own words as it’s all her own.
By now we were fainting with hunger so it was off into the town in search of food where we stuffed ourselves with pasta and coffee.
Outside the entrance
In the afternoon we headed back to the exhibition (which was upstairs – the grandest room is on the first floor) to buy some cards of Ruth’s paintings (including the cherished Niggle Tree). Ruth was standing nearby so I did the fan thingy and gushed about how much I adored her paintings (luckly Anke Eismann wasn’t there that day otherwise she’d still think I was stalking her…). Ruth is very open and chatty – in fact I needn’t have worried about what to say as she is very jolly and easy to talk to. She told me that she managed to get exactly the right ‘grey as a mouse’ colour for the Mumak after catching one in her house. As a zoologist she was happy to examine it and see it was a brownish sort of grey before releasing it some way from the house. This resulted in a long conversation on phobias which drove Marbretherese away to her letter discovery. Ruth also described her love of the patterns in Persian carpets, leaving the pattern detail in the Niggle Tree undone and how much she would like to see newly illustrated versions of some of Tolkien’s children’s books. She was very pleased with the quality of the new sets of cards that you can buy of her works – I have to say they’ve come out very well and you can buy them through the Tolkien Society’s shop.
Wonderful wooden staircase hung with banners, Redesdale Hall
Then Marbretherese and I went downstairs to look at the book stands and other stalls. I tried to persuade her that she should buy a long flowy costume for next September’s Oxonmoot and go in the Party Parade but she wasn’t having it. Sometimes she’s no fun at all
. And I finally managed to finally get the new boxed set of the Tolkien Ensemble that Estel was recommending. A triumph over the small specialist trader over Amazon. While we were there talking to the Tolkien Society guy who runs the stall we caught Jef Murray on the way out and I managed to do the gushy fan thingy all over again. I’m really very good at it now. I even managed to drag poor Marbretherese into it by telling him that she loved his eagle painting. Marbretherese, learning to gush from a pro, told him that she liked his work best of all which clearly made his day and he was probably glowing all the way to Georgia. In fact we bumped into him and his wife at Moreton in the Marsh station and I think he looked distinctly luminescent.
Redesdale Hall
The only disappointment for me was that there was none of the singing, music and other activities that were advertised. Most of them took place over the weekend and although Ted was supposed to sing some of his songs (I’d really been looking forward to that but I think Marbretherese was relieved) there was a feeling on Monday that it was fizzling out and the best was over and done so it never happened. There were quite a few still going around the exhibition but I guess it was nothing like the numbers on Saturday and Sunday. It’s obviously better to attend over the weekend if you can (but alas we couldn’t).
Still – it more than filled our day and we didn’t get back home until mid-evening. But before leaving we headed to a good old English tea shop (or Ye Olde English Tea Shoppe) where Marbretherese managed to cram a full cream tea in on top her pasta, where I just picked at a toasted tea cake. I feel so much more virtuous than her
.
It was a wonderful day!
Moreton in Marsh near ye olde tea shoppe
or
Iolanthe and Marbretherese’s excellent Cotswold Adventure
© Iolanthe
Yesterday Marbretherese and I travelled to the lovely, yellow-stoned Cotswold town of Moreton in Marsh – just north of Oxford – to visit the Castles in the Mist JRR Tolkien and Fantasy Exhibition. This is held every year at the Redesdale Hall, a wonderful mid-nineteenth century building that dominates the market town. The exhibition is organised by ADC Books owner Andrew Compton. This year, as well as art by Ted Nasmith and Ruth Lacon, there were paintings from Jef Murray (who many of us will be familiar with from his many vibrant covers for The Tolkien Society’s Amon Hen and Mallorn) and Roger Garland.We both decided to take the train rather than face a long drive so we had a very early start with me dragging myself out of bed at 5.30am on a freezing, snowy day and wrapping myself up like an Eskimo (‘Oh to be in England now that April’s there…..’) and I did have a moment with the icy wind whipping around me on the station platform when I wondered why on earth we were bothering. But I’m very glad we did.
The Cotswold line is lovely, taking you through everything that Tolkien loved about the English countryside: gentle hills, winding rivers with overhanging willows, old villages built in the distinctive warm, yellow stone of the Cotswolds, little country stations which still had their old black and white station signs, lambs running around the fields on black knobbly legs. It was a great way to arrive in Moreton in Marsh – almost like journeying back in time. Great to know the Spirit of the Shire still exists somewhere! Even the snow had disappeared
.The Redesdale Hall
© Iolanthe
We had no trouble finding the Redesdale Hall which dominates the centre of the town and as soon as we arrived outside we bumped into someone I’d met at Oxonmoot so we got a very friendly welcome. The exhibition is free and there is a sort of genuine fellowship at Tolkien events that springs from the Fellowship and Tolkien himself. I’ve felt it at everything I’ve gone to and it really is remarkable. We went in as soon as we learned that Jef Murray had already started talking about his art. The whole hall was full of colour with Gondorian and Rohan banners hanging everywhere and had a magnificent high pitched wooden roof.
The banners and Ruth Lacon's paintings
© Iolanthe
Jef Murray is from Georgia and his work is very vivid, textured and glowing. He has his own website at Mystical Realms. In his talk he explained how he uses oils because he can keep manipulating and blending the paint on the canvas. This is every different from Ted Nasmith and Ruth Lacon who use faster drying acrylic and gouache. There was some chat between Ted and Jef about this technique which was very funny with Jef acting out the panic of trying to get something right before the paint dries. Everyone has a medium that they are personally comfortable with and one they hate. Ted gets round fast-drying acrylic by meticulous planning, Jef goes more with the flow by using oils and seeing where the paint takes him as he moves it about. He described how paintings often go in unexpected directions, becoming things the artist never expects them to be (something Mabretherese really identifies with!). To Jef, painting is very mystical. He prepares with carefully selected music, candles to create atmosphere and readies himself for the muse to take him – being open to inspiration which may come or not come. But there is a discipline in being ready, giving painting a regular allotted time, so you don’t miss the moment because you’re not attentive or because you’re off doing something else. He likened paintings to a window to another mystical or mythical world, and the act of painting like being in a sacred space which is out of time with our busy lives. He made a comparison with Icon painting (which is done under specific, prayerful conditions with the part of Orthodox Church where Icons are displayed being regarded as a sacred realm beyond our own). To Jef, painting is a spiritual pleasure and you can see from his site that he does, indeed, do some paintings that are in the Icon tradition.
Jef Murray in his wonderful hat
© Iolanthe
His talk was very inspirational and also funny, describing the moment when you are so absorbed in a painting you completely lose track of time and get brought back to earth with a bump, and the moment when you are so into a painting that you fail to notice some mammothly big error until someone says – ‘hey, is her arm really supposed to be as long as that?’. Ted recommended holding your painting up to a mirror to get a different view – which I know can give you the most horrible shocks – and Jef described turning one of his paintings upside down because he thought something was wrong with it only to discover that all the towers where leaning sideways.
Jef also said that he’d discovered that some people could detect the mood the artist is in from the results, although someone listening said that all his paintings looked joyous and optimistic and his wife made the comment that he was hardly ever in anything but a happy mood. Ted made some comment about Tolkien’s writing being ultimately pessimistic – I couldn’t hear the exact question so I’m hoping Marbretherese can fill us in – and Jef’s answer was very interesting. He sees optimism throughout The Lord of the Rings and pointed out how Tolkien never tries to get into the minds of the Bad Guys. We don’t know much about the deepest thoughts of the Orcs and Sauron, it’s all from the perspective of the Good Guys. We don’t want to get into the mind of the Enemy, we don’t want to go there. Jef said that like Tolkien we instinctively want to be with the hopeful and fruitful, not the negative and destructive.
While Jef talked we could hear birds flapping around in the high rafters above our heads. There was a lot more interesting stuff in Jef’s talk but I’ve forgotten a lot already. Perhaps more will filter through later if I do some deep brain rummaging.
After the talk we went around the actual exhibition, heading first for Jef’s stuff as we were so interested in what he’s been saying. He’d completely emptied his studio (his wife had said it was like losing a lot of old friends) and there were a huge number of his paintings on display. They are all quite small in scale and like bright jewels. From a distance they made an impact like a huge stained glass window. I’m hoping Marbretherese has a photo of the display! She fell in love with a small painting of the Eagle of Manwë which had such thick paint layered on just the right parts of his wings that the light glancing across it looked like real sunlight catching his feathers as he flew. It can be seen on p.54 of the ADC Books Catalogue, if you’re curious. We were both also struck by a cut out of a dragon reading The Hobbit (scroll to p.48 ) and I loved his painting of Smaug looking both smug and evil in one go (p.58 ). He does terrific dragons!
We then had a look at Roger Garland’s, which were all prints, and it gave me a chance to see his fabulous panorama of Middle-earth on a large scale. If you remember it really captivated me in my essay on him. There was also a wonderful painting of Tom Bombadil leaning over a stream looking at a dragonfly, which neither of us had seen before. It was exquisite and detailed, and was one of the many paintings there that I really wanted to own.
Ted’s earlier work (foreground) and part of Roger Garland’s exhibit
© Iolanthe
Then it was on to Ted Nasmith’s paintings which were a mixture of prints and originals. Most of his newer originals are sold almost as soon as they come out. There were lots of his smaller gouache studies for sale (done as prep for his bigger paintings) but at about £250 - £400 each they were beyond temptation (thank goodness…). His finished originals are about £3000 - £4,000. His set of new paintings of fantasy castles are just amazing. I was fascinated by them but I don’t think they were Marbretherese’s cup of tea as she kept being drawn back to the Jef Murray’s as though attached to them by a piece of elastic. Ted’s paintings, especially his extraordinary landscapes, are whole worlds I could lose myself in and his technique, now I’ve had a chance to peer at the work close up over the top of my glasses, is simply stunning.
The final artist is Ruth Lacon, who is inspired by medieval art (like Tolkien’s favourite artist Pauline Baynes) and Persian miniatures and carpets. Her view of Tolkien’s world is filtered as though the stories have travelled to far away parts and been retold through Eastern eyes. It’s a very distinctive vision and very, very beautiful. I could look at them for hours and if we hadn’t been fainting from lack of nourishment I probably would have. Her newest painting is a large scale one of ‘Niggle’s first sight of the Tree’. It’s wonderful – even overpowering – with birds of all colours and squirrels in the tree and with every leaf painted in. I think we were both transfixed and it’s just as well the original was already sold otherwise I might have gone completely mad and reached for my cheque book while Mabretherese tried to tie me down. You can see it on p.45 of the ADC books catalogue if you keep scrolling down, although it’s no where near big enough to do it justice. She left the border at the top left unfinished in the same way that Niggle’s Tree could never be finished. I also fell completely in love with her Mumak of Harad and am thinking of getting a print as I have the perfect place to hang it. I can hear my bank balance crying as I type….
Ruth Lacon’s paintings
© Iolanthe
Then Marbertherese and I rounded the last corner of the exhibition and found something wonderful. Two little cases of display items from a family collection of Hilary Tolkien’s belongings (Tolkien’s brother). There was an original letter from Tolkien to Hilary, family photos (in which Marbretherese gleefully pointed out that like in all family photos someone had been cut off the edge by the photographer) and the original First Edition copy of The Hobbit which Tolkien had given him inscribed ‘To Hil from the author’ and insured for £100,000! There was also, joy of joys, Tolkien’s old Panama hat (seen in one of the family photos) over which my hand hovered like trying to get a blessing from a Relic. While I was nattering later in the afternoon to Ruth Lacon (more of which later) Marbertherese had another good look at a second letter we didn’t pay enough attention to the first time around and made – for us – an amazing discovery. I’ll let her tell you all about it in her own words as it’s all her own.
By now we were fainting with hunger so it was off into the town in search of food where we stuffed ourselves with pasta and coffee.
Outside the entrance
© Iolanthe
In the afternoon we headed back to the exhibition (which was upstairs – the grandest room is on the first floor) to buy some cards of Ruth’s paintings (including the cherished Niggle Tree). Ruth was standing nearby so I did the fan thingy and gushed about how much I adored her paintings (luckly Anke Eismann wasn’t there that day otherwise she’d still think I was stalking her…). Ruth is very open and chatty – in fact I needn’t have worried about what to say as she is very jolly and easy to talk to. She told me that she managed to get exactly the right ‘grey as a mouse’ colour for the Mumak after catching one in her house. As a zoologist she was happy to examine it and see it was a brownish sort of grey before releasing it some way from the house. This resulted in a long conversation on phobias which drove Marbretherese away to her letter discovery. Ruth also described her love of the patterns in Persian carpets, leaving the pattern detail in the Niggle Tree undone and how much she would like to see newly illustrated versions of some of Tolkien’s children’s books. She was very pleased with the quality of the new sets of cards that you can buy of her works – I have to say they’ve come out very well and you can buy them through the Tolkien Society’s shop.
Wonderful wooden staircase hung with banners, Redesdale Hall
© Iolanthe
Then Marbretherese and I went downstairs to look at the book stands and other stalls. I tried to persuade her that she should buy a long flowy costume for next September’s Oxonmoot and go in the Party Parade but she wasn’t having it. Sometimes she’s no fun at all
. And I finally managed to finally get the new boxed set of the Tolkien Ensemble that Estel was recommending. A triumph over the small specialist trader over Amazon. While we were there talking to the Tolkien Society guy who runs the stall we caught Jef Murray on the way out and I managed to do the gushy fan thingy all over again. I’m really very good at it now. I even managed to drag poor Marbretherese into it by telling him that she loved his eagle painting. Marbretherese, learning to gush from a pro, told him that she liked his work best of all which clearly made his day and he was probably glowing all the way to Georgia. In fact we bumped into him and his wife at Moreton in the Marsh station and I think he looked distinctly luminescent.Redesdale Hall
© Iolanthe
The only disappointment for me was that there was none of the singing, music and other activities that were advertised. Most of them took place over the weekend and although Ted was supposed to sing some of his songs (I’d really been looking forward to that but I think Marbretherese was relieved) there was a feeling on Monday that it was fizzling out and the best was over and done so it never happened. There were quite a few still going around the exhibition but I guess it was nothing like the numbers on Saturday and Sunday. It’s obviously better to attend over the weekend if you can (but alas we couldn’t).
Still – it more than filled our day and we didn’t get back home until mid-evening. But before leaving we headed to a good old English tea shop (or Ye Olde English Tea Shoppe) where Marbretherese managed to cram a full cream tea in on top her pasta, where I just picked at a toasted tea cake. I feel so much more virtuous than her
.It was a wonderful day!
Moreton in Marsh near ye olde tea shoppe
© Iolanthe
The overall effect was very light as Ruth likes to frame her paintings in pale colours which gives them a modern feel. I suspect even non-Tolkien fans would buy her Tolkien works!
.