Formative experiences and artful arrangements

How Kettles Yard inspired me to grow flowers

I love the programme ‘This Cultural Life’ where leading artistic figures and creatives share some of the influences and experience that have inspired their creatively. Always such a good conversation and fascinating to hear how sometimes what might be a momentary experience or opportunity in childhood shapes a life times work. It got me thinking, indulge me, what might mine be?

In no particular order, my own ‘cultural life’:

1. Visiting the National Garden Scheme ‘Yellow Book’ Gardens

2. Princess Diana’s Wedding¹

3. Smash Hits Magazine and Top of the Pops

4. Kettles Yard

5. The Clothes Show

6. Not the Nine O’Clock News

7. A Radio 1 documentary about how Bob Geldof came up with the idea for Live Aid up to the day of the recording².

8. The huge and maybe first of the super shows at the V&A on William Morris³ in 1996

9. Diarmuid Gavin on Home Front from 1998

Quite the cacophony of inspiration there, but it all weaves into my interests, both at work and play, still. Whilst I’d love to tell you all about them all, alas I am not being interviewed by John Wilson, so for now, I want to tell you about Kettles Yard, how it still inspires me with how important cut flowers are in this world renowned home of Jim and Helen Ede and the remarkable art collection there.

Tulips in the Dining room

There are many interesting things about the house.

I first visited as a child, maybe 9 years old and it felt like a special place then, we’ve returned over the years, just drawn to revisit. If you’ve been, I am sure you know what I mean. It still reads as a home, with made beds and house plants, and fresh every week, posies and vases of flowers.

Visitors can sit on the chairs and read any books on the shelves, encouraged to soak in the atmosphere. The art collection is arranged in interesting ways, for instance paintings hung under windowsills, so spotted from a chair at just the right height to enjoy.

Objects converse with each other, which is especially notable with the lemon on a platter which speaks to the Miro painting near it.

The yellow spot plays against the lemon on a dish that sits to the left of here (I couldn’t find an image - you’ll have to go and see it!)

Kettles Yard has become an influential space. Where art is arranged with the same importance and deference as natural found objects such as pebbles, feathers or skulls with floral arrangements.

Nothing in this house is frivolous or accidental. Every item has it’s place and role.

The posies are mostly diminutive, always in the same positions, but never the same. Flowers are chosen to be as seasonal as possible, often cut from the equally brilliant gardens at the Murray Edwards College, and for some time, I delivered buckets of flowers too.

The art works and natural objects stay in their place, always but the flowers are never the same. This seems to be so important to this space that it is worth repeating. Take anything away from those rooms, and the exquisite tension that is created between the objects would be broken.

A Ben Nicholson sitting on the window ledge with shells and those shadows.

In static images, postcards collected from the shop or in print, the juxtaposition of elements are so special, but in person, when in the space as a visitor, I am certain it it the arrangements and the dance of light that bring the rooms to life, that can only be experienced in person. The flowers are a subtle anchor to the month, time of year. Even if you don’t know which flowers are truly of that season, by cutting naturally grown flowers, we feel that truer connection. To the place and time.

The rooms are alive in a way that makes them accessible to both in a historic context of their being lived in by Jim and Helen, and of today. As if they are still yet lived in.

I just love those fallen petals which speak to blooms developing and maturing in the vase. Naturally grown flowers are not static like the shells, pebbles or art works. Impermanent.

In the extension part of the house, there are no flowers but plants. These spaces are museum like. Windows open to the sky, you could visit on any day of the year and have no idea what month it is. But it is the main house, the original cottages that I feel more drawn to because of that connection to the natural world and the dance between all those elements.

There is little restriction in the material, colour or style of arrangements but pretty little combinations and no pink. Pink flowers are only used in Helen's bedroom and bathroom.

I return to this time and time again. How we often buy the flowers as a finishing touch to a room to be welcoming and homely. The amount of flowers sold through supermarkets speaks to that desire to have flowering stems blooming in our rooms.⁴ I believe to have that same feeling, a connection to the natural world that brings life to a space. At Kettles Yard, a bunch of pink roses in January would be entirely wrong; I think we’d all notice that, even if we can’t quite put our finger on why that is. But pieces of holly and dried stems in the winter, or bright daisies in the summer quietly but firmly speak of that season, making that room ‘right’, safe and lived in.

When Ai Weiwei visited, this was the sole image he uploaded to his instagram feed, the shadows, posy and table still recognisable as Kettles Yard. I mused that he too saw the art and beauty in the flowers.

aiww

A post shared by @aiww

When Ai Weiwei visited Kettles Yard, this was the sole image he posted on his instagram.

I am sure it was this house and the way that flower arrangements are pivotal in the visitors experience is part of what inspired me to grow flowers. Over looked and reduced to frivolity, this renowned yet simply decorated home, despite all the priceless works of art, seems obtainable. There are elements that we can all take, should we aspire to, to replicate in our own homes. Found treasures, images that delight us and vessels of materials cut that very week.

Corners of beauty in our homes and gardens connect us to something that is far greater than ourselves, which brings much safety and peace, anchoring that immersive experience in that time. Never to be replicated.

Cutting a stem of two says so much, that there was some leisure time to be outside, at any time of year. We noticed what is around us, took time to prepare and arrange some flowers or branches, placing somewhere we will notice and enjoy their beauty, if only for a few days before they wilt or die back. Just because. If only for ourselves, especially if only for ourselves.

Might be easy for me to say with flower gardens. But if you are close to parks or woodland, hedgerows, there will always be something to take a few pieces of as a souvenir to being outside. Right now, stems of wild garlic, emerging hazel and willow, primroses, cherry blossoms with budding branches. I am even wanting to cut nettles for their vibrant greenery which feels so welcome on these bright spring days.

Please drop me a ❤️ and even better, tell me what inspires you to grow and cut flowers yourself.

All the images have been taken from Kettles Yard’s instagram except Ai Weiwei’s linked post.

1. OBSESSED. Just rewatched this video. That dress! Those flower crowns!

2. I have this on cassette, when I recorded it as it played out on a Sunday night in 1994. I love the behind the scenes and hearing about how he persuaded musicians to get involved. How they came up with the song.

3. This was pre wider internet and so there is little to report just how big a deal this show was at the time.

4.