Description
‘Sleeping in the Forest’
Stained Glass Panel
16.4 x 18 cm
Collection from gallery £750
Inspired by a poem by Mary Oliver
Sleeping In The Forest
I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
Mary Oliver
“I completed a degree in English literature at Stirling University (1985 -1989) where I specialised in medieval literature. I was drawn to Stirling by the landscape and the wildness of the mountains and hills. I was not disappointed and was surrounded by a suitable back-drop for the subject I was studying. My love of the language and stories of medieval literature was enhanced by the fact that much of the research material I was reading was illustrated with paintings and simple woodcuts of the period. I became immersed in a magical world of romance, strange words and naïve but arresting images, and it was not long before I began to paint and write for pleasure as well as working for the degree.
After leaving university (with a first class honours degree), I worked in several different jobs and lived in Cumbria for a while before moving to Herefordshire where Mike and I had bought a woodland together with a small group of people. I then returned to college to complete a foundation year in art at Gloucester College of Art and Technology where I was expertly tutored in life drawing and discovered the highly influential work of the Brotherhood of Ruralists. A few months later I got a job working in The Collection Gallery in Ledbury which was a useful insight into the world of selling craft. It was at this time that I married Mike and soon after became a full-time mother of two.
In 1999 I began an evening class in stained glass at Hereford College of Art and Design. I soon gained an OCN in the craft but continued the course for a total of four years until our second child started school. At this point I decided to take things more seriously and invested some money in a kiln and built a studio in which to work.”
