Painting Bloomsbury-style with Curious House retreats in England
Pamela Goodman spends two days on a Bloomsbury-style painting retreat in West Sussex, channelling the artistic vibes of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell and learning to decorate lampshades and furniture
It’s only 9.30am when I arrive at Wisketts Barn in East Sussex, yet I’m as taut as a wire. You know the feeling – life is crazy, busy, complicated, unpredictable and I certainly don’t have time to spend two, self-indulgent days on a painting course.
I have navigated a grid-locked M25, slightly struggled to understand the directions to find the barn, but I have met Rachel – similarly a little lost – and we arrive as strangers together. Such is the instant connection between us, however, that everyone else on the course thinks we have known each other for years.
Wisketts Barn is the home-cum-workshop of artist Jane McCall, one of several Curious House tutors and whose work draws inspiration from the Bloomsbury painters, most specifically Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and their creative headquarters at Charleston in West Sussex. Jane’s style, like theirs, is naïve and colourful, loose-brushed, free-flowing, with ideas and shapes plucked from nature. A ceramicist in the past, her art concentrates primarily these days on painting furniture and lampshades.
And this is what I’m here to do: a two-day Bloomsbury-style course, put together by Curious House courses, painting lampshades on day one and a piece of furniture on day two. All I am supposed to bring is a small piece of furniture (tick), primed and ready to paint (not ticked). Why? Because my life has been too crazy, busy, complicated…
“I feel more at ease, more confident to strike out with colour and pattern, less judgemental of myself and others, less bothered by the outside world, more at peace, in fact, than I’ve felt for a while”
Let’s get this straight. I am no artist. I have dabbled with pencils and paints from time to time, mostly in my teens – seemingly a lifetime ago. But I love the idea of painting, if only I could get over the control-freakery, perfectionist side of my nature. When Jane tells us to hold the paintbrush at its end and not to grip too hard, I can feel every fibre in my body twitching in resistance.
But I am getting ahead of myself. By the time we get to paintbrush technique, I have already felt a certain ease begin to wash over me. Jane’s barn is wonderful – a tangle of colour, with birds and flowers, leaves and patterns, all painted by her, racing up walls, round windows and doorways, trailing across tables and lamps, twisting round shelves. There are paintings and lampshades, paint pots and brushes everywhere; sunshine pours through open windows and doors and there’s a wide, wooden veranda outside with tantalising views across a small market garden to the glistening blue of Bewl Water beyond.
There are eight of us in total, all women and all, I would hazard a guess, in our fifties or sixties, bar one – a sprightly twenty-something - who has come with her mother. I make a mental note that this is exactly the sort of thing I’d like to do with one of my own daughters. The day begins with a brief breathing meditation led by Philippa King (who runs Curious House) as we are encouraged to ‘let go'. Plain notebooks and pencils are distributed to plan our designs, plus Bloomsbury books from which to seek inspiration, and finally a plain cotton/silk mix lampshade on which to let loose those creative juices.
The summer weather, it feels, has been specially orchestrated to fit the Bloomsbury brief. I want to snatch every perfect colour in front of me and fling it at my lampshade. But I settle on the purple alliums growing in the garden, the cloudless blue of the sky and the multiple greens of trees and grass. Some go for electric oranges and reds; others for a more dusky, subtle palette of pink and grey. No one there is an artist per se, but all clearly have a creative bent.
We stop for lunch round Jane’s kitchen table – simple, light and vegetarian – where conversation flows easily amongst the group. By 3.30pm we are done, Jane having guided us all the way in colour and pattern choice, crucially adding final flourishes to our designs.
From Wisketts Barn I drive 15 minutes to the south side of Bewl Water, through Wadhurst and on to the pretty village of Ticehurst where my bed for the night is at The Bell. Philippa has close ties to The Bell, overseeing much of the creative direction of its quirky interiors and, indeed, running many of her Curious House courses there.
Of the 11 rooms, most in the main building, four in stand-alone ‘lodges’ in the garden, mine has the cutesy name ‘Smiles of Memories'. My wooden ‘Juliet’ balcony overlooks the outdoor eating area and garden, where an al fresco kitchen/barbecue has come into its own in these strange Covid times. By early evening, as the heat of the sun begins to wane, wafts of wood smoke and music drift into my room. Drinkers and diners make merry beneath a canopy of mulberry leaves cleverly trained like a vine and for a brief while I am transported out of England to Mediterranean climes.
Back at Wisketts Barn the next day, two others join the course to replace the mother and daughter team who had only signed up for day one. Painting furniture is harder; it feels like there’s more at stake than painting a lampshade and it’s tougher on Jane, too, who is dealing with a variety of pieces in a variety of shapes and sizes – tables, chairs, stools, boxes and, my own contribution, a small wooden wall cabinet.
Yet we’ve all relaxed, both into each other’s company and into a painterly mindset. I, for one, feel more at ease, more confident to strike out with colour and pattern, less judgemental of myself and others, less bothered by the outside world, more at peace, in fact, than I’ve felt for a while.
And therein lies the nub of these Curious House courses. There is nothing new about the concept of art as therapy but unless you stop, really stop, and give it a try, how, in practice, will you ever know?
