commissions

These are some of the commissions I have created …….

artist in residence projects - paintings - portraits - mixed media/textile pieces - handmade books - garden designs (find these on a separate page)

I am available to work on commissions and welcome enquiries. Terms and conditions apply and will be discussed and confirmed between myself and a client before a commission is undertaken. Here are just a few recent projects I have produced for private clients.

If you would like more information about my private commissions or would like to receive my downloadable PDF, please use the button below to get in touch.

I absolutely love working as Artist in Residence, something I have done for a number of years, here is what my clients had to say after a recent five month project based in a private garden …

“Our garden is a pleasure and delight for me in every season of the year; even in the depths of winter there are signs of new life. I saw it in the hellebores flowering even as winter was closing in. I see it in the sedum, with buds full of future promise, sheltering under the old and frosted foliage. I see it in the roses, as anxious for the summer that they are already putting out new, vigorous shoots. And I see in the garden’s resident robin, ever attentive to any opportunities for a meal when I’m working in the garden.

But even though I never tire of watching, tending, spending time in our garden, there are days when the weather keeps even the most enthusiastic of us indoors at this time of year. And so it is that I’ve been spending the time with the project that Maggie worked on for us last year. She made frequent visits, drawing, painting and taking photographs in our garden through that magical period from February to June when each week brings novelty and variety with more plants coming into growth, producing foliage and flowers. Talking to Maggie as she worked we found her experience of our garden, as it unfolded during the season, enhanced our own enjoyment by helping us to see things anew, and by reminding us of the pleasure we had in selecting plants, propagating or buying them, nurturing them and watching them develop over the years.

When we first discussed the art project with Maggie we had said that although we have a large quantity of photographs taken through the years, they just tell us what the garden looked like - we wanted something to remind us of how it felt. And that is just what we have. As I turn the pages of the sketchbook now I see the tulips and hostas putting out their fresh new leaves and in my mind I feel the texture of the old clay pots they grow in. I see the early-flowering hardy cyclamen beside the path which I made with bricks salvaged from the old stable yard, and in my imagination I hear the iron-shod hooves striking against the bricks. I see Richard’s woven willow screen in the corner of the garden, and I can smell the linseed oil we used to preserve the willow.

Maggie’s finished work takes us through those cold spring days when the garden is waiting for its time to come into life. Then, turning the pages, the scene is suddenly transformed with amalanchia buds opening against a clear blue sky and I feel my spirits lifted with the coming season. A few pages further, and the garden is filled with exuberant growth and colour - massed fritillaries, perennial cornflowers, irises.

Maggie has brought together so many elements - not only of our garden, but of our lives - to make the completed project a wonderful repository of memories which we will cherish.” Paul Brett.