. . . Cabin & Cottage : literature children's books

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

COTTAGE WHITE

There's an old British saying, "If you're tired of London, you're tired of life."

I have to say the same about English china.

Especially vintage white cream-ware, and English ironstone.

It's not strictly an English tradition of course, but the old custom of lining up wares for display in a cupboard never seems to go out of fashion.

Pair it with the fairly recent craze for vintage wire baskets and you have an energetic composition of "traditional meets industrial.

A good mix of textures keeps white interesting. And vintage linens add as much to a pleasing arrangement as a vase full of flowers.

But I have always had a thing for English design whether it comes from Rachel Ashwell, Laura Ashley, or Ralph Lauren.

My favorite children's book illustrators are also British. Jill Barklem, from the Brambly Hedge series, and Brian and Cynthia Paterson of The Foxwood Tales. These are now mostly out of print and hard to obtain. Of course there is also the ever popular Beatrix Potter. What these all have in common is the romantic idealization of English cottage life as seen through the life of little animals in the hedgerow.

In the 80's I had a wallpaper in the nursery from which I saved a snippet. It was of an outdoor scene in a little village of animals. There was a miniature toadstool house with a curved door and a crooked chimney. A little mouse postman delivered the mail, and there was a small footbridge next to a well-set picnic table for various ducks, squirrels, and woodland animals. Somewhere along the way it disappeared. But it has always stayed in my mind as a symbol of the innocence of childhood, and I'm sorry it has been waylaid.

The Wind In the Willows by Kenneth Graham is the most well known literary version of the concept, but was not written exclusively for children.

I know that my love for cottage style has at least some of its roots in these old influences.

Whatever its source, I love all the visual cues and references to quintessential cottage life. The laces, baskets, floral prints, china, and weathered wood patina of it all.

Another enjoyable British influence comes from Virginia Woolf, most famous for her understanding of the very elements necessary for a creative life, in A Room of Her Own. But her lesser known novels are also filled with a deeply romantic and domestic sensibility. Her own English cottage has been showcased in Victoria magazine as well as others.

"Nothing stirred in the drawing room or in the dining room or on the staircase. Only through the rusty hinges and swollen sea-moistened woodwork certain airs detached from the body of the wind, crept round corners and ventured indoors. . . Then smoothly brushing the walls, they passed on musingly as if asking the red and yellow roses on the wall-paper whether they would fade, and questioning (gently for there was time at their disposal) the torn letters in the waste basket, the flowers, the books, all of which were now open to them and asking, Were they allies? Were they enemies? How long would they endure? . . . nosing, rubbing, they went to the window on the staircase, . . . descending, blanched the apples on the dining-room table, fumbled the petals of roses, tried the picture on the easel, brushed the mat and blew a little sand along the floor. At length, desisting, all ceased together; all together gave off an aimless gust of lamentation to which some door in the kitchen replied; swung wide; admitted nothing; and slammed to."

Virginia Woolf, Time Passes chapter, To the Lighthouse