I’ve always been fascinated with the progress of time marked by seasonal change. For me, it is one of life’s great pleasures to encounter the first snowdrop, or taste the first strawberry from the garden. The anticipation of a taste or scent that is so evocative of that time of year connects you viscerally and immediately with those equally unique moments back through the years. It is a rooting and grounding sense; a way of feeling part of some greater rhythm.
It seems far less meaningful and a shame to have such tastes or experiences all year round. We wouldn’t want to have Christmas everyday as the experience would quickly become stale. Rather, anticipating and waiting for what each season brings keeps things special, and means we always have something to look forward to.
In our 24/7 globalised culture, it can sometimes seem difficult to connect with these cycles. But I believe that reintroducing these essential rhythms into our lives is eminently doable for anyone, and I hope that this is conveyed in my art.
My book, ‘A Celebration of Nature Through the Seasons’, aims to help us recognise and appreciate these cycles as they appear in the natural world. And my more recent work - the Kitchen Calendar - evokes how the seasons are celebrated in the home through domestic ritual, recipes and traditions.
Each month of the calendar has two images - a domestic scene at the top, and a landscape at the bottom. The upper image shows what might be cooking in the kitchen and happening in the home according to the time of year: preserving autumn fruits, preparing spring rhubarb, enjoying warming winter soups and cosying up by the fire on dark nights. The landscapes (shown below in a video made by my clever husband) are drawn from memory and also from what I can observe around our home. Scenes of rolling countryside under deep blue skies in August, or tempestuous clouds in February, also show what’s being grown in gardens or harvested from fields and orchards.
Both these panels were painted as continuous, circular paintings. If you place all the calendar pages together, the images of each month connect and run seamlessly into the other. As well as being rather fun, the aim is to emphasise the cyclical and interconnected nature of these seasonal transitions.
I really believe that we need to bring our awareness to these rhythms. We are not separate from them and are, in fact, deeply affected by them despite our attempts to maintain consistency across personal and professional lives. To watch the process of a plant sprouting, growing, producing fruit and seed, then returning to the earth, is both beautiful and also a profound reminder of the cycles we ourselves are undergoing - over the course of our lives and also multiple times throughout. Recognising that there is a time for growth and renewal, as much as there is a time for rest and reflection, is a much more compassionate way to live with the self and those around us.
We can all mark the passing of time, change and season in our own way - with food, art, celebration or ritual - but I hope my calendar shows that we can also take our cue from the natural world outside our window and traditions handed down through the centuries.
Co-authored with my daughter, Charlotte Maberly.