In what has become an annual event, renowned graphic artist Anthony Burrill and garden designer and ceramicist, Emma Burrill are opening their studio and garden to visitors on Saturday 4 July from 10am to 4pm at their home near Rye.
The couple moved there in 2012 and began converting the farm buildings and surrounding land into a beautiful house, studio and garden.
Over the years they have transformed the fields around the house, planting over 500 trees around a flowering hay meadow, creating a fruit and a cobnut orchard, dividing the space up with hedges and establishing borders of perennials and grasses. Emma trained and worked as a photographer before volunteering at Great Dixter and completing a garden design diploma. She planned out the space from the start, with the garden evolving over the years.
The light-filled studio and library designed, along with the house, by England Architecture in Rye Harbour, have been built on the footprint of the old stables. In front, in what had previously been a sandy riding ring, Emma has planted daisies, euphorbia, and grasses interspersed with the tall spikes of veronicastrum. Windows of the studio look out onto this, each capturing a different part of the prairie planting. The library is a small sanctuary, its design based on a bird- watching hide with a long low window on one side giving views across the meadow (perfectly positioned when seated on the sofa opposite), and a narrow vertical window giving glimpses out onto the perennial beds in the garden.
In her design for the garden, Emma has combined areas of structure with form and texture, and loser, wilder planting. Swathes of daisies, cow parsley, geraniums and salsify sweep around the drive. She has chosen perennial plants in the purple, pink and blue border that have an appeal for different seasons, with seedheads and muted colours in autumn and winter. “I wanted to use plants that die beautifully,” she explains.
Planning the garden to encourage biodiversity has increased the amount and variety of insects, birds and other animals. “We have grasshoppers, different butterflies, red kites, buzzards and lizards. We put an upright post in the corner of the meadow, and a barn owl sits on it. We have even seen a tawny owl and hope to find slow worms and grass snakes.”
As well as her garden design, Emma creates hand thrown ceramic pots and vases, red and white cylinders ribbed using wooden profile tools, influenced by glassware of the 60s and 70s.
Anthony Burrill is a graphic artist and designer whose work uses bold typography and letterpress printing to produce prints with simple, positive messages. It was the move to Rye and the discovery of the traditional letterpress in Adams in the High Street that resulted in his best-known print, Work Hard & Be Nice To People, of 2004, which has since sold between 50,000 and 60,000 copies
The message came from an overheard conversation in Sainsburys. “An elderly lady was in the queue and told the cashier that the secret to a happy life was to work hard and to be nice to people. It was simple and positive message perfect for using on the Adams letterpress.
“Working with Adams quite literally changed my life. The success of Work Hard meant that I could give up some of my commercial work and concentrate on letterpress printing,“ he says. “Adams printers is special because the letterpress and wood letter type still exists – most have disappeared. It hasn’t changed but it is not a museum, it is a working printer thanks to Ian Foster’s interest and knowledge.”
This first piece was the start of just over a 20-year collaboration with Adams, making prints such as You Know More Than You Think, Who Are You And What Do You Want? Me & You You & Me (which is also painted full size on the side of a building in Leeds). Burrill likes the restrictions that come with working with different wood letter type. “The design of the prints are like collages. I use typefaces from different eras that vary in size and shape and this influences the layout and spacing. For some typefaces there may be a limited number of a particular letter, so this is another factor in the design.”
Examples of Anthony Burrill’s work can be seen in his studio on the open garden and studio along with a selection of Emma’s ceramic pieces, both of which will be available to purchase on the day. Places can be reserved via his instagram page @anthonyburrill
In our troubled times, Anthony’s prints are encouraging calls to Hold On To Hope and, a visit to see the beauty and vision of Emma’s garden, will indeed Give The Joy Back.
Emma Burrill’s work is also on sale at Soap and Salvation, Rope Walk, Rye
https://www.instagram.com/emmaburrill.art
https://www.instagram.com/emmaburrill/
Image Credits: Tim George , Juliet Duff , Roo Kendall , Janet Stockdale , Owen Tozer , Chris Spencer-Payne .