Hallo Lovelies!

Greetings from a busy busy studio by the sea!

How’ve you been keeping?

Well, I hope?

Me? I’m feeling healthy, strong, and very grateful for that.

I’ve been working away, keeping my head down, focussing on making things rather than the social media, so I’m sorry for the lack of postings.

My newest newest News is that I have just (2 weeks ago) decided to make a new book… self publishing some of the quick little pen and ink drawings from this year’s sketch book diary for the first time. It’s a bit mad because I have so much else going on, but I couldn’t resist. Available from late November. And at the Show of course, more of that later.

I always find it a strange, sad and exciting time, this change of Seasons. Is it just me? I’m never ready to move on, but I know I’ll love it when I get in the swing…

Every day I walk with my dogs down to the studio. A short walk with the sea at the bottom of the hill. It’s a bit lovely. But every day I witness the plaintive cries of the almost-grown baby seagulls as they pester their parents to give them food. I know it’s nature but I always find it heartbreakingly sad. It has not yet occurred to them that a change is coming. They are only asking for food as they always have done, and it’s always worked before. But it’s time to move on. Things will never be the same for them again, and that jump from babyhood to adulthood can be a brutal one. It reminds me of the changes we have all been through over the last 18 months. It’s been shocking and awful and we’ve had little control over it. We’ve all been through it. And I’m hoping in time we will soar again. I feel it coming. But in the meantime I offer you a big virtual hug. It’s a time for finding pleasure in personal treasures. And I hope looking through some new pictures may brighten up your day too.

I feel I should add a fanfare here as I am DELIGHTED to be back at Panter and Hall again this November. This solo show (cancelled once for cancer, once for Covid) feels like a comeback even though we’ve never really been away. Do you know what I mean?

And as I have had to cancel my Little Mustard Shop show, this is the only opportunity to view original work in a gallery this year. Paintings Drawings Bronzes. And I’m planning a little book of drawings, sketching my life and times in the run up to the show. I’ll know more in a few weeks when I’ve finished the drawings. Neither have I finished the paintings. But three brand new bronzes are on the way. Blummin exciting.

The London show runs from 23rd November to 3rd December. The work will be so fresh and new! I will be in the gallery two of the days and I really hope you can make it for the Private View on Tuesday 23rd and/or for the Grand Day Out on Saturday 27th. But if you can’t, there will also be a short film and an ecatalogue… Contact Panter and Hall direct if you are interested in buying and you’d like to receive the ecatalogue in advance. Or if you’d like to attend one of the open days. Once I have finished the paintings in a few weeks I will have some time and space to dream up some fun things for the Saturday event and I’ll send another email with all the details.

I’ll leave you now and get on with my sketchings. I have Milo coming to make a short film Thursday and Innis coming to take some pictures Friday so obviously the most important thing is deciding which frock to wear and giving the dogs a good brush,

All the very best,

Sam x

Hallo friends!

As has become customary I have a little story to tell you, but please scroll if it gets a bit silly. I’ll be in touch again in a week or so with details of the competition, giveaways and prizes.

Once, many years ago, I was very interested in making a marionette and was lucky enough to attend a course with the BRILLIANT John Roberts. I took inspiration from a young storyteller I’d seen taking part in a show a few months before. Tall and delightfully gangly with a shock of bright ginger hair and small glasses, he looked rather like a teenage Mr Mustard.

So I drew his slim white figure from my mind’s eye, and carved out his calves and thighs, feet, hips, arms and head with a wickedly sharp Chinese chisel. It was a miraculous tool. So smooth and easy to use. It cut through the wood like butter. Carving his face was like preparing Brussels Sprouts at Christmas. It was just THAT easy. It sent shivers down my spine every second it was in my hand. One moment’s daydream and there would be a spare finger on the floor I felt sure of it.

The very thought gave me nightmares. I was determined to get over myself but the chisel, once wrapped carefully in many sheets of oiled rags, remained unvisited. And the half-finished puppet rests to this day in an old tin box on a shelf at my studio. Complete with all his accoutrements and my extravagant plans. The marionette was to be the star of his own show. The show was to be called Simon Smith and He’s Dancing Bare.

A while later I found myself again at the very excellent Jane Bombane’s in Kemptown at another event, and I ran into the young storyteller once more. Without thinking (and that was my mistake) I approached him, excited to meet him properly. He was a storyteller and I had a unique story personal to him. He would love it. What could possibly go wrong?

It soon became obvious he did not recall ever having seen me before. But I continued regardless.  For I am the Queen, nay the Tsarina, of the awkward situation.

I will leave you to guess the details of the conversation we had. Less a conversation more of a stuttering monologue, as I dug myself deeper and deeper into a slippery hole with every phrase I uttered. Seeing the surprise, embarrassment then growing horror on this stranger’s face did nothing to slow me down as I bulldozed my way into the foundations of indecency.

And why do I find myself telling you this story when I can hardly bear to think of it myself without cringing massively? It’s because of the COVID.

We’ve all had such a terrible scare. It’s made me value my life in all its detail all the more. And to realize that THESE are the days. They are not times to be scared of, embarrassed about, secretive with. This is the very stuff of life and it is to be celebrated, treasured and laughed about.

And I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. In a way I was only sharing ideas with my muse. And perhaps there was no skillful way explain to a total stranger how he’d inspired me to carve him naked out of wood with nothing to cover his modesty but the smallest smattering of an old fluorescent-orange feather boa.

Possibly I can never visit Bombane’s again. Probably I gave a shy young man the fright of his life. Definitely I felt ridiculous, foolish and awkward. Thankfully it was a dark basement, no one else heard me, and I have never seen him again. And no one else knows, except for you.

But THESE are the days... No matter how gut wrenchingly embarrassing, difficult or outofyourcomfortzone something may feel, may I urge you to go ahead and do it? Perhaps not something as ridiculous as I did, but don’t we all need to seize the day?

I will leave you for now with a simple soup recipe and an entreaty to tell no-one about the contents of this email, which may well self destruct in three minutes,

3....2....1....

Sam Toft x

Recipe Time

Slowly fry a whole head of chopped celery and an onion in olive oil then add 2 cloves of crushed garlic. Next a few cubed root vegetables (a couple carrots, a potato, and half a turnip ?) and simmer with a stock cube, lots of water.

A few chilli flakes and a generous shake of white pepper

A handful of small pasta when the veg is tender and a bunch each of fresh parsley and basil chopped

Salt to taste

It’s simple and yummy

A Portuguese man in his takeaway café told me it was his mother’s recipe. Tastes of home.

Hallo Friends,

I felt like writing even though I have nothing in particular to say. I wanted to share just three short random paragraphs, and a hope to uplift with words and pictures without any clear knowledge of where any of it is going, or whether any of it is connected or makes sense at all. I’m sure you’ll let me know.

I’ve been sitting with a mug of hot coffee listening to the crackles of sunlight sparkling on the waves at my local sea front café. Watching an adolescent herring gull as he desperately tries to coax a tasty morsel from his mother’s mouth. She flies away. He pecks at beach pebbles, fluffs his feathers and awaits her return. But again she moves away and pretends not to care. His cries are plaintive. She stands firm. The time has come for him to live or die by his own efforts. It’s a hard lesson that he does not want to learn. It’s painful to watch. And the natural world keeps on turning as if there were no huge crisis happening at all.

It’s been a strange year, hasn’t it? There has been so much hardship, loss and suffering. And worse still there’s so little many of us can do about it. But I am naively optimistic as ever. And I’ve been trying to find space in my heart and mind to send out loving thoughts and wishes to those who don’t quite deserve it. You know the ones.

I’m so grateful to have the companionship of my little budgie Almondine. This tiny bird has so much presence and spirit. He lives and plays, enjoying each moment without overthinking it, going about his daily business without seeming to worry what others may think. So small and powerless, fragile and fearless, his boldness is inspiring.

I have lots of dreams for 2021 and hope you do too.

See you on the other side,

Stay safe,

Sam Toft