Time Off In Crete With
Linda Talbot

GARDEN OF THE GODDESS

Join me in a new three day workshop in which we create a colourful collage of the "Earth Goddess" in relation to ancient Greece.  She was associated with the moon, fertility and the renewal of life and was mistress of animals and plants.

In this workshop, we incorporate flora and fauna with her image.  There is an emphasis on fantasy - a personal interpretation of mythology, where you can let your imagination take flight and create a unique contemporary cosmos from nature, archaelogy and myth.  Or I can give you ready drawn images on which to work.  From what we can deduce, the Cretans developed a worship of the goddess which was comparatively informal, while being emotionally charged in its effort to keep in touch with the elemental.  Rites were performed on mountain peaks, in caves and rustic shrines.  There was ecstatic dancing and mystery, sacrifice and commitment before the matriarchy slowly declined.  The cost of this workshop is 15 euros per day.  All materials are provided.

DAY 1

We look at the background to the concept of the Great Goddess.  I give you a display book with notes and illustrations then we experiment with imagery.  She was an integral aspect of nature so you may depict her as part of a mountain range, a sacred grove of trees or the surging sea.  This will suggest fish which may be as fantastic as you like, as well as birds, flowers, animals and her symbols.  Sketch your ideas freely or I can provide you with ready drawn images.

DAY 2

We use watercolour or charcoal as a base on the image of the goddess and her managerie and I provide paper and fabric designs to cut for collage for your own individual images.

DAY 3

We cut out these finished images and arrange them in a composition suggesting the abundance of a natural world mysteriously generated.

"A CLOTH OF WILD COUNTRY"

The textiles of Crete flow through time - inventive and intricate - from the rich repeat patterns found in frescoes to embroidered skirt borders laced with Turkish and Italian influence.  Enjoy this workshop in which Cretan and classical Greek designs are conveyed through paper and fabric collage - a decorative combination of images within a chosen shape.  Join me in a visit to Chania to see samples of traditional and contemporary design.  The workshop is one to six days, exploring textile design in Chania and later applying collage to a depiction of pots, bulls or a dolphin.  The cost is 15 euros per day - all materials provided. 

DAY  1

An insight into Cretan textile design through specialist books and A CLOTH OF WILD COUNTRY. We sketch two pots - the shapes may be real or an experiment with fantasy.  Try your hand at your own versions of textile patterns on paper and cloth using coloured fibre pens.        

DAY  2

Over a charcoal base, we add collage to the drawings of pots.

DAY  3

In Hania we visit the Cretan House for a close look at traditional embroidery and weaving, move on to Roka, where Michaelis uses a 400 year old loom and natural dyes to create wonderful carpets and hangings, then see silk worms and a colletion of contemporary embroidery and rugs at a shop near the Harbour.  In all venues you may sketch or photograph interesting aspects of design to use later.  And we shall visit a shell shop to photograph, sketch and perhaps buy a shell to use in our final project "Sea Shells and Dolphins". 

DAY  4

We trace or draw two bulls such as those used in Minoan bull leaping.  We work on designs from yesterday or I can give you ready prepared ones to finish the bull with decorative collage. 

DAY   5

We draw a sea shell and dolphin then create designs on fabric.

DAY 6

We go to Elafonissi, a lovely island on the south coast in a beautiful lagoon by the Libyan Sea. Bring a small jar to collect some of its unique pink sand and tiny white shells, which you may add to "Sea Shells and Dolphins". 

If you are interested, please contact the Mistral Hotel. 

A LITTLE ABOUT ME!

I grew up in Suffolk, England and started writing short stories at an early age for pocket money. I loved drawing too but had a friend who was better, so between us - I wrote, she drew - we issued The Monthly Marvel, a pinned together magazine whose contents now escape me!

On leaving school, while waiting for a job as a newspaper reporter, I worked in a bookbinders' in Lady Lane, Ipswich. Inappropriately named, it was opposite a slaughter house, the gutters ran with blood and the foul air was laced with the protests of terrified pigs. An alleged receptionist, I spent most of my time shopping for the boss and writing short stories.

My first newspaper job was on the Colchester Express, where I was for six months a hopeless reporter but quite good as Uncle Tim - for children - and Lindsey Nolan, writing the women's page! On Friday nights I turned into Bacchus, producing pub features. I stayed for four years, slowly honing my dubious reporting skills and was relieved and excited some time later to land the job of book, art and theatre reviewer on the Hampstead and Highgate Express in London.

Meanwhile I wrote poetry and fantasy fiction for adults and children. "Fantasy Book of Food" was published by an enterprising Egyptian who ran a chess and vegetarian café in Chalk Farm. He published chess books and seeing I had a book for kids about food, agreed to see how this would go down.  My illustrator was on holiday, so I did the black and white pictures with a professional friend designing the cover. On the night of the launch the book was still in proof form. We danced on it regardless. And two weeks later it appeared; a mix of stories, verse and recipes that were tried and tested, although the roof only just stretched over the gingerbread house. Anyway, not a crumb was left at the party.

The other strange little book I published was "Five Rides by a River" about the Suffolk countryside seen from a bicycle. Weary of wheat fields where footpaths had vanished, I retrieved my school bike from the shed, had dad check it over and wobbled off into the byways of Suffolk. Ironically, as I was still working on the Ham and High, I did much of my research at weekends in Walthamstow library, east London where I lived!

I was also embroidering and making my own clothes, bags and scarves and when I came to Gerani, Crete in 2000, landed a major commission for the deputy manager of the Creta Paradise hotel; a wallhanging with pockets embroidered with Egyptian and Minoan images.

Now my work with fabric includes invented characters - from Squingles to Bobblies, about which I write stories for kids.

I began to explore mixed media on paper, producing series, combining paint, pen and collage - also often accompanied by short stories - from "Dreams and Strange Encounters", a satirical look at "Birds in the Nest" or "Women at Home", "Garden Girls" and "Arcadia Revisited" to "Beautiful Beasts" and monoprints evoking "Tree Spirits".

I had an exhibition at the Mitropolis Gallery, Hania in 2008, followed by a show at the Mistral when I moved to Maleme and opened "Sea Songs" Studio where all are welcome to browse. Now I'm pursuing a project combining designs on Minoan and ancient Greek textiles with collage.