Late Harvest By : Deborah Susan Jones : EditorWhen
we first moved to Church Stretton, a bit of a culture shock from living
in Wimbledon in London, we used to go to a local cafe for breakfast, a
habit we'd had for many years in London, where we used to go first
thing in the morning, go over contracts and necessary business
communications, and then go back to the studio to "do the fun stuff"
and this was a habit we kept when we'd set up the new rural studio, if
only because we didn't at that time know what we were really going to
do.This local cafe, in our new town, had a rotunda of greetings cards outside.The
cards were in an awful state, rained on, snowed on, and generally a
mess and Peter said to the proprietor "these are awful, I can't look at
these every morning" to which the cafe owner said "well I'm never going
to get around to doing anything about it, so help yourself if you fancy
rectifying it"."Rectifying
it" in Peter's case, manifest itself as painting some local and
wildlife scenes "just to see what might happen" and designing and
printing some greetings cards with the images on them, placing them in
the rotunda and, well, not expecting anything really, not even thinking
what might happen.But "happen" it did!After
years and years of dealing direct with corporations around the world,
suddenly, a "direct sale to the public" model sprang up, and, almost
without thinking about it, and certainly not the implications of it,
this "direct sale of rural imagery to the public" was up and running,
and before too long, had spawned a string of relationships with shops
around the area and into neighbouring counties!And then, which is another story, the "rural" books began, also triggered by a conversation with the same cafe owner.Suddenly,
what had started as merely a way not to have to look at messy
distressed product on the way into a local tea room, had blossomed into
a full-blown strand of the studio's activities and demanded major
concentration and intent.But it had certainly not been "a plan", for sure!Deborah Susan Jones : Editor
