All Things Considered

The Perfect Pie

The friends behind Brays Cottage, Nell and Sarah, believe in quality foods, local produce and the Slow Movement. The rare breed pigs are lovingly reared in North Norfolk by Nell at Brays Cottage. Nearly all the meat from the pig is used for the pies, meaning you get hearty mouthfuls of succulent meat in amongst the crumbling pastry and onion marmalade.

So with fussy food critic Giles Coren exclaiming ... 'this was quite the most extraordinary pie I had ever known: deeply porky without any nagging gameiness, spicy without being peppery, firm and insistent in its flavour and very lean, and with just enough fat to lard the mouthful but not grease the palate', it admittedly makes me want one NOW.

This got me thinking about how great a parcel of pork pies would be to give or receive at Christmas, and because you can order them on-line either cooked, chilled, or frozen, it means that you don't have to pig out on them in the festive week! Apart from purchasing them on-line, the perfect pie can be found at the monthly Golden Triangle Farmer's Market, a number of Norfolk Deli's, and a few other locations. Click here to find the full list of stockists.

Christmas Card

We're delighted to announce that apart from a handful of copies at our gallery/showroom we have now sold all 1250 copies of the charity Christmas card printed this year.

For every card sold we're donating 75p of Maggie's Centres.

With locations across the UK, each Maggie's Centre is a place anyone affected by cancer can turn to for help. The centres are open to everyone - not just to people who have been diagnosed with cancer, but also to their families, friends and carers. Their Dundee centre was designed by architect Frank Gehry. Find out more >

Thanks to everyone that purchased the cards - you've generated £937.50 for the charity. We'd like to add to this, making a total donation of £1200.00.

Next year we'll have to print a few more copies! 

At The First Fall of Snow

We're getting ready for the usual busy days in the run up to a new exhibition at the gallery.

Opening on Saturday 24th November "At The First Fall of Snow" features the work of both Jonny Hannah and Mark Hearld - they'll be exhibiting a range of paintings, prints and collages.

Born & bred in Dumfermline, Jonny studied illustration at Liverpool Art School and then the Royal College of Art.

Since graduation in 1998 he has been working both as a commercial designer & illustrator (his clients include The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times & The St. Kilda Courier) and printmaker, creating wonderful screen printed books, posters and prints for his own Cake & Ale Press.

Born in 1974, Mark Hearld studied illustration at Glasgow School of Art followed by an MA in Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art. 

Taking his inspiration from the flora and fauna of the British countryside, Mark works across a number of mediums, producing limited edition lithographic and linocut prints, unique paintings, collages and hand-painted ceramics.

We've also been working with Mark on a range of textiles - the first of which, Doveflight, is available now.

If you're anywhere near Norfolk on Saturday 24th November, pop in between 11am and 4pm for a glass of wine and a natter with Jonny and Mark.

You can find our more about the show and view examples of some of the work we'll be featuring here:

http://stjudesgallery.co.uk/show.htm

Future Radio

I like local produce, and I now listen to it as well as eat it. Listening to Future Radio, a volunteer driven radio station, fills me with goodness like an un-sprayed sprout. I don't get annoyed by the repetitive and bad songs, and I giggle at the DJ's instead of grunting at them (believe me, they are amusing in a non deliberate way). The music genre played is varied, and the tunes usually make me smile, with the scheduled shows appealing to all demographics unlike some other popular stations. You can even submit an on-line form with twelve of your chosen tracks, to be part of an hour long slot called The Peoples Playlist.

Future Radio, based in Norwich, has been broadcasting since 2004, and since this summer has been broadcasting full time. It's part of Project NR5  "a community based arts, media and education charity. NR5 Project provides school inclusion projects for young people aged 13 to 16 years, post 16 support, music, media and radio training, education films/DVDs and much more".

Although you can only tune your wireless to Future Radio 96.9 FM if you live in Norwich, you can listen on-line or download podcasts.

Compelling Confessions

It's compelling stuff, reading other people's secrets. Some are easy to relate to, others shock and frighten but reading PostSecret is always thought provoking. The concept of this on-going community art project is simple, you just customise a postcard with details of your untold secret and post it, via snail mail, to Frank.

Frank Warren set up the PostSecret blog in November 2004 as part of a Washington based multimedia arts event, Artomatic. Almost, every Sunday for the past 3 years, he scans the received postcards and sets the secrets public for the voyeuristic world to see.

There are no archives on this blog but you can buy a number of books containing images of the home-made confessional cards. The latest one, published last month is titled A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book.

In a similar vein and if you want to make or read secret apologies, Invisible Book is another collaborative art project where you can simply type your regret for your online confessional.