As our 2024 creative courses are pretty full (though there are often cancellations and if you’re keen to come this year, please let us know) we have published a Preview for next year’s (2025) courses on our website a little earlier than usual. And, thanks to the reputation of our tutors and their enthusiasm for […]
Happy Easter. If you are looking for the Easter Bunny, he went thataway!
Yes, the Easter Bunny was last seen diving through the front door of a house in Poundbury, in Dorset, England. Our tutor and friend Mike Willdridge and his lovely wife Sue sent us this picture of their house, saying: “We’re expecting our complete family for Easter (16!) – our door decorated ready for the grandkids.” […]
A magical Florentine aerial show, performed twice a day
We were sitting a month or so ago in the early evening in the rooftop café on one of my favourite buildings in Florence, Brunelleschi’s sublime Ospedale degli Innocenti, when a sensational live performance built up before our eyes. It was what we learned to call a murmuration of starlings, as thousands, if not tens […]
The Florence Magnolia welcomes spring and other stories. The Watermill March newsletter is just out…
…with lots more stories, including two heartwarming tales from Hollywood, why there are a billion fewer plastic bottles in the ocean, what Shakespeare knew about knitting, the perils of pronunciation, and of course, all the latest news on Watermill creative courses. Read All About It, by clicking here,
The vine verandah: the convivial heart of a Watermill creative course
Randy Hale has just sent us this wonderful watercolour of the mill seen from the walled garden, with the vine verandah and its green umbrellas in the foreground. He calls the painting Contemplating Aperitivi, and I think it celebrates one of the distinctive features of a Watermill creative course. For it is here, as the […]
Places suddenly available for Louisa’s celebrated knitting course
Oh dear! We have just had not one, but four, cancellations for Louisa Harding’s celebrated Knitting and La Bella Vita week at the Watermill this May. Due to family illness, four friends who were coming together can no longer make it. It’s the way of the world, of course, and we are sorry for our […]
Food is another creative passion for the Italians and the Watermill
When the cacio e pepe arrived in a local trattoria, my friend Max tasted it and asked the waitress: “Is there cream in this?” When the waitress said that there was, Max said: “Take it away, please!” And they did, with little or no demur. Max, like many Italians, is passionate about food. He’s also […]
We’ve helped to prevent a billion plastic bottles from polluting our oceans. Thank you
Yes, the tremendous news this week is that one of the ‘watery’ charities that the Watermill supports, Ocean Bottle, has just reached a major milestone in its fight against ocean-bound plastic pollution. We are proud to have made our own (very small) contribution, aided by all the guests on our creative courses. Ocean bottle announced: […]
On mnemonics and psalms (to say nothing of chutzpah): Why does English have so many silent letters?
We whose native tongue is English sometimes run into pronunciation difficulties when speaking Italian, confusing our c’s and ch’s (cello, chiara, Cimabue, Brunelleschi and so on) but at least there are fairly straightforward rules. Just think of the nightmare our Italian friends have when trying to pronounce English. For a start, there are many words […]
How two remarkable women, centuries and worlds apart, used art to project their power
Looking at Katharine Augusta Carl’s 1903 portrait of Cixi, Dowager Empress of China in the DailyArt online magazine today, I was struck by the parallels with a picture of another woman, made three-and-a-half centuries earlier and half a world away: Eleonora of Toledo, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Here she is, with her son Giovanni, in […]