Winter Gold

Winter GoldNature Transcendence Wisdom Handcrafted in England Naturally dyed Tuscan leather Swiss made Riri zipper In Winter Gold we celebrate the wisdom of exploring the beauty of winter, embracing clouds and darkness for we know they bring gold. Comes with an Exploration Card in a reusable box tied with ART WRD cotton ribbon. [#accordion1] Lon Spilliaert "Trees In A Winter Landscape" 1929 Through insomniac moonlit walks of his hometown of Ostend, Spilliaerts

Nature ⸰ Transcendence ⸰ Wisdom

⦁ Handcrafted in England  

⦁ Naturally dyed Tuscan leather

⦁ Swiss-made Riri zipper

In Winter Gold we celebrate the wisdom of exploring the beauty of winter, embracing clouds and darkness...for we know they bring gold. 

Comes with an Exploration Card in a reusable box tied with ART WRD cotton ribbon.

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Léon Spilliaert "Trees In A Winter Landscape" 1929

Through insomniac moonlit walks of his hometown of Ostend, Spilliaert’s philosophical preoccupations would be transformed into ghostly visions. Scenes of an enigmatic, twilight netherworld dramatically depicted Spilliaert’s psyche. His inner world is revealed via landscapes, objects and figures, compellingly sculpted towards abstraction.

In this period Spilliaert’s palette ranged from silver to grey to the inkiest, blackest of blacks. His paintings are haunting, lonely - sometimes terrifying - but they also exude something else; a quiet, sublime power, a transcendence. His isolated female figures achieve a nobility. His empty vistas an elegiac beauty. The layer after layer of India ink he uses to create the deepest darkness means that the spare, otherworldly light has a profound effect. The pitch black is pierced by distant glows or thin shafts of light. His paintings shine, becoming meditative and strangely uplifting. They are not paintings of a defeated mind, but of one embracing the challenge of finding beauty and light.

In Spilliaert’s later tree paintings, including this Winter Gold image, we still see the outer world sculpted to express the inner world, but the effect is more subtle and naturalistic. Spilliaert has perhaps found more beauty and more wisdom. The scenes are less distorted by the ferocious emotions, preoccupations and psychological currents of his early work. The dark and light are more balanced, as in Winter Gold's writer's words, the clouds may float into his life 'no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky'.

These more subtle, naturalistic paintings retain the peculiar power that defines Spilliaert’s work. Their moods are complex and quietly gripping. They are subtly stylized, slipping into your mind and lodging there with a steady, silent glow. In Winter Gold’s painting the sky and the ground become one in a peach luminescence. Delicate, intensely intricate, silhouetted branches reach from swathes of receded snow. They look like the circulatory system, or neural pathways. The finest branches meld with the clouds, once again connecting the earthly  to a sky whose transcendence is borne from their presence.

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Rabindranath Tagore "Stray Birds" 1916

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.”

Stray Birds is a book of poetry by Rabindranath Tagore's. It comprises three hundred and twenty six short verses of which Winter Gold’s words are one. With elegance and wisdom these snippets embody Tragore’s love of nature and simplicity, resonating deeply on truths of being, love and the marvels of the universe. 

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali Indian writer, poet, playwright, philosopher, composer, social reformer and painter. He transformed Bengali art by rejecting rigid traditional forms and linguistic structures.

In 1913 Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature He crossed continents on lecture tours, becoming the voice of India’s spiritual heritage - a living institution. The wisdom, balance and beauty Spilliaert achieves with his late artwork on Winter Gold finds a fitting frame with these words from the remarkable mind of Rabindranath Tagore.

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People & planet positive

We do it properly, respectfully.

⦁ We use recycled nylon for stitch, zip and bond strength. The rest is plastic-free.

⦁ Everyone is paid properly for their skill and expertise.

⦁ Our fabric comes through a leading ethical purchasing policy.

⦁ Our tannery follows an ancient process using only non-toxic plant-based tannins.

Our traditional methods give the leather an unmistakable warm and brilliant shade.

Our pioneering printing lasts a lifetime

In Nottingham, England we work with leather printing pioneers. Utilizing their specialist procedures, artworks are re-created like a tattoo, with ink absorbing deeper into the leather, resulting in unparalleled colour vibrancy, image quality and colour durability.

Our pouches are crafted by highly-skilled, passionate people

Just across the Nottinghamshire Wolds in Melton Mowbray our pouches are handcrafted in small batches using traditional methods. This, along with the natural variation in these artisan products, means each one is unique. Expertly made to the very highest quality they are double-stitched at pressure points and lined with the finest cotton twill. 

⦁ Pouches are 24 x 17.5cm 

⦁ 100% leather outer, 100% cotton twill lining

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