This week, we are getting creative with a colourful and inspiring update from Gianinna Delpino, the talented artist that created our Local Greens arch mural. What is so lovely about the mural is that it brightens not only the outside of the business, but also the indoor space. Packing during the winter months can be a dreary affair with the arch doors closed, but the mural has provided cheeriness and light to our packing space. For customers who now collect at the arch, we're sure you'll agree her design makes us impossible to miss!
First, however, let's talk about getting creative with your vegetables. Warm weather is beckoning and Spring has finally found its footing. There is a lag, however, between the weather we enjoy and new crops growing and blooming in the fields. The next few weeks are the Hungry Gap - when we rely on stored and winter veg to get us through before the new season's crop is ready. It's a short period, but it could require some kitchen innovation to navigate. Whizz up some green garlic pesto to liven up those root vegetables; throw something you'd normally roast on a grill pan or the BBQ to mix it up; try making mixed veggie chips or crisps if you can't fathom another mash; the dry goods from the past few weeks can aid your creativity as well, with possibilities from veg burgers to falafels and dips all at your disposal. When we come out the other side, we'll be generously rewarded with the bounty of summer and autumn (mmmtomatoesmmm)!
Gianinna Delpino
These days - in spite of the really unnerving news about so many ill in hospitals around the world - have brought things that are also very positive. I believe that light emerges from the shadow, from the darkness, and emerges brighter than before.
After the Local Greens arch mural, I was invited to teach Drawing at an art school, and continued a series of canvas I was doing in black and white. This may seem very strange after you see how colourful the arch mural is, but work in the studio is very different to work in public spaces. It is more personal so shows inner landscapes and statements about nature.
In December, I exhibited the studies for the big black and white canvases in a studio. Shortly after that, I went to the desert in Egypt, to immerse myself in a very different landscape and way of life that would enrich and give my work another form.
When I returned to London, my situation changed quickly due to the pandemic. I could no longer go to the studio and the art school teaching ceased. Despite still having commissions come in, for example two album covers, and doing online classes, I found something extraordinary and immense in my daily life called TIME!
With all this time, I embarked on things that were paused before, or I hadn't paid attention to for a while. This included taking time in the morning to write my dreams, writing lyrics again and even beginning to learn another language, in this case, Arabic. I've kept up with the customary reading, doing classes (now online), working on commissions and drawing new ideas for the canvases I will strike once all this is over.
Then I think, 'well, this might not be over,' but we will change, as human beings. We have been forced to stay still and look at ourselves, even when we didn't want to. So despite having all the distracting devices of the 'modern age,' I believe we all have had to face our minds at some point in this journey, while listening to the bird that are singing ever so free and loud outside.