Author: andy

Is it just me or is the hawthorn blossom pretty bonkers this year? Usually there’s a seasonal sprinkle of creamy whites in the hedgerows, but this year she’s gone mad with a blousy riot of fluffy petticoats all over the South Downs! And I love that soft grassyflower scent. In fact, I love sniffing plants in the sunshine altogether.

One of my favourite Summer Sniffs is Nemesia ‘Wisley Vanilla’ and although it always seems to be the most expensive variety, I can rarely resist filling my kitchen window boxes with those delicate bloomers so I can enjoy their scent while I’m cooking. And over the last few years I’ve planted lilac trees in my garden, an old-fashioned climbing rose at the back and summer flowering Jasmine to scramble up a south facing wall.  But whether it’s my lazy watering, enthusiastic pruning or the wrong type of fertiliser, I’ve had disappointingly few blooms. My plans for a super fragrant summer garden have been thwarted, and each year when the days get longer my hopes fade further.

But then after a bit of reading I realised I’d been trying hard in all the wrong places. Apparently, you need to neglect your lilacs, prune ‘n feed your roses at the right time and the jasmine flowers best when it reaches the top of the wall.

So this year it’s finally paid off! The white rose smells absolutely DIVINE but with record growth her gangly flowering shoots have bent double, swinging thorny fronds at eye level like a herd of angry triffids, rendering the whole back of the garden impassable. The lilac’s blooms are so heavy and pendulous, my small bush has collapsed across the path. And the spectacular summer flowering jasmine having reached the top of the wall and then some, has broken free of its moorings entirely, landing the most potentially fragrant parts in the fishpond.

The secateurs are out and I am reminded to be careful what I wish for…

But some hopes are without such dire consequences… especially if one of your dreams is to acquire an affordable piece of original work by yours truly.  

My Big Show this year in November at Panter and Hall, London is the next opportunity if you wish to BUY original work, but if you’d like to get something FREE we have lots of giveaways on Facebook, Instagram on some free drawings with orders on my website.

Ok now I REAALLY feel like I’ve talked your heads off. I’m sorry about that. I’m like one of those people you meet at a party who keeps talking at you even though you’re not listening, you know the ones…

So I’ll leave you in peace for the now. And I’ll be back in a few months with news of my trip to Cornwall and our Grand Day Out in Big London!

Big love to you all,

Sam x

Hallo dear friends,

Spring is here with all her bright and changing moods.

Just this morning I saw so many moving and beautiful things:

• The town centre’s newly laid paving slabs with their rare pristine gleam before the blackened chewing gum polka dots descend
• A large crow building his nest and a young man with no shoes calling “Leave me alone” to anyone who would listen
• Herds of starlings ambushing the pigeons and seagulls as young girls throw their McDonalds breakfasts into the sky
• A chance sighting from the bus of a former friend, with their head firmly in the clouds and sad eyes
• A muddle of cellophane-wrapped flowers & a weather-beaten teddy bear on the roadside
• An accidental glance at my reflection in a huge Primark window display reveals I am no longer twenty one

Blossom falling. Bulbs sprouting.

Spring is here.

I’m so grateful for all your Get Well Soon messages. I’m in robust health, thank you, it’s just that I’ve been absent from social media recently. I’m taking a few months’ break from all that… You know how things can get ‘a bit much’ sometimes? And dear Amber is doing a few posts which is so helpful.

The most rewarding thing for me is spending quiet time creating new work but what gets in my way is ‘everything else’! I find I’m trying (and failing!) to be all things to all people. But I’m sure that’s a familiar story for many of us?

My own solution is Little Mustard Club. Amber can help organise, post and share the material for those of you who’d like a little extra. It’s 12 months since we launched the Club and we’re proudly building on it each year.

There are already lots of ways to access the Sam Toft range, internationally available, and for all budgets.

But for those who would like something more exclusive – original work maybe, or priority access to bespoke items, regular newsletters, insider knowledge – we now have a Club for that!

I have been much more relaxed and creative now I have the luxury of time and space, with Amber running the Club and Socials. So many new ideas as I work towards my Big London show at Panter and Hall in November. I’m currently painting on vintage book covers and illustrating the Crookleigh Chronicles. More information on those later but these two new pieces pictured below are soon to be released as limited editions for Club members.

I’ve started working with Ami, a talented ceramicist, to produce a small range of half thrown/ half handbuilt painted figures, and I’m hoping to find the time to work on some bigger pieces with master potter Roberto Gagliano at Pottery Gagliano in Brighton. Some of you may remember our previous show Anything is Possible at www.samtoftoriginals.co.uk that sold out within hours? I’m hoping to repeat that success with a very different vision. My ideas are for a small series of large urns with story quilts painted on them. If we can just find the time to make that happen, ANYTHING is possible at www.potterygagliano.co.uk

Meantime I’ve been learning (slowly and badly!) to throw a few plant pots on the pottery wheel at Pottery Gagliano and you can watch my various personal twitterings, courtesy of Amber, @thesamtoftinsider on Instagram

I hope you will join us in our new adventure,

Sam Toft

X

Many of you will remember Roger. Doris dog’s fiancé for a while before he disgraced himself. Anyone remember the picture ‘Roger, Father of Many’? Well, the title explains the problem, for Roger was in fact a working stud dog. An EXTREMELY handsome, smooth haired Dachshund. A real head turner. To call him ‘one for the ladies’ would be an understatement. Not that he was a rascal as such, it was just his job. And there was a dog that knew his business.

But times change, and dogs they get older even when we feel we haven’t aged much ourselves. Roger, with his confident smile and his charmed life of luxury without responsibility, was no exception. To cut a long story short, once he’d outlived his ‘usefulness’, the unscrupulous breeders threw him out on the street. An all-too-common occurrence. But this was a dog who had lived an unusually cosseted life. Hand fed the finest minced steak and poached salmon, favouring a well know brand of bottled sparkling water and receiving a weekly mani/pedi. This was not a streetwise dog.

As a young pup Roger had been overly shy and sensitive. Never the first one out of the box, and his mother’s favourite. How he howled when he was adopted too young – first out of the litter – and taken to live on the Stud Farm. His remarkable good looks and conformation to standard were apparent even from an early age and he fetched a very good price.

At first his new owners treated him well, looking after their investment. He instantly bonded with Nanny the house dog at the Farm so he settled in well and quickly grew in confidence as he was showered with every gift money could buy. Within the year he had grown into a fine looking hound, just as expected. But he also became proud, selfish, badly behaved and snappy as no-one bothered to teach him any different.  As he matured, he quarrelled with Nanny and his insecurities led him to compete so fiercely with the other stud dogs that he had to be kept apart. A nice cosy pen where he was provided with adequate exercise, gourmet meals and increasingly regular visits from pretty females.

On the whole he was happy with his lot but some nights if he awoke from an uneasy sleep, the warm sheepskin blanket would remind him of Nanny the house dog (or worse his dear late mother) and he felt achingly sad. But each morning the efficient staff would bring him delicious scrambled eggs nice and early for breakfast, and his day would begin. And O they were busy days. When he thought of how far he’d come in his short life he did marvel at it. But he was lonely, and sometimes wished he hadn’t been born so devastatingly handsome and utterly adorable. 

But then one day he was pulled up short. For some unknowable reason he found himself abandoned on the wild and dangerous streets of the Brighton Hove border. With no useful knowledge nor any social skills to speak of he soon grew thin, ill, withdrawn, depressed. But what he did have is plenty of company. There were so many homeless people, many of whom found themselves in a much worse state than himself. They had tried to catch him early on but he found his hidey holes. The urban foxes and marauding seagulls were terrifying also and for many months he lived under the prostrate cotoneaster bushes close to the amply filled bins at the back of St Ann’s Well Park Café. And it was perhaps his regular meetings there with the good-hearted Doris dog (after she’d finally gotten around to forgiving him for how he’d led her astray) that encouraged him to trust again and finally find the right kind of human and let himself be adopted.

By this time he had lost many of his teeth so the famous smile was not so perfect, but the kind lady who lived on the square didn’t seem to mind. Her name was Daphne and she had so many old dogs that ‘one more would make no difference’. At first she pushed him around in a large pram lined with old blankets, and when he buried himself deep and refused to walk in the cold, she decided to call him Little Blankie. With her long bleached out hair and kind eyes Roger thought she looked like Brigitte Bardot in her older years. He fell in love with her instantly.

His new life as Little Blankie could not have been more different. Every night he slept under an old patchwork eiderdown with Daphne and the rest of her kids. He ate whatever was going from the large tin bowls lined up on the kitchen floor in rows. He was no longer prized only for his good looks. In fact he was never picked out or treated any differently than the rest of the dogs and that was nice for the most part.

It was okay to sometimes miss the heady days of his youth at Alpha Dream Kennels and Stud Farm, he told himself. He’d had some wild times as Roger, ‘Kings Blood Skyrocket Red Baron de la Mer’ to be sure. But here with Daphne he was never left alone. He had friends and they always looked forward to the stories of his glamorous former life when he was the veritable King of the Castle. And what tall tales he told.

Whether you’d like to call him Roger or Little Blankie, I sculpted him out of clay, had him cast in bronze and now he is being editioned by the very good people of Sculpture Castings, Basingstoke. I have carefully worked on each wax prior to casting which makes each Blankie unique. He has a wonderful patina of lightly waxed russets which reflects his faded grandeur. I visited last week and fell in love once again. He truly is a little darling and I will be showing him on social media when I receive my first copy.

We will have a limited number (from the edition of 47) available before Christmas at my late November show at www.samtoftoriginals.co.uk This little man would be a perfect companion piece to my Pocket Doris bronze edition (now totally sold out), but equally he can stand alone. He will sit quietly in your hand or pocket, and would give your bedside cabinet or mantle shelf an aura of mischievous charm. You could even knit him a little blanket.

A lovely thing happened to me the other day.

I popped into a coffee shop before my weekend dog walk and ordered two cappuccinos (it was going to be a long walk)… and then I realised I’d left my purse at home. Do I leg it home (quite a distance) and get my money, or do I do without my morning coffee(s)? Both options would be quite disappointing, let’s face it. Also, I’m not very good at making decisions. So I just stood there in my waterproofs and walking boots waiting for inspiration with my very patient pup by my side. And then the Barista said, I’ll make your coffees for free! Generous, lovely, surprising and it gave me such a boost, restoring my attitude of gratitude at the end of what had been quite a difficult week. Small things matter. And I hope you are lucky enough to have a Lovely Thing happening to you when you most need it. As a good friend told me when I was sharing my woes and wondering what, if anything, was the point of life in general and me in particular, “Perhaps there is no real point,” she said, “except for the opportunity to be kind.”

Hello friends,

I hope this email finds you well?

It’s a strange old time we’ve been having, many still suffering or recovering from the ravages of the pandemic and just a lucky few of us feeling that things are ‘back to normal’… but these times leave their mark even for us fortunate ones don’t they? For better or for worse I don’t think anything will be the way it was before. And if you’re like me, now more than ever there’s a pressing need to focus on the good things life has to offer. To be real, true, authentic but also optimistic, hopeful and to appreciate the little joys.

In this spirit I am deciding to have an impromptu show. Online, not in person, as things are a bit topsy turvy with me as my little dog is old and ill so I have no idea what state I’ll be in come August. I’ve got lots of help so I can make sure little Stan is comfortable, as well as working a few days in the studio and having big walks with Betty in the woods. Among the trees I have always found such solace and inspiration and it is with much sadness that I accept Stan can no longer join us on our long tramps over the green hills. But he has his daily outings to the park where he can sometimes chase his ball and play hunt the biscuit. There’s nothing at all wrong with his nose and he still manages an amount of mischief which is right and proper for such an independent, opportunistic soul. And, as I’m realising more as I get older, grief can bring us closer to our friends and family. Sometimes the best of us comes out at the worst of times. 

The problem with my recent shows is that there are never enough paintings to go round. I produce much less and the demand is high. So I’m deciding, like most galleries, to operate a priority list so certain people will get the link to the original work before everybody else. This should avoid the log jam as sales go live. I know from the many emails I receive how disappointing and frustrating it has been for so many of you. 

How to join the small band of individuals on the priority list? We will be including all previous buyers from Sam Toft Originals (as loyalty is important) and also members of Little Mustard Club (as I think membership is a good gauge of people really interested in my work).  July memberships are now open at Little Mustard Club so no-one needs to miss out. The small pieces will be the same price as always and the slightly larger pieces (as they take me so much more time) will be subject to a 30% increase in line with  gallery pricing. I’m anticipating a small collection of around 7-10 paintings.

Little Joys goes live on Saturday 6th August. And everyone on our priority list (we’ll call them ‘the Specials’) will get an additional email tomorrow with all the extra details. If you don’t receive it and you think you should be on the list then please let us know by return. And nearer the time I’ll send a reminder too as I know we all have a lot on our minds right now. 

And let’s end with a little story I may have told you before. Even after all this time, the strength of the experience still wakes me up at night sometimes. Although I have the most terrible memory and forget most things quickly, strong feelings always stay with me.

It all started a few years ago when my close neighbours were making a nuisance of themselves. I live in a terrace right next to a block of flats so it’s to be expected, but the noise was so loud over a number of weeks, it sounded as though there was a live band at the bottom of my garden. They would practice the same parts of one particular song time and again. They sounded so earnest it could have been heartwarming, and there was this carefully scripted message repeated over and over -through a microphone- thanking the audience for their loyalty and admiration, followed by something that sounded like a primal scream. Long anguished animalistic cries plagued my Sunday afternoons. But I choose to live in a city so I guess it’s part and parcel.

But then the food missiles started. Just chunks of stale bread at first and I hardly noticed them as I think my dogs hoovered up the evidence. Always mysterious trails of breadcrumbs and quite a lot of drooling, but I let that pass. And then they started with empty tubes of Pringles and tubs of half eaten hummus, dirty tissues and baked bean cans. I found the remains when I went outside in my garden but never actually saw them being thrown. I looked up at the blank grid of windows from the neighbouring block. Was there someone sniggering behind those curtains?

And it went on. One day I found my little dog trying to swallow a leg of fried chicken, raw inside and from the foul smell not too fresh. Boy, was he sick that night. There followed weeks of clearing up meat bones in red sauce, fast food containers, rotten eggs. And each time I felt myself getting more and more angry. This is the feeling I remember so clearly. I was absolutely livid. And as the mature adult I am I decided -rather than talk to anyone face to face- to post a strongly worded note on the front door of the flats. I’m not proud of myself. Every night I went to bed fuming. 

If I look on the bright side, one good thing that came of all this was discovering how many lovely people lived in those flats. They put kind notes through my door or came round to tell me it was not them. Then one wise person came up with a solution. I really didn’t see it, but I bet you’ve guessed already?

After weeks of seething, we found out it was the seagulls. They had been nesting on my roof. I discovered a rare treasure trove of rotting food and rubbish when I climbed up there. The items in my garden had merely been their overflow. All that energy wasted feeling hateful. I still wonder how I was capable of such righteous anger. And I was so wrong.

So what I learnt from that is to take things with a pinch of salt and not be too ready to jump to conclusions. And to do something to stop those pesky seagulls nesting in my chimney pots. 

I’ll be in touch tomorrow with those Specials on my list and wish you a grand weekend,

Big love,

Sam x

It isn’t always easy, is it?

I’ve always admired the easy breeziness of greengrocers. And I know no-one is without their troubles but some people manage to rise above it all and bring a little unlooked for happiness into people’s lives whatever’s going on in their own. Market traders, corner shop owners, delivery staff, they seem to have this straightforward way of serving with a smile and moving on. I remember getting to know a restaurant owner in Greece one year and feeling bold enough to ask how he kept his sparkle even at the end of a long day. After a moment’s thought he said maybe he had been lucky enough to be born with a sunny disposition? In fact he knew of no other way to be and was delighted to find himself the right occupation suiting his natural abilities. But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do MORE than the thing we were born to do? Is that even possible?

It’s the right weather isn’t it?

It’s something someone said to me n Betty as we were walking across the golf course up at Hollingbury on a sunny day recently.

Truth is, I DON’T like it too hot personally, but I LOVE that it makes so many people happy and chatty. For me a sunny day always seems like an extra thing to do. I know I should get out and enjoy myself, but a colder day just let’s me BE… And then I got to thinking, he’s right that man on the golf course. It’s actually always the right weather! When the sun is too warm it’s a welcome reminder for me to be resourceful. When nothing is uncomfortable, there is no incentive to change.

I must admit I’m a little scared of horses. Because I don’t understand them and they are so big. And generally I’m a little afraid of children because I don’t understand them and they’re so little. To me dogs have always seemed more straightforward. But back to this bag eating horse.

A couple of weeks ago on one of my intrepid weekend walks, I found myself needing to cross a field where there were three horses. It was a public footpath and I put my dogs on their leads, but when I looked up I noticed they’d already started ambling towards us. They looked friendly enough but very big, and it soon became obvious they would reach us before we got to the stile. Instead of running (which my brain was screaming at me to do) I slowed right down and worked on calming the dogs and myself. I had no apples or carrots. Eeek.

Hallo lovelies,

It’s nearly May already!

Such a lovely month for a holiday I always think. It feels fresh, not too warm and still the opportunity to be wearing hats and scarves. Which will always be my favourite attire. But if you haven’t got it together to book that little trip you’ve been dreaming about, I hope you’ll be joining me and Team Mustard at our Afternoon Tea Event Sunday 15th May.

For me May is all about the different yellows. There are still daffodils in the supermarkets although the woods are full of bluebells, and I do so love a cut flower. The ranunculus are splendid at this time of year too and I always keep mine until way past their best. After all their blazing colours I can’t bear to throw them away. And every time I think I must have had the last, I find another bunch of yellow tulips to display in my old silver-glass vase. And whenever I can, I feel I must have a sprig of yellow freesia for by my bed, so if I wake up in the night wondering where I am (it’s a thing!) I am calmed by their peppery scent: my Grandad’s favourite. The yellow calla lily I’m keeping inside as long as I can. And when it goes outside I think I’ll do a big display of fat lemons instead.

Since I’ve been here I’ve lost two hats. And one dog.

I found the dog.

And upsetting though it is to mislay my very favourite berets, this heartache is truly tiny in comparison with the temporary loss of my dear old Stan. The Theory of Relativity in action. But I’m hoping that the next time my (snackhungry and selectively deaf) little Doodle Dog decides to do a bit of sneaky unaccompanied sandwich surfing I’ll choose to poke myself in the eye to help me feel Relatively better, rather than rushing hither and thither discarding fistfuls of head gear with such high sentimental value. My poor heart aches at the thought of the handmade velvet one with the satin lining and a blob of white paint on the back… And the burgundy striped knitted one with a tiny turquoise stalk going a bit bobbly with age… Is it so wrong to miss them so much?