From the studio No.42

It's July and the dye garden is bursting with fecundity - of both plants and ideas.

Here’s a very short video of part of the regenerative natural dye, food and medicine garden, it forms a part of the forest garden.

Do you see it as chaotic and overgrown?

Or ABUNDANT?

This garden is full of flora and fauna. Full of dye, medicine and food plants. Here is a list of some of the plants in the video:

Budlia - colour

Rosa rugosa - food, medicine

Fennel - food, medicine, colour

Marshmallow - medicine

Sweet cicily - food

Tansy - colour, medicine

Mugwort - medicine

Elecampane - medicine

Evening primrose - food, medicine

Jostaberry - food

Comfrey - colour, food, medicine

Willow - food

Crab apple - food

It also has deep mineral accumulators and nitrogen fixers. Creating the edge of a forest garden. An edible forest.

DATE FOR YOUR DIARY! - FASHION SHOW 17th AUGUST

And a little head’s up. SARAH POLAND is taking part in a fashion show during Aberjazz Jazz n Blues Festival 2025, at the beautiful venue Ffwrn in Fishguard, Pembrokeshire.

There will be cheese and wine tastings with Feral Pig Wine , DJ’s spinning vinyl and fashion shows from SARAH POLAND, and Jolette Le Roux.

I’ll send more about tickets and details next week when I get the poster.

And there are so many more events to come to let you know about…LONDON, BRIGHTON, OXFORD.

Thank you for following my journey,

My best,

Sarah x

From the studio No.41

The Serpentine Gallery Summer Party is THE event on the art calendar. 

Photographer and film maker Mark Lebon, known for his boundary breaking fashion photography in the 1980's and 90's, wears a commissioned SARAH POLAND kilt to the Serpentine Gallery Summer Party 2025.

I met Mark originally back in 1998 when I was a stylist's assistant on a fashion shoot for iD magazine. We shot at Marks's super cool West London studio. 

I met up with him again last year and gave a gift of a natural dyed piece of artwork. He commissioned me to make it into a kilt, non-conforming and deconstructed of course, I painted it, natural dyed it, made sock flashes and a kilt pin badge using off-cuts and thread-ends. He wore it this summer to both the opening event of Serpentine Gallery Summer Party AND Graces Mews Gallery launch (founded by his son, photographer Tyrone Lebon) in South London .

I’ve got an exciting collaboration happening with Mark too.

All will be revealed in time…

My best,

Sarah x

From the studio No.40

A SHORT INTRODUCTORY VIDEO ABOUT SARAH POLAND, A NATURAL DYED, LIMITED EDITION, UK MADE CLOTHING BRAND.

PLUS A DIP INTO THE REGENERATIVE DYE GARDEN.

The why and what SARAH POLAND Art | Fashion is about and what it stands for as a clothing brand with sustainability and ethics at its core, with zero waste, circular design principles.

It takes time to refine and articulate what a brand is about.

YouTube introductory video

YouTube introductory video

From looking after the soil and the people who tend it, to growing crops for textiles, to natural dyeing with no toxic waste, ethically manufacturing in the UK, to the wearer and the life of the garment with the possibility reinvigorate by offering a repair and re-dye service, to its end-of-life composted back into the soil to support healthy new growth.

Circular design.

Zero waste.

Non toxic.

No over production.

Hand crafted.

Made with care and quality in the UK.

Chic, wearable, fashion conscious natural dyed clothing.

See also:

Meet The Designer

Thank you for following my journey,

My best,

Sarah x

From the studio No.38

In the studio, this year for me is all about getting out there - gaining visibility, collaboration and well, just keeping on keeping on.

This month and probably next month too, will be a creative time. For many years I’ve wanted to create my own wardrobe, wear mostly my own designs.

You could call it a capsule collection, perhaps a mini collection, I’m just going to call it a wardrobe for now.

I’ve been working on the website this month too and have added a new page WHAT IS NATURAL DYE.

So if you’d like to know more about what they are, where they come from, a little history and some images of the plants, dye extracts and natural dyed cloth, click the link.

My mission this year is to get better at creating blogs and write about the wonderful qualities and beauty of natural dyes - it’s all about visibility and letting people know what I’m up to.

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But for now, here’s a bit of fun with some contact sheets. I tried each jacket on…on top of the other, size 8 to 16…I couldn’t quite fit the 16 on too!

The background painting was made during an artist residency at G.S. Artists in 2019. Made using oak gall ink on raw cotton canvas, 3x4m, painted with a soft house broom and a child’s broom.

During the residency my 1.5 year old daughter would often join me, and I would put inks on her tricycle to make her own paintings, and create mine with her BRRM BRRMING around.

Perhaps they were mother and daughter brooms too?

My best,

Sarah x

From the studio No. 37

We’ve come to the end of the year again and I’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas on this shortest day, from deepest darkest drizzly West Wales.

It is the Winter Solstice - Embrace the dark and carry the light.

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It’s been a great year in the SARAH POLAND studio, not without it’s hurdles and losses. I’ve worked hard on building a natural dyed clothing brand and am looking forward to next year - I have a few exciting projects in the pipeline, including a natural dye collaboration and plan to get out and show at various events, including the Frome Independent Market.

I’d love to see you out there somewhere.

Building my website, brand and getting the Ande Bomber ready to launch have been some highlights.

The website has lots of new pages to view - Why I Natural Dye Clothing, Why I Make Clothes In The UK, Zero Waste and Meet The Designer. I also have Archive pages of paintings and prints from over the years.

Exhibition wise it was really exciting to get in to the Royal Scottish Academy AND sell my painting (below). The VAS 100 (Visual Arts Scotland) centenary exhibition did look fantastic in the hallowed halls of the RSA.

Prosodic Chapters Of Immanent Silence.

Oak gall ink on traditional gesso on birch ply panel.

60 x 91cm.

There’s so much to do to start a business, it isn’t just make some stuff and sell it to a shop anymore! To sell online you need all sorts of things in place, a website, branding (plus a rebrand, thanks J.D. Sports!), a privacy policy, a returns policy, product pages, selling paypoint, good photography, GDPR…the list goes on…and on. Put on the spot, I can’t even remember half of it. Responsible, ethical sourcing is BIG.

As I mentioned before, the hurdle to rebrand away from SONNET by Sarah Poland, because of JD Sports’ interference, has taken up some time. I am glad to have fully embraced the change and am going with simply my name, SARAH POLAND. I now have a new logo, garment label and event sign. The website merge with my artist site will take some time, it’s tricky - trying not to over complicate it.

Any thoughts are most welcome.

Here is my new branding:

My time mentoring on the year long course at Newlyn School of Art this year was so fun, finding myself working beside old peers from my time in Cornwall was a joy and taking part in their tutors exhibition an honour.

Fashion On Earth, Bristol Cathedral with Sustainable Fashion Week UK was a blast and what a deadline to work towards! Thanks to Sustainable Studio in Cardiff and St. John’s Hall in Bath for giving me space.

Thanks too to Helen Manley-Jones at Yr Oriel in Newport, Pembrokeshire for always showing my work.

A new gallery who has taken on my Moon Drawing, photographic and oak gall work, is Tides Gallery in Swansea and their new showcase space, Tides Uplands.

Here are some glimpses from throughout the year.

Thank you for following my journey.

Wishing you a warm winter holiday filled with love and friendship.

Keep in touch, my best,

Sarah x

Inspired by 1950s coffee culture (think Beat Generation), 90s London + an inner rock chick fused with the colours of natural dyes.

Coffee bar, intimate gig + cocktail cool, with quality + sustainability at its core.

from the studio No. 34

On Wednesday 6th November, SUSTAINABLE FASHION WEEK hosted an event at Bristol Cathedral called FASHION ON EARTH. They invited me to take part in this exciting event which included a catwalk performance, makers market, exhibited pieces, live music plus other stalls including the Soil Association and GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard). It is an opportunity to discover some of the artists, makers and organisations working towards a better fashion future.

It’s going to be a really exciting event, not in the least, because artist Luke Gerram has created a large installation titled Gaia, a to scale, glowing sculpture of our planet Earth. It looks incredible and I can’t wait to see it. Gaia will hover above the catwalk.

I worked incredibly hard to get work ready for this event and it will be the first public viewing of SARAH POLAND the natural dyed, limited edition, UK made clothing brand. A launch of sorts.

I showcased a natural dyed corduroy bomber jacket in five different colours with a few one-off pieces - skirts and a kilt made from painted art pieces.

Sustainable Fashion Week UK says - 'The backdrop of Luke Gerram’s ‘Gaia’ serves as a provoking reminder of the interconnectedness of all life on earth. As with any resources our society consumes, the clothing and materials we wear and dispose of have a significant impact on planetary health’.

Launching the

Ande Bomber.

NATURAL DYED.

MADE IN THE UK.

MADE TO ORDER = NO SURPLUS, NO WASTE.

A natural dyed, limited edition, chunky corduroy bomber jacket. Lined in luxurious organic bamboo silk, five beautiful plant based colours to choose from, with contrasting coloured rib and a cheeky puff sleeve, corozo nut buttons and helping to clear plastic out of the environment, with a recycled plastic Vislon zip.

Lush.

Photography: Trevor Carty @tippee68

They also invited me to display one of my art pieces as a backdrop for my stall. My husband, Ben Duckworth, who runs Raven Roundwood Timber Frames, created a stunning exhibition stand for me using larch, oak, and bog oak. The natural beauty of the stand complemented my work perfectly and looked breathtaking in the cathedral's magnificent setting. It was a wonderful opportunity to showcase a large piece in such an awe-inspiring space.

A detail from Sarah Poland’s natural dyed hanging canvas installation Forest, displayed during her 2023 solo exhibition at Elysium Gallery in Swansea UK. The piece here uses madder, weld, chestnut and iron to naturally dye and paint on organic cotton canvas.

Gaia, by Luke Jerram 2024

We are critically disconnected from our clothing, how it is made, it’s natural source and the many hands each garment passes through before it reaches us. All the resources that clothe our bodies come from this Earth and how we choose to care for and use such resources plays a significant role in planetary health.

All clothing comes from the land. Farmed, grown, extracted, picked and cut - your clothing begins in the ground and should return to the soil at the end of its life-cycle.

FASHION on EARTH invites you to reflect on the relationship you have with your own clothing; to consider how connected you feel to the place and natural resources that are intrinsically linked to the garments you wear; and to imagine a fashion production future wholly connected to and respectful of the natural world.

Join us on Wednesday 6th November 2024 for a night exploring fashion that is created in harmony with nature.

Sustainable Fashion Week UK

Inspired by 1950s coffee culture (think Beat Generation), 90s London + an inner rock chick fused with the colours of natural dyes.

Coffee bar, intimate gig + cocktail cool, with quality + sustainability at its core.

STUDIO JOURNAL 9

From 1st May 2022 newsletter.

After much clearing space and decision making, the studio partition wall is down. The space has completely changed dynamics and I no longer ‘walk like an Egyptian’ to get in. Incase you don’t get it, I just quoted a song title - I’m now prompted me to look up the video on Youtube AND share it with you! The Bangles - Walk Like An Egyptian

Below are some photos showing progression of the studio interior wall dismantle.

Plaster board off

Posts and strengthening beam in, white paint next.

With this renewerd space I can start creating work for my solo exhibition at Elysium Gallery, a public gallery space in an old nightclub in Swansea, Wales, so lots of different and interesting spaces to fill. I’ve all sorts of ideas, including a 3-D painting installation, so now in the studio I can stretch out a little more. It’s very exciting.

However, I am in desperate need for a more permanent studio and painting store. Currently my work is stored in a static caravan, it isn’t ideal but it is somewhere seperate to the work space. I regularly empty two dehumidifiers and just recently I encountered a second leak. I’d say that storage is always an issue for artists, the work often takes up half of a studio space. So with this new leak I have lost a further 8 works on paper plus their frames. The previous flood brought damage to many large canvases.

Sharing a less glamorous side to being an artist, here is one of the damaged works, from my Ash Series.

Sooo, away from the Gloom…

I’ve been reading about quantum science and the quantum field for sometime through the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza, he also covers epigenetcs, neuro-science and meditation. It’s so interesting. When I start working on a series I don’t look at anyone else’s work but I read, including artists writings. I’m re-reading books In Praise Of Painting by Ian MacKeever RA, Resistance & Persistence Selected Writings by Sean Scully. I’m thinking I’ll look out my book of Bridget Riley’s writings, she writes with such insight on her own work and of other artists’. The new publication by Pace Gallery, Agnes Martin - The Distillation Of Colour, has arrived today. I am so looking forward to reading it. I’ve also been watching videos on Youtube of Brice Marden talking about his work. There’s such an incredible archive online. 

This week I’ve been making composition drawings and working out ideas for paintings for my solo exhibition in 2023. They're part of an Energy Field and Mapping series.

Mapping 1, botanical ink on etching paper, 23x24.5cm

Mapping 3, botanical ink on etching paper, 23x24.5cm

STUDIO JOURNAL 8

From newsletter 27th March.

Vignette (study), 34.5 x 61cm. Botanical inks on gesso panel 2022

I’ve got some grreat news.

After a lengthy and meticulous application for an Arts Council Wales grant, I have now received an email saying that my application has been successful. Hurrah!!

The grant is to create a solo exhibition to be shown at Elysium Gallery in Swansea in 2023. It is a large space and I have lots of ideas. I plan to have two painting installations, one with 3-Dimensional work as well as individual paintings and diptychs. The grant will enable me to commission and collaborate with other creatives as well. For example, I’ll be able to get some professional photography of my work a video documenting my process and a sound commission for an installation. It is very exciting and lots of work to do.

More information about the project will be unveiled over time. The exact date is yet to be confirmed with the gallery, I really hope you will be able to come for the opening night or during opening hours of exhibition. It will of course also be documented online, for those who can’t make it.

Oak gall ink and gesso on paper.

I’ve made a start by making some small studies on gessoed paper, board and panel and although when I start working on a series I don’t look at anyone else’s work, I’m currently re-reading books ‘In Praise Of Painting’ by Ian MacKeever RA, ‘Agnes Martin’ by Frances Morris and Tiffany Bell, ‘Resistance & Persistence Selected Writings by Sean Scully. I’m thinking I’ll look out my book of Bridget Riley’s writings, she writes with such insight on her own work and of other artists’.

I’ve also been watching videos on Youtube of Brice Marden talking about his work. There’s such an incredible archive online.

Studio table

Studio journal 4

I've got a little box of watercolour tubes that I've had sitting around for a few years. My father-in-law gave them to me, his father was a painter. I, or perhaps they, have been waiting for the right time.

I've found it difficult to get motivation moving these last two weeks. It is far from a usual problem. Perhaps there's the overwhelm of moving house and trying to clear a pathway into my studio where things have been strewn amidst the chaos. Plus the bliss of finally being in a house and wanting to slack out on the sofa.

I did something I've often done when I don't know how to get started. I went to the sea. I packed my special off-piste snowboarding rucksack - used for day long adventures. It helps me to create intention of letting go and exploring what comes up. Off to find a wild, windswept, isolated beach I did.

I packed a little portable set of watercolours. Perhaps the time is right now to explore watercolour but…note to self to not drift too far into the allure of what they can do - the pooling, the reticulation - not make 'watercolour paintings' per se but to use them in my own way. For this, they seem a good quick sketching tool.

The morning started with a thick freezing fog at home, the journey to the sea opened out and the long steep walk down brought a pool of sunshine to where I positioned my belongings on a flat boulder.

The day was beautiful.

The sea was calm, small waves dolloped the shoreline dragging pebbles away with them. Such a beautiful sounds that makes you sit very still and Listen. Out at sea cloud was low and colours were limited to gorgeous greys and aqua of the small cresting waves.

By the end of the day I was watching the freezing fog roll in and envelop the beach.

Play the above video to watch waves dolloping onto the shore in fog.

Thank you for reading this. If you would like to follow this studio journal and sign-up to my newsletter for exhibition updates, inspiration and available work you can sign up at sarahpoland.co.uk/subscribe I send it out some Sunday’s at 11am.

And do please reach out through the contact form if you have any questions.

Studio journal 3

Souvenance

I think the poet is the last person who is still speaking the truth when no one else dares to. I think the poet is the first person to begin the shaping and visioning of the new forms and the new consciousness when no one else has begun to sense it; I think these are two of the most essential human functions’ ______________________________________ Diane Di Prima, _____________Beat Poet (August 6, 1934 – October 25, 2020)

And so too the painter.

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Diane Di Prima was a poet and writer of the American Beat Generation.

Back in 2002 I went to Western Canada to meet a great friend of mine, to snowboard as she finished her season and to travel together up the West coast. We stopped a night or two in Tofino, B.C. I wasn’t sure at the time why I didn’t join her on a whale watching boat trip, but I drifted into a lovely bookshop, sat on the floor to browse a shelf and came across this wonderful book. Actually, it pretty much jumped out at me.

Some years prior, on a U.S. trip, someone I met recommended Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. Another great book for that time in my life and it turned out, took the same route that I did. That was my introduction to the Beat Generation and so finding this book focusing on the Women was very exciting.

They are the reason I drink coffee - Coffee And Writing Go Together.

For me, a coffee taps into this culture and also our European cafe culture, particularly of the 50’s and 60’s. I Love the B&W photographs from these era’s, the starkness, the contrasts.

One of my favourite poems ever is Rant by Diane Di Prima - it is in this book. I also discovered Jay DeFeo and her incredible work The Rose, a 2,300 lb. painting which she spent eight years making.

The Beats in turn lead me to Patti Smith, punk poet, writer, rock musician’s thoughts and writing.

So this was the reason I missed the whale watching!

Jay DeFeo working on The Rose, 1958–66,
in her Fillmore Street studio, NYC 1960. Photo: Burt Glinn.

I’ve just gotta squeeze in a favourite photo…one of British painter Sandra Blow who lived in St. Ives for many years. I love Roger Mayne’s images of the artists there. The other Michael Gaca, director of Belgrave St. Ives took of me at Carn Galva after a bush fire in 2006. It was in my 2006 exhibition at the gallery Tuath (click for catalogue).

Sandra Blow (1925-2006) in her studio 1959 by Roger Mayne (1929-2014)

Sarah Poland 2006 by Michael Gaca

Studio journal 2

Every now and then I think about my journey, how I got to here, now, where I started, what the story is.

We all have a story, one unique to us.

I always have a story behind a particular piece of work or a series.

My first exposure to abstract modern art wasn’t until I was 17. Growing up in the Highlands of Scotland there wasn’t much. I went alone to the Inverness Museum once, determined to see some art – I saw a stuffed polecat, stags head and a dusty ptarmigan among other objects. It wasn’t what I was looking for, besides, I’d seen some in the wild.

Joan Eardley - Catterline in Winter (1963)

Mum had a poster of Joan Eardley’s Catterline In WInter 1963 on the wall. I would often stare at it, be in it, feel it.

It definitely helped kindle my love of bleak Northern landscapes, coast and falling snow, besides growing up in the foothills of the Cairngorm Mountains.

It's Funny How Oak Trees Look Pink In Snow No.2 (2018)

My school history of art lessons used B&W photocopies of... the Impressionists. Paintings which I subsequently learnt are huge, are all about colour, colour harmonies, brush marks, feeling, joy. Obviously none of these qualities came across in the photocopies.

My first Real exposure to modern art was at the Tate Gallery, now Tate Britain. Again, thanks to my mum, she took me down to London on an art trip just before my school exams. And thank goodness she did, for it sparked a drive that got me into one of our countries best art schools, Edinburgh College of Art.

I remember going around the National Gallery and the Tate. I remember at the end of our day at Tate peeking through a tiny window in a door, not unlike a medieval arrow slit. Straining to see as much as possible and begging my mum to pay for me to go in - the rest of the vast gallery was free to enter but this was a temporary touring exhibition and was typically expensive.

She did. Bless her.

What I saw in 1993 was an exhibition by American painter Robert Ryman. Known as the ‘painter of white paintings’, he is one of the foremost abstract artists of his generation. The influence that this one exhibition had was so profound it still resonates deeply today.

And he predominantly used white paint and little else!

Robert Ryman - Untitled (1962)

Robert Ryman - Untitled (1965)

Robert Ryman - Classico 5 (1968)