Gathered by Mary Norden
A beautiful coffee table book is one of my weaknesses. I just love them, much more than magazines. I use them in my styling to look gorgeous on coffee tables or perched, forward facing, on a bookshelf. My latest acquirement is just gorgeous, Gathered by interior stylist Mary Norden and photographer Polly Wreford.
I interviewed Mary about her inspiring career in an earlier post, and I know only to well that commercial styling work can often quell your creativity. This is one of the reasons that both Mary and Polly indulged themselves with this year long project, photographing flowers from Mary’s garden, that culminated in this self published book.
Flicking through the pages, it’s almost like a meditation. You can enjoy the stunning photography, the beautiful compositions or more poignantly the stunning narrative that tells the changes of the seasons. So often flower photography looks all perky and bright, a celebration of flowers in their prime, but in Gathered we get to appreciate the blooms throughout the seasons. For Mary this is one of the elements that she loves most about gardening, witnessing the cycle of blooming and dying.
Since moving from the city to the countryside I too now have a heightened sense of the seasons, which I absolutely love. And this book has inspired me on so many levels, but might just be the spur i need to get gren fingered in the garden. After moving from our 2 bed city pad to the country I now have 5 acres at my finger tips. But I’m a complete newbiw. I can’t even keep a house plant alive so Mary’s book is an inspiration on every level. But if you don’t have your own garden then looking through these pages is enough to feed the soul.
You can buy a copy of Marys book from Us Publishing, price £25.
I have a copy of this limited edition book to GIVEAWAY, but I’m going to make you work for it! A competition will be run on instagram so you need to hop on over there and post your ‘gathered’ images using the hashtag #gatheredcomp and tagging me in your post. These don’t have to be flowers (tall ask this time of year) but any objects that you have gathered to style a nice display and pleasing composition. Instagram feeds to check out for more inspiration include 5ftinf and Makelight. Entries close on the 14th February 2017, and I’ll be judging and announcing the winner on the 15th. Good luck and make sure you check out the hashtag to see all the gorgeous entries. Oh and Sign up for my newsletter to make sure you get the announcement too.
