Earth Meadow By Sarah Llewellyn
Hardcover published by Bird Eye Books A Graffeg Imprint 20th April 2023
ISBN 9781802584455
This collection of 53 original paintings from a pictorial diary of a childhood in Wales from 1930-1944, painted retrospectively from memory by artist Eironwy Llewellyn whilst in her 70s. The jaunty, native style is intended to convey her early life as remembered through the eyes of a child, with the various scenes charmingly recalling life as it was lived during the period. Each painting is accompanied by commentary from the artist, creating a uniquely personal and insightful record of the bygone traditions and community of ruler Wales.
MY REVIEW
Earth Meadow is the most beautiful book that I have ever seen, with the most amazing painted pictures, that’s all about Sara Llewellyn growing up in Wales as a young girl.
Sara was brought up on a farm being the only girl, with five of her cousins that were boys. Sara loved her time alone away for the boys showing us what she did keeping herself occupied alone.
This book is very educational, where Sara takes us through each of the season working on the farm, to how she helped collecting eggs from the henhouse and how her grandmother would milk the cows, that was Sara’s job to take a full pail of milk to diary building on their farm.
I found it interesting when Sara went on a family holiday in their little car that was packed with suitcases on the roof, and tied to the end of the car. How law has changed since, I don’t think we would get away with tying suitcases at the end of the car.
It also shows how back in the day they would dress up for Sunday tea, which is very different now in our times, you could comfortably sits in jeans for Sunday lunch without anyone raising an eye or commenting.
I adored the painting in how on the farm, butter was churched by hand.
I didn’t know that brown paper was taped to windows preventing injury from flying glass should bombs fall, until I see in the painting, sticking gummed brown paper to the windows in pretty patterns. Sara describes how children were issued with gas masks during the war.
This is a gorgeous book for everyone, adults, teenagers, children and from an educational point of view this book would help children, understand how life used to be and how it is so different today.
As this book reflects on education it could proudly be one the best books for all school libraries.
About Sara Llewelyn
‘It’s an odd thing, discovering the first fourteen years of your mother’s life in full colour and with so much written detail when she’s not there anymore! So began my own Herculean task: to curate, collate, capture, compile and edit the prolific, bursting-at-the-seams work of Eironwy.
Painted retrospectively from memory whilst in her seventies, this collection presents a pictorial diary of a forgotten time from 1930-1944 of a Welsh childhood lived on the farm and by the sea.
I can sense in them her intense relief at dropping the pretence of her adult life – trying to be a good middle-class wife, mother, teacher, friend, enduring the boredom of conformity, the suffocation of her wild, free spirit.
A trained, highly skilled sculptor, here she was coming to the last stages of her life and giving two of her worn-out fingers, in all their workish glory, to the ‘establishment’ and deliberately painting in a contrived naïve style. Her dazzling chosen colour palettes and pelted brushstrokes are grounded in emphatic emotion pouring out of her very being – who she really was, at last revealed!
Producing this book has been heady stuff for me, the messenger of that surprising Welsh Mam of mine. The title, Earth Meadow, is my choice, an instinctive one for something simple on the surface but complex and layered, joyous and sometimes quite dark. The paintings and their accompanying stories have already resonated with thousands of individuals around the world, from different generations and all walks of life. Through Earth Meadow I hope they will reach and be enjoyed by many more.’
– Sara Llewellyn
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