Angela Harding

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:45

My castaway this week is the artist Angela Harding. In a digital age, her carefully crafted work is a breath of fresh air. She specialises in printmaking, handmade scenes featuring British wildlife, created using a process that dates back a thousand years. One image can take weeks to complete. Her work, created in her home studio, has earned her fans around the world. It has graced the covers of best-selling books by former castaways including Val McDermott, Isabella Tree, James Reebanks, and the poet laureate Simon Armitage. You'll also find it on everything from notebooks to tea towels, and her advent calendars have become a collector's item. She has five books of her own under her belt too, exploring her love of the British countryside.

Presenter1:31

She discovered printmaking while she was a student of fine art in the early 1980s. Cutting into the lino used to create each image lent it power. As she puts it, it has a bit of violence to it. She says, It's interesting, especially in these days of AI, that publishers will still wait for me, sitting in a shed, in my garden, with my chisel.

Presenter1:53

Angela Harding, welcome to Desert Island Disc. Thank you, Lauren. Lovely to be here. It's great to have you. So, Angela, when I'm looking at one of your prints, I really feel the environment that you're depicting, whether it's the cold of the snow or the spray and the sound of the sea. When a piece is finished and you're looking at it for the first time, what do you see?

Angela Harding1:55

Thank you.

Angela Harding2:11

Yeah.

Presenter2:13

As the maker you see the mistakes, but you know you start with an image in your mind, generally inspired from the place that I'm in. You know, I like to go to the places that I'm commissioned to work about, whether that's Minchinhampton Common or the Scottish Isles or down in Sussex on the Knepper State. Actually being in the landscape is something that I try to convey in my work.

Presenter2:37

But when I finish a piece, I really am starting to think about the next piece. That's generally what happens. Spoken like a true artist, on to the next thing, always. You might think of English wildlife as quite a sort of delicate subject matter, but actually there's a real power to your images and there's often this undercurrent of darkness in there. What's going on there, do you? Well, I think nature is, you know, it's not a sentimental place, you know. A lot of the poets and writers that I admire, Shane Massini and Ted Hughes, they highlight the rawness of the natural world and my work is used on book covers and I think it's what gives it that little bit of edge really, that it isn't just a sentimental portrayal of the world that surrounds us, you know, that everything basically is looking for lunch.

Angela Harding2:43

Stuff.

Angela Harding2:44

Yeah.

Angela Harding2:45

Always

Angela Harding2:49

Yeah.

Angela Harding2:56

What's going on there?

Presenter3:25

It is going to be. Oh, it's going to be lunch, you know. So that's the fight that's out there. And within that, you're trying to pick up on the beauty that's there as well. And aesthetically, you kind of have that juxtaposition is mirrored in the look of what you do, isn't it? Because you have these kind of graphic black lines created by the printing process and then sort of soft wash of colour that you have. Yeah. I find the images that become the work by working directly onto the lino. I mean, I do do drawings and have sketchbooks, but often the

Angela Harding3:43

Yeah.

Angela Harding3:47

Yeah.

Presenter3:57

More powerful images that I do have been a sort of direct response to feeling something, seeing something, and making it.

Presenter4:04

And the stronger the feeling I have about something, the bigger the piece tends to be. Though you have your limitations through process. And also that's part of what I think um is why I became a printmaker, is I like the almost housework I don't like housework actually, I have to say, but the housework of

Presenter4:25

is it it imposes some rules on you. Okay, so what do you mean by that then? Well, when you when you paint, which I do paint as well, the options are so multiple, but when you print um you have a limited palette and you have a limited size to the press or the screen that you're using.

Angela Harding4:28

Okay, so what what

Presenter4:43

And generally, if you're an illustrator or a commissioned illustrator, you've got limited time. So all those things are constraints that you have to work within.

Angela Harding4:47

Z

Presenter4:52

Also as it's print, you're working in a mirror. So it's the reverse. Yes. You're working backwards. You've said that having dyslexia has been quite helpful to you in that regard. I think I found my place in the world through printmaking. I was officially doing a painting degree, but I found myself continually

Angela Harding4:57

Yeah.

Angela Harding5:02

Yeah.

Presenter5:09

Living in the print room and very comfortable with the images that I produced because it seemed to turn everything the right way around. So, tell me a little bit, Angela, about you know this idea of violence in creating your art and the appeal of that. What exactly do you mean? I think it stems from, again, if you go back to art school days, that drawing was very implicit in what I was doing, but most of my drawing came from dead things that I found, and it's like a traditional way of learning your craft, really. And in those days, I was living away from the college in Melton Mowbray and would cycle into college and collect roadkill on the way in and tie it to the handlebars. And that became very much my subject matter. As well as when I got back home, I was living in a little cottage. I would just boil up the heads and have a display of skulls.

Presenter6:03

That I would draw. So that was a good idea.

Angela Harding6:04

Did you create all this?

Angela Harding6:06

Uh

Presenter6:07

I was an art student. Everyone was up as well.

Angela Harding6:09

Everyone was up for space forget it.

Presenter6:11

And what about when you work your studio in Rutland? I've seen a photograph and it looks out onto countryside. It looks so tranquil and beautiful. Is it? Do you like it to work in peace and quiet or do you ever listen to music? Music is very important to the way I work and you're describing a sense of violence, but hopefully there's a sense of movement in what I do.

Angela Harding6:15

Yeah.

Angela Harding6:18

Do you like to

Presenter6:31

And when I start a new piece, if it's not for a commission for a book or it's a piece that's a personal piece of work, I will actually lay out the lino, put on some music, and the lino is all ready to be prepared and it's sort of inked black. And then I'll use chalk and start to build up the rhythm of the piece by the music and the drawing. Alright, well let's dive into your music today. Your first choice today, Angela Harding. What's it going to be and why have you chosen to take it with you? You can't listen to Angie Stone and not start dancing. And this one in particular, I want to thank you. It reminds me of so many things and the love I have for my family and my husband and just makes me want to move and hopefully makes them want to move too.

Speaker 37:14

G-A-N-G-S-T-A from what I see, but must we stay together forever? You see, cause ever is ever and ever, ever. Would nobody do it better than the S. Oh yes, I guess you're blessed. I put the rocks on your fingers, earrings jingle. No more single. You got a man in your life, and I understand what you're like. Your friends don't understand why you be singing me, but they don't understand that you love a cheating me. The way I walk, the way I look, the way I talk, the way we make love in the dark. Some things in life were meant to be. I think.

Presenter7:47

I want to thank you. Angie Stone featuring Snoop Dogg. So let's go back to the beginning then Angela. You were born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1960, the middle child of three daughters to Stephen and Joan. I believe your parents met at an evening class. What was it? My mum and dad met at a sculpture class. They both loved art. My mum was sculpting a head and my dad used to carry her head home for her every evening.

Presenter8:11

That's how they met. Tell me a bit more about your dad, Stephen. What did he do for a living? Well, my father was a sort of major influence on me and still is, even though he's not with us anymore. And my father was from an upper middle class family, really, in Stoke-on-Trent. And they were integral to the potteries industry. His family made specific tools that were used in the pottery industry. With mechanisation, those tools became redundant. So my grandfather, who I never met, had to sort of change the nature of the business. So my father actually broke out the mould of being part of this small family business to go to Cambridge. So he was the first one of the family to go to university. What did he study? He studied English when Professor Levis was there. He had a wonderful time. This was in the late 40s, 1940s. And always talked fondly of it and provided me with that love of poetry and educated me long after I

Angela Harding9:01

Yeah.

Angela Harding9:08

194.

Presenter9:18

Done very badly at school.

Presenter9:20

I got to know dad really, went in my sort of more in my twenties really. So you became closer when you were adults? Yeah, when we were adults. What did he do with his degree? What did he do for a job? Um well he actually wanted to stay on but the family said no, that he had to go and get a job and he worked for the British Council.

Angela Harding9:24

So you

Angela Harding9:25

Yeah, when we were adults.

Presenter9:35

He was in Izmir working in Turkey and one of his famous stories was that he was a very young, quite nervous man and he'd had an accident during the war which is why he wasn't in the services. He had really shaky hands. By a sort of series of circumstances, he'd only just arrived in Turkey. He found himself representing Britain on Bastille Day at the French embassy and was quite nervous about it. And yet there he was meeting the ambassador, the ambassador's wife and all the dignitaries. And they were served with a variety of cakes to which my father says he doesn't know why he did it, but he went for the meringue with cream. And with his shaky hands and his nervousness, the tension mounted on this meringue until he was opposite the ambassador's wife, who had had an ample chest on display, and there was a minor explosion.

Presenter10:35

Too bitch. He didn't know it's a white pool run.

Presenter10:39

But sadly, while my dad was uh working for the British Council, my grandfather had an accident. In those days there weren't many cars around, but he was it was quite wild, my grandfather, apparently, but he managed to have a car accident, and my father had to come back and and help with the business.

Presenter10:55

Your dad sometimes appears in your work, doesn't he? He does, yes. He was a great walker and a great whippet owner. And particularly in my early illustrations, and still to this date, if there's a little man with a stick and a whippet, it's generally my father. We walk many miles together. And he got to see your work. He got to see himself in your work. What did he think of that?

Angela Harding10:57

Peter.

Angela Harding11:09

Um we didn't

Presenter11:15

He did. He didn't get to see me working with the Poet Laureate, which he would have loved, but he did get to see me working with Faber and Faber doing book covers. The first book cover I did for them was John Keats, and I was able to give him a copy of that, and that was very special. Let's have some more music, Angela. It's your second choice today. What have you gone for and why? Well, this is Ted Hughes Reading The Thought Fox and I have my dad to thank, as I say, to a long introduction of many poets. But this one in particular is poignant because not only has my dad had a great love of Ted Hughes, as I do, but I actually got to illustrate the cover of The Thought Fox. So it feels apt to have this in his beautiful voice.

Angela Harding11:36

Well

Angela Harding11:59

The Thought Fox I imagine this midnight moment's forest.

Angela Harding12:04

Something else is alive, beside the clock's loneliness, and this blank page where my fingers move.

Angela Harding12:12

Through the window I see no star Something more near, though deeper within darkness Is entering the loneliness. Cold, delicate lays the dark snow, a fox's nose touches twig, leaf.

Angela Harding12:27

Two eyes serve a movement that now, and again now, and now, and now, sets neat prints into the snow between trees, and warily a lame shadow lags by stump and in hollow, of a body that is bold to come across clearings an eye, a widening, deepening greenness, brilliantly, concentratedly coming about its own business, till with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox it enters the dark hole of the head.

Angela Harding12:58

The window is starless still the clock ticks, the page is printed.

Presenter13:04

Ted Hughes reading his poem, The Thought Fox. So we've heard, Angela, about your dad and his love of poetry. What about your mum, Joan? So she studied art. Was she able to pursue that as a career?

Angela Harding13:11

Yeah.

Angela Harding13:15

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter13:16

Well my mum was unusual because she came from a very working class family, there's five of them in a tiny terraced house behind the Mitchlin factory in Stoke. So she really did reach high ambition by getting to go to art college and she studied sculpture in the 1950s and actually applied for a job to work in as a stonemason in a church. She applied by letter and signed the letter J Wood and sent her samples of her drawings and was lucky to get that job but when she turned up they were expecting John Wood not Joan Wood. So yeah she did that for a while before we were born and then she went into teaching and actually went into ceramics. She did ceramics for all of her life. Do you have any of her work?

Presenter14:05

She was never known for her delicate touch. They were all quite hefty and at her funeral we heaved some into the wake afterwards and people, if they could pick'em up and take'em, they could take'em with them. And so I have one in the bathroom, but I don't have much actually. So growing up you always loved wildlife, Angelo, and apparently you had a little orange case full of birds' feathers that you collected. I did, yes. The bird case was stuffed with a variety of feathers you would get from the butcher. I was friends with Janet Hodgkins, who who was a butcher's daughter and gave me um pheasant feathers and duck feathers you get then. But also I just love finding them in the garden or out on woods and this sort of jewel-like quality of a jay's bar winged feather.

Angela Harding14:27

I did.

Presenter14:52

Just the pigeon feathers are beautiful, you know that. Were you drawing them yet?

Presenter14:57

I was drawing, but not very well. My elder sister, Sarah, could draw like a young prodigy. She always had that ability to. So I was obviously in her shadow. And my younger sister is very good at drawing too. So we all, you know, we all had this artistic bent. And my mother, as I stated, come from a working class background and married my father, seeing it as a moving up the social ladder, really, and didn't want her daughters slipping back from that social ladder. And so she didn't want us to go to art school. So we all went.

Speaker 315:28

Okay.

Presenter15:35

But she'd gone then, so you know, by that time it was us making our own decisions. That's interesting though, isn't it, for the girl who had her her head carried home? Yeah, no, she and she remained artistic all her life. She was from a certain

Angela Harding15:37

So that

Angela Harding15:42

Yeah, no, she and she reminded artists

Presenter15:48

era and I think she just saw us uh me in particular I was supposed to be a nurse and marry a doctor and my sisters as she saw who were cleverer than me uh they would would have been the doctors. Oh wow, okay. So so she was prejudiced. She was quite prejudiced really about and quite quite bullying. So it was a bit of relief when we were

Angela Harding16:01

It's a

Angela Harding16:02

She was quite prejudiced really about

Presenter16:07

Left to our own devices with dad. You mentioned being dyslexic earlier, Angela. How did that affect you at school? Did it hold you back in your studies?

Presenter16:17

Really, I do much at school. It was in the days when dyslexia wasn't really recognised. I've never been formally.

Angela Harding16:22

Right.

Presenter16:24

diagnose but I think I have an unusual way of viewing the world so however that is is I'm a slow reader but I love books so I've just learnt to read at my own pace really. So what was the school's response to you struggling in they just ignored you really you just ended up in the naughty group which fitted me fine really. Did it? Yeah and when I got to I couldn't get hardly any O levels. I'd got enough you know to scrape through but then when I got to my mum wanted me to do this pre-nursing course. This is just before she left so I did sign on to do that but I spent

Angela Harding16:38

So, I think it's a very good thing.

Angela Harding16:41

You just

Angela Harding16:46

Yeah.

Angela Harding16:47

We did it.

Presenter17:02

the day getting there on the bus and then the rest of the day walking home, you know, so I didn't really attend much. And what about the naughty group and and fitting in there? What kind of thing did you get up to? Sitting next to me was Anthea Turner actually. We were in the same place. We were both in the naughty group. Yeah, we were both in the naughty group and we both did all right in the end.

Angela Harding17:16

You were both in the

Angela Harding17:18

We must

Angela Harding17:20

Alright in the end.

Presenter17:22

Yeah, she had the desk next to me. We went to a Catholic convent school. The best teachers were given to the more academic girls and so we got quite a few rejected nuns who were nice but interesting characters. Swore a lot for, you know, teachers. One of them in particular. Swearing nuns. Swearing nuns. The downside was I can only be naughty to a certain level because my mother taught there. I was in her class for some things, some lessons, when we were doing craft. But then because she was there, she wouldn't let me do art. That was one of the downsides. I had to do domestic science, which I failed abysmally. And I hate cooking with a passion to this day. Angela, let's go to the music. I want to hear your next piece. What have you chosen to take to the island? Well, a reflection of my love of birds. This is Benjamin Britton, whose music I love in many different pieces he does. And he represents Suffolk and the beauty of the reed beds around there. But this one in particular is about the cuckoo. And the cuckoo is a marvellous bird because it's mysterious. And actually, the village where I live is called Wing, ironically. And there's a myth that's not just for Wing, because other villages have it too, that to keep spring, the people of Wing captured a cuckoo and kept it to stop winter coming. And they were known as the Wing Fools. So I undoubtedly am one of those Wing Fools.

Angela Harding17:57

Downs

Angela Harding18:12

Yeah.

Angela Harding19:04

When I open my bills

Speaker 319:08

May I sing night and day In June I changed my tune

Speaker 319:15

In July for far afloat in all

Angela Harding19:24

Yeah.

Angela Harding19:28

Play both.

Presenter19:41

Cuckoo from Benjamin Britton's Songs from Friday Afternoons, sung by the choir of Downside School, Pearlie, with Viola Tonnard on the piano, and Benjamin Britton conducting.

Presenter19:51

So Angela Harding, you mentioned your mum leaving. Your parents divorced when you were in your teens. What impact did that have on you?

Presenter20:00

Well, it's sort of we'd gone from this very conventional, aspiring, middle-class family, Catholic, the Catholicism was very important, going to church on a Sunday and all the feast days in between, you know, there's a lot of time spent at church to all of a sudden the whole thing sort of imploding. And I think that's sort of partly why we all ended up at art school as well. You know, it was like we were all a bit lost, I think, really. But at the time, I would have been fifteen, sixteen, and I officially went with my mum as we didn't have a house to go to. So me and my little sister were with my granddad, sharing a bed, not just a room, a bed with pillows down the middle to stop us fighting. And my elder sister was with my dad in my other grandmother's. But eventually everything obviously got sorted out and it became apparent that my little sister, even though she was very little at the time, she would only been 10, 11, wasn't going to stay with my mother and went to live with my father who

Presenter21:05

Hadn't been awarded the finances from the breakup. So my mum got the money, as it did happen in those days, thinking, I think the judge thinking that, you know, to provide for the children. But she got the money, but she didn't take the children really. There is an assumption that children will stay close to their mum. And obviously, I think you can hear you just adored your dad, and the way that you're talking about him and your relationship with your mum sounds more complex. Yes. How did you feel and how did you deal with?

Angela Harding21:22

Yeah.

Angela Harding21:25

Okay.

Presenter21:32

living with your dad and being supported by a single dad because it's it's unusual now. It must have been more unusual. It was very unusual. I suppose I give thanks to my boyfriends at the Times families who took you in and I became part of their families really. And so my mum got offered a job in Yorkshire.

Angela Harding21:37

It was alright.

Angela Harding21:45

And

Presenter21:48

And she left and I think she

Presenter21:52

You know, we weren't tiny babies, but we were a long way off grown up. But I don't think she could see a way of.

Presenter21:59

Of being part of our lives, it was easier to go away and start again. And she did have somebody she was hoping, I think, to form a relationship with, but it never worked out. So, neither my mum nor my dad ever met anybody. They lived all their lives on their own. And were you able to maintain contact with her? I would see her probably once a year, which was always fraught. So.

Presenter22:22

No, not really. She was a harsh person to do that because I can't imagine doing that to my children. She had great energy, and I thank her for that. Hopefully, I have that too. And so, you made it to Hart College, studied for a fine art degree at Leicester Polytechnic. Yeah. Did you enjoy your time there? I did. I think that's when I started to really find my feet. You got a first, Angela. Yeah. For someone who struggled at school and had been told that they didn't have the potential to do what you wanted to do, that must have been so rewarding. It was, yes. My father, blessed him, he came to see the degree show and took me out for knicker block of glory to celebrate. And my mum, I told by telephone, and she said, first, are you sure?

Angela Harding22:37

At Leicester Polytechnic. Did you enjoy yourself?

Angela Harding22:45

Yeah.

Angela Harding22:51

Do you do what you

Presenter23:09

But you know that she just couldn't quite believe it. But I did sell work and I sold enough work from that show to fund my first solo trip across Europe. I got on what's called the Magic Bus, which is three days non-stop from London, Victoria to Athens with one or two adventures on the way. Fantastic. Yeah, it was that first finding your love of travel really and you know had this sort of urge to travel independently and meet people. Angela, it's time to go to the music. Tell us about your next disc. Well this sort of wild time I would say long before children and responsibilities and the gathering of people at my dad's cottage. Because my dad wasn't there, he bought the house but it was just a load of art students. So we've to celebrate this we've got public image rise.

Angela Harding23:42

Well this sort of

Speaker 323:59

Could be wrong

Speaker 324:02

I could be right.

Speaker 324:10

Could be wrong

Speaker 224:15

I could be wrong, I could be right I could be black, I could be white I could be right, I could be wrong I could be white, I could be b

Speaker 324:26

You time is time you're second skin

Angela Harding24:29

Uh

Presenter24:30

Public Image Limited and Rise.

Presenter24:35

So Angela, after your degree, you spent some time travelling. You were doing voluntary service overseas in Bangladesh. What motivated you to do that? Was it the work itself or were you out for an adventure?

Presenter24:46

I think if I'm honest, I was out for an adventure and I think.

Presenter24:51

I took more than I gave, I think, with the VSO. I worked in a rehab centre for paralysed people. You arrived and you did three months at language school, so I was my pidgin Bengali, he was still there, slightly. And then in the afternoons, in those three months, you got to know the people in the project. And my department was a tin shed, which was the OT department. And we were setting up bridges between the commercial world and the hospital world. And my role really was to try and improve those designs they were doing. We had one tin shed as a carpentry department, and the other tin shed was my craft OT department. And the other part of my job was to visit people who'd been released to go back into the community because the alternative was begging. So some people made that choice, but we were trying to provide

Angela Harding25:40

Yeah.

Angela Harding25:42

So

Presenter25:46

Income and one of these products was teddy bears and my I think it was virtually my first week of working solo I was visiting an ex-patient who is now rehabilitated back to her home and so I went to visit her in this tiny camp and collecting the teddy bears these were very important source of income for this lady and so I gathered up the teddy bears ready to take to get a good price and establish the market that would then go forward for her in the future and I got into the rickshaw with the sample bears beautifully packaged and said to the rickshaw driver in my pigeon Bengali please take me to whatever address it was it's obviously a long time ago since I was there they have an open sewer system and the people just go to the toilet in the street and there's areas where the poo gathers into like a large pit and on this particular day there was quite a sort of crust formed which I hadn't noticed that as I got out of the rickshaw I thought what was solid ground wasn't solid ground and I fell into an open sewer up to my waist but all I could think about was these teddy bears which I held in my arms above my head and kindly people pulled me out of the sewer and my flip-flops floated to the top.

Angela Harding26:57

Hanai

Presenter27:16

And then I looked at the ritual driver and said in my Pidgin Bengali, Can you take me back?

Presenter27:23

have a a good shower and the teddy bears were all right and all was well. Thank goodness. You headed back to Britain eventually, Angela, and you became the artist in residence at Uppingham School. And it was there that you met your first husband Tim.

Angela Harding27:37

Yeah.

Presenter27:40

Now, the two of you started a family, but I'm sorry to say that your first daughter, Lydia, was born very prematurely. She was. You lost her. She couldn't be saved. Yes. I think that nowadays might be different, but she was not further enough along to be classed as a stillborn, but that's what it felt like to me, the little baby girl that we had. It must have been a devastating experience. It was, it was. And I feel for every woman who's had to go through that, and every father, of course, and it was difficult for Tim as well. And pregnancy was not an easy route for me. After that, I fell pregnant again and ended up in hospital again. And it was very touch and go whether I kept Holly, my daughter. And I remember seeing the scan with all the blood clots around her and feeling so responsible. You know, you had Holly and then you had your son George as well. Were you supported? Were you able to talk about the difficulties that you had in having your family with people? You know, as you say, the conversation then wasn't where it is now. It's difficult enough now to talk about baby loss. I will never forget, obviously, that daughter. But there was, I think, of those days a sort of sweep it under the carpet and get on with it, sort of a bit more attitude, really. And thankfully, I think those things have changed.

Angela Harding27:46

She was, yes.

Angela Harding27:59

Yeah.

Angela Harding28:03

Yeah.

Angela Harding28:35

George George as well.

Angela Harding28:45

No, it's difficult enough now to talk about

Angela Harding28:57

Yeah.

Presenter29:02

Angela, it's time to hear your fifth choice today. What's it going to be? Okay, well this is sort of a family tune, the difficulties of having a family and then the family arriving. And I suppose it's such a soft, beautiful song. It's also an introduction to my husband Mark, who when I met him, had only three records. He had the complete works of Leonard Cohen, Manic Street Preachers and Vinder Loo.

Presenter29:31

By Fat Legs. Yeah. Well, it's got the classics. Why would you need any more? And this Anthony and the Johnsons was the first, I think it was a C D in those days that we bought together that expanded the collection.

Angela Harding29:32

Audio.

Angela Harding29:34

Yeah.

Presenter29:44

Going beyond fat layers. Yes.

Presenter29:47

But we both love this and my husband's a man of great energy, so I I I sort of toyed with getting something that was a bit wilder, but in the end I think this is sums us all up.

Speaker 329:58

Looms and ocean full of grief and reach

Speaker 330:14

The lady is going in.

Speaker 330:19

And lightning's destroyed.

Speaker 330:24

They destroy your

Speaker 330:28

Thang in Showy Wall.

Presenter30:33

Antonina Johnsons and My Lady Story.

Presenter30:37

Angela Harding, you eventually got your own studio in 2008, I think. You were in your late 40s by then and you decided that was the right time to make a go of it as a professional artist. Yes. What had been stopping you and what changed? Well, after doing the part-time MA, I did a series of part-time teaching jobs working in higher education. And it's quite exhausting going from college to college. And in between, I was doing my work.

Angela Harding30:49

Yeah.

Presenter31:04

But not as I do now. And then I was also part of a charity called Letterprint Workshop, which took quite a lot of my time. And I heard of a job working for an art consultancy, which meant actually being on the other side. It was commissioning artists for site-specific areas and actually working with professional artists. It opened my eyes actually to, well, there's people who make a living out there. So I did that job for just three years and stopped making while I was doing it and learnt so much, as much as being at art school, I think, really. And so when that job came to an end, and I was near my sort of late 40s, I thought you've got to give it a proper go or forget about it. And it coincided with me and my husband, my first husband got divorced and all the financial settlement had been sorted out. So I paid myself a wage and gave myself a time frame and set some goals. And I gave myself, yeah, a certain amount of time. And then if I didn't make a living, I would have to go and get another job. Was it scary? It was scary. It was scary because I'd done, you know, I'd always got sort of part-time income coming in. You knew you were getting a certain amount of money. I was by this time living with Mark and he got two children. I'd got two children. We've got a mortgage, all those pressures of not having a lot of money. So when you do give up a regular income, it's sort of like you don't believe it's ever going to come out of thin air. How are you going to create it? But I think Mark, being a small businessman who'd worked for himself all his life, you know, I could see he set that example and gave me the encouragement to say, you can do this. And this was at this point that I changed my style quite a bit to be more a Lino cut artist because I could do it at home. I didn't have to go and use a lot of equipment and I could do it quickly. And so after getting into certain galleries, I was contacted by a card publisher that did specific printmaking cards. And that was a big stepping stone to becoming a professional because they were like little adverts going out with your images on.

Presenter33:27

Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting, isn't it, that balance between the art and the business, the two sides of that coin.

Angela Harding33:32

The two sides

Presenter33:35

How disciplined are you? I mean, you know, can you engage your creativity in business hours or d do you have to wait for inspiration to strike? I thank my children for setting that discipline because all those years back when they were little, when I think I had a lot more energy, if I'm honest, I would put them to bed about half past seven and then I would always start work again, you know, and I kept that discipline for years of

Angela Harding33:41

Strike.

Presenter33:57

of my own time of making things being in the evening. I've I followed that discipline through and also the big difference of this sort of reinvention of my art career at that point was the digital age and my children being teenagers they helped me with Instagram and as it was then Twitter you know though so I engaged them in my business. Social media money.

Angela Harding34:22

Social media managers.

Presenter34:25

And yeah, no, I've always been a disciplined person too, and worked hard.

Presenter34:30

I think we should have some more music, Angela Harding. It's your sixth choice today. Yes, well, this is Josephine Baker. And if anybody knows me, they know I love a party. And La Conga is a sort of a bit of a family joke. If anybody asks you a song that represents me, the children would come up with, and the young people would come up with this one. But also, for me, it reminds me of this fantastic community that I've found myself surrounded by fellow artists. Not that we see each other a lot, but there's a body of printmakers and illustrators working in publishing. And I was lucky enough to be invited to Mark Hold's 50th birthday held in York Cemetery at this mausoleum. And the ticket that came was like a work of art in itself. The theme of the party was a French Bohemian.

Angela Harding34:34

Yeah.

Presenter35:25

Some people had just got pieces of paper and made these amazing outfits. I'd gone dressed as Gerard de Nouvelle, who is a poet from Paris, who walked the streets of Paris with a lobster on a blue ribbon, and

Presenter35:42

I thought this is all very well and good till I found myself in my hotel room having to leave it on my own, dressed in my outfit, the lobster and a moustache.

Presenter35:52

Anyway, La Conga was part of the music at this party was just amazing and they had a brass band, you know, playing pop music as well as doing the conga and we all did this sort of mad conga around this with the lobster? With the lobster, yes, the lobster on a blue ribbon. Good to know.

Angela Harding36:14

Yeah.

Presenter36:17

Yeah. Yeah, bleep.

Presenter36:20

Move your lady.

Presenter36:23

Yeah.

Angela Harding36:24

Yes.

Speaker 236:25

Comte la combat, yes, blicoti, pour dan fais, pour tonte, yes, la combat, yes, la combat, blic la combat, yes.

Presenter36:45

Josephine Baker and La Conga Plicotti.

Presenter36:48

Angela Harding, you share a boat with your second husband Mark and sail around the British Isles. He's built you a special table so that you can work while you're at sea. Talk me through it. He has, yes. Mark's a former carpenter, cabinet maker, very skilled man. And the boat is a clinker-built boat, wooden boat, and made various adjustments on board for me to be able to do my work. But obviously when he's sailing, he needs to be able to fold everything away. And the little table that we have that comes down for me to work on, I've done many a book cover on there, including Val McDermott's Christmas is Murder. That was done on the Butley River. Oh, how perfect.

Speaker 337:27

Uh

Speaker 237:27

What?

Speaker 337:27

Uh

Angela Harding37:27

Uh

Presenter37:29

So, you're happy to be creative away from the studio? You don't have to be in Wildlife. No, all I need is a couple of chisels and a piece of lino, and off I go. It's fantastic for watching geese gathering. In the evening, you can sit on the back of the boat, and these great squadrons of Canada and grey-lag geese go over you. Another very special place, right at the other end of the country, that I know you visited, was former castaway Isabella Tree's estate, NEP, because you won an award for your illustration for her book Wilding.

Angela Harding37:32

It would have to be in the middle of the

Angela Harding37:57

Yeah.

Presenter38:03

And you spent some weeks on the estate to gain inspiration. What did you see? What did you do? I did. She gave me a little bothy to live in in the middle of the estate from which I could become part of being in the place rather than just visiting for the day and doing a few sketches. Actually, waking up there and seeing the fox trotting round the edge of the pond and looking for lunch or breakfast, most likely, or watching the deer. I take my bike, which I do everywhere, and you can pedal round and see things from one end of the estate to the other. And then come back and I'd have pre-prepared blocks ready to do pieces for the book. And I was so sort of enamoured by what I saw there. There's such a response to what Isabella and her family have done to re-engaging with nature, to revitalising, to bringing back things that have been on the edge of trouble, really. And cycling round the lanes of the estate was like being back in my youth. The amount of wildflowers and birds, and particularly jays. And jays are a very integral part of the natural world there in that they eat acorns and the acorns they don't eat, they bury in the ground. And from that, then you get more oak trees coming. So one of the pieces that I did that's on in the book is about the jays and also the deer, the beautiful red deer that wander around the estate. And I spent one day looking for the deer all over the place to come back to then find them outside the house.

Angela Harding38:08

I did.

Presenter39:46

It's always the last place you have.

Angela Harding39:46

The last bit.

Presenter39:49

Yeah. Angela, anybody walking into a bookshop today will see your beautiful eye catching covers. How much detail are you given about a manuscript before you start working on a cover for a book?

Angela Harding39:58

Bullshit.

Presenter40:01

I think it's an unknown thing that actually you're getting hardly anything. You're giving a brief and a synopsis. In the early days, that would be a very short synopsis and quite a tight brief. But as I became more established as an illustrator of books, I was given more trust to do more things that I felt were the right thing. But then working with Simon Armitage, he actually sent the poems for the book Blossom Eyes before the book was published. And that's such a different way of working. And it almost felt like being an art student again, that you were able to have an instinctive and emotional response to the words that you've been given. And words and music are the way I work. So to have his words line my studio before anybody'd seen them, it was a huge privilege and such a different way to work. And I hope

Presenter40:59

made the book a s uh gave the book a certain energy. Angela, I think on that note we should have your next disc. Well, this is Simon Armitage's band L Y R and this is a a particular favourite called Scullington Tree.

Angela Harding41:20

Scarlett, Scarlett.

Angela Harding41:25

Come believe.

Angela Harding41:33

Deep inside there's a light for a leaf skeleton tree.

Angela Harding41:39

Skeleton tree

Angela Harding41:43

Come believe.

Presenter41:47

L Y R and Skeleton Tree. So Angela Hardin, there is of course the saying about not judging a book by its cover, but as someone who spends such a long time and puts so much work into the covers you create, what do you hope that people see when they look at yours?

Angela Harding41:54

Yeah.

Presenter42:03

Well, mine and other people's. There's a lot of artists working in book covers and it would be very nice if publishers just made the illustrators' names a little bit bigger. I mean, I'm very lucky that they do with mine now, but all illustrators work very hard on those covers and they are what you know gets books notice. I was lucky that my sort of reinvention of myself in this sort of later part of my life to become a professional artist coincided with publishers getting a bit worried about the digital age and people all buying Kindles. And I think there was actually more effort put into the decorative book, the beautiful book, the gift book. I think also there's a rekindling love at that time that I fell into of craft process that people got a bit tired of seeing illustrator, you know, the programme covers done by that. And whatever it is about the wobbly broken line of an artist's work or my own, mine is particularly wobbly, but other people's aren't. But it shows the personality and the person and people respond to that. And it's a wonderful thing to see your work in print, you know. We used to call it leaping up and down in the kitchen moments when something new happened in my career. And when I had my first book cover, that was a leaping up and down moment. And then actually when I saw it in a shop, I actually did leap up and down.

Angela Harding42:39

The beach

Presenter43:28

And do you think that kind of treasuring of the handmade and the item and the human made will continue even in this dawning age of AI? Yes, well, I have seen my own work transferred into AI, which is

Angela Harding43:35

Dawning age of AI.

Presenter43:41

I didn't think it looked like my work anymore, but I've seen the same book cover done by AI with given the same brief. What are you able to do anything about that? Not really, because it was a foreign publication. They'd kept the same black and whites that are done inside, but they'd changed the cover through AI. And it, well, to my eyes, it looked very odd, but I don't know what their book sale figures are like. So it's a worrying time for all of us in the creative industries. But I still have faith, I'm afraid, that people will use artists. Maybe that's naive of me. I hope you're right, and me too. Now, it's time to cast you away, Angela. And there's a lot in your life which actually makes me feel quite optimistic about your time on the island, including the fact that you like your own company and you like going back to basics when you travel. In fact, you once cycled on your own.

Angela Harding44:19

Two.

Angela Harding44:22

Angela

Presenter44:35

In quite, you know, DIY conditions, quite kind of lo-fi conditions, we might say. Ar three thousand miles around the coastline of the UK? Yes. I was only twenty four, twenty five at the time, and I didn't drive, so I used to cycle everywhere, so I was particularly fit, but I did do some training before it.

Angela Harding44:42

Are you kidding me?

Presenter44:53

And most people go were doing land zone to Johnny Groves, but no, because of my really bad sense of direction, I thought if I keep the sea on one side I won't get lost.

Angela Harding45:03

Get lost.

Presenter45:06

It was crazy thinking because I was living in the Midlands at the time so I cycled from I was living in Stoke, yeah, so a bit higher up cycled from there to Chester then all round the Welsh coast down to Land's End. I only went as far as the south coast as far as Brighton and then went straight up the east coast over the Tilbury Docks until I got to John Agroats and then camping all the way. Yeah, camping, sleeping in bush shelters. I'm so glad my children are not like me.

Presenter45:37

But I do think this this augurs well for the island. How do you feel about people, that's I'm gonna miss people and obviously my family. What kind of landscape are you hoping for?

Angela Harding45:37

But I do think that

Angela Harding45:44

Yeah.

Presenter45:48

Well, in my mind's eye, I was thinking about this. The island I picture as, you know, Jason the Argonauts, sort of like one of those magical islands where you never know what you might meet a sort of statue that comes to life around the corner. That's in my mind's eye, it is a magical place that I'm going to end up, I reckon. Yes, I love that idea, absolutely. Well, one more track before we cast you away. What's it going to be? Your final choice? Well, this is for all the strong women that I know. And I came across this track very recently on my residency in Far Isle. The wonderful Far Isle Marie, as she calls herself, is a woman of immense energy. As yes, Marie introduced me to this track, and I just feel it's got the energy, the power, and the force that you need as a woman.

Speaker 246:03

Ooh.

Presenter46:40

to drive you through to what you want to achieve. So thank you, Marie, for introducing me to this wonderful piece of music. This is Marie La Foray with Marie Dassur, Marie Collaire.

Presenter47:08

Marie du saur c'esti que tu mesur norma tu quatien sur me que l'estre mi que tonsani.

Presenter47:20

Maricola El existo sihi pe piana tonción.

Presenter47:26

Teuja d'Ar et ja distant, mi la foitur tou l'étom.

Presenter47:33

Marie La Faure and Marie Du Sir Marie Collaire. So Angela Hardig, I'm going to send you away to the island. I will give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book with you. What will that be? I'm going to take Adam Nicholson's Bird School, A Beginner in the Wood. This one I particularly love because it's about birds that we see every day and it's about getting to know them better. And it's a bit naughty because it has got Thomas Buick's illustrations at the back as well. So you're sneaking in. I'm sneaking in some of, you know, my great love is Thomas Buick. And with a beautiful front cover by the artist Clive Hicks Jenkins. And also, as I said earlier, I believe this is a magic island that I'm going to. And magically, an iPhone will appear for me just to scan the QI card so I can hear the bird songs that it refers to as well. Well, that's a lovely idea for readers at home, but no communication devices on the island, I'm afraid. You are cast away. I'm told, though, that you have a special request about the Shakespeare. What's that? I do. I'd like, I know you get the complete works of Shakespeare, but I would like, as part of that, Twelfth Night Illustrated by Eric Ravilius, which is another one of my favourite artists. So I'm sneaking quite a bit of naughtiness in here, I'm afraid. Well, you can't do you the iPhone. Okay. But I can definitely give you the revilius. Brilliant. That seems fair enough. I'll see you. That is very fair. Thank you.

Angela Harding48:05

And sneak.

Angela Harding48:52

Well you can't do the iPhone.

Angela Harding48:55

Brilliant.

Angela Harding48:57

That is very fair.

Presenter48:59

What about a luxury item? What will that be? Well, my luxury is actually when I buy Lino, it comes in a roll, which is usually about three meters, which is a so that's that's a lot of Lino. But I would like a three metre roll of Lino ready prepared

Presenter49:16

So you paint it black so that as you chisel you can see what you're doing. But every two feet I would like a strategic glass of champagne to encourage the

Presenter49:26

So you're working your way along. Yeah.

Angela Harding49:27

Yeah.

Presenter49:28

Yeah, to the champagne. This is a magical island. Yeah, absolutely. It's yours.

Presenter49:33

And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves first? I think because it's a sort of summary of me, my love of movement, love my family, it would be Angie Stone. I want to thank you.

Presenter49:47

Angela Harding, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you, Lauren. It's been a joy.

Presenter50:05

Hello, it was lovely chatting to Angela and I hope she's very happy on her island making new liner cuts with a little glass of champagne to help the creative process along. There are more than 2,000 programmes in our archive that you can listen to. We've cast many other artists away over the years including Helen Oxenbury, Maggie Hambling and Quentin Blake. You'll also find Angela's friend, the poet laureate Simon Armitage in there too. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or on our own Desert Island Disc's website. The studio manager for today's programme was Jackie Marjoram. The executive production coordinator was Susie Roylands. The assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky. The content editor was Mugabe Turia and the producer was Sarah Taylor. Join me next time when my guest will be the musician, Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood.

Speaker 351:09

Uh

Presenter51:09

Adventure Back.

Presenter51:11

Hello, hello, and welcome to Nature Bang. I'm Becky Ripley, I'm Emily Knight. And in this series from BBC Radio 4, we look to the natural world to answer some of life's big questions. Like, how can a brainless slime mold help us solve complex mapping problems? And what can an octopus teach us about the relationship between mind and body? It really stretches your understanding of consciousness. With the help of evolutionary biologists, I'm actually always very comfortable comparing us to other species.

Angela Harding51:43

Philosophers. You never really know what it could be like to be another creature.

Presenter51:47

And spongologists. Is that your job title? Are you a spongologist? Well, I am in certain spheres. It's science meets storytelling. With a philosophical twist.

Speaker 251:56

It really gets to the heart of free will and what it means to be you.

Presenter52:00

So if you want to find out more about yourself via cockatoos that dance, frogs that freeze, and single-cell amoebas that design border policies, subscribe to NatureBang from BBC Radio 4, available on BBC Sounds.