Lunching Ladies: the visual story behind the launch of our Maps of Colour

Our visual story is a path towards or from Lunching Ladies, which works beautifully with some or all of these colours: Bright Star, Milk, Lark, Paper & String, Winifred Green, At The Bay, All the Queen’s Horses and Plume.

“A river running, the slick of a horse’s rump, a painting of flowers, Keats, friendships, the flight of a lark and a brown paper parcel tied up with string-  all primeval and real sources of joy.”

For the launch of our Maps of Colour we undertook a visual exploration of that gathering of ‘things’ in the Lunching Ladies map.

Beginning with our Lunching Lady muse, a book of Keats’ letters to Fanny gives us the beauty of Bright Star. “I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days” - one of the most beautiful sentences to be written from one to another. Milk in a beautiful glass bottle is an ode to simple living and quiet, easy things. Lark, a fleeting bird and Plume a handful of feathers - whimsical reminders of flight and freedom. Nostalgic hand tied parcels of waxy paper and humble string give us Paper & String. Winifred Nicholson is one of my favourite artists - and a source of great inspiration and pleasure. Her paintings are immersive teachers in colour. At The Bay is our river running - and a memory for me of a barefoot and watery childhood in New Zealand. All The Queen’s Horses a marker of early mornings in Chelsea alongside the Guards out hacking.

All of these things gather together to create something more than the sum of the parts - a home, and a story of someone who has lived a life, of markers and memories.

Photography by Ellen Christina Hancock