Alice Pattullo’s richly detailed illustrations are shaped by a lifelong fascination with folklore, museums, country fairs and the curious objects that connect us to the past. Working from her East London studio, she draws inspiration from archives, vintage books and everyday discoveries, creating joyful, story-filled compositions that celebrate craft and tradition. We caught up with Alice to talk about her inspirations, collections and the ideas behind her first Art Angels designs.
Your work often evokes the sense of a cabinet of curiosities, where every object seems to carry a story. What kinds of things have been catching your eye recently?
Yes, my eye is drawn all over the place, which I think culminates in my rather ‘full’ artworks. I went on a Polish folk art trip last year (hosted by Folka), which included visiting Łyse on Palm Sunday, where they parade huge ‘palms’ completely adorned in paper flowers. When I got home, I got very into making those, and now I can’t help but look out for and spot them everywhere. I even spotted some huge ones in a high street window display the other day.
I’m also currently quite obsessed with embroidered signature or autograph quilts and shirts. The patchwork quilts (also known as friendship quilts) were made up of squares that had been signed and embroidered by the maker’s friends or community and then patched together into a keepsake. The shirts, which I love, were a predecessor of the school-leaving tradition of getting your friends to sign your school shirt, but there are some fabulous examples from around the 1930s to late 1950s where all the names were then embroidered in multicoloured threads and are utterly charming.
I’ve started making my own and getting my family and friends to sign my jumper so I can stitch on the names; it is so lovely seeing all the different handwriting in stitch.
If we could peek inside your studio drawers and shelves, what objects or treasures would tell us the most about you?
Probably the thousands of scraps of paper with lists and notes on tell a lot about me. Often I write down the same thing over and over again and never refer back to it, but can’t stop writing it down; I think the act of writing it down gets whatever is buzzing around my head out of it.
The wall around my desk has a lot of favourite postcards and images. For example, a Pierre Bonnard calendar page, a postcard of Saint Odilia surrounded by rats (protector against eye pain and rat infestation), The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, several cat drawings and paintings, a collection of quotes I’ve read and liked, an engraving of a surgery ‘where all fantasy and follies are purged’, a painting of two horses on hills, a Fra Angelico fresco, a coaster that is just a photo of a pepperoni pizza, a lovely faded bit of Christmas lametta, and a photocopied photo of a bread-dough woman (I think from my uni days), which highlights my main interests: folk art and food!
I hung my Arcadia print up, which depicts my Mum and Dad’s allotment, a beloved place. I also got a great collection of old competition rosettes at Spitalfields Market when I was working on these cards that are dangling over my computer, reminding me to be a winner!
My bookshelf is very reflective of my inspirations and loves too. I have monographs of all my favourite artists (Edward Bawden, Barbara Jones, Enid Marx and Eric Ravilious) that I regularly leaf through, as well as many books on British and American folk art, British superstitions and folklore, and just esoteric topics that catch my eye that I think might spark an idea, or be useful as reference for a future commission.
I also have lots of vintage books (mainly children’s books) that I keep for the illustrations and print quality, like the beautiful lithographed Puffin Picture Books and Clarke Hutton’s A Picture History Of… series, which I like to look at for mark-making techniques and colour inspiration.
What makes a house feel like home to you?
I think pictures on the wall and a shelf of books. I live in a rented property in London, so there is a limit to how much of my own stamp I can put on the space to make it ‘home’, but I find that as long as I have my favourite artworks and books around me, it feels like home.
I genuinely enjoy looking at them every day. And ideally at least a little space to display trinkets and tat. Basically, familiar clutter.
Do ideas for your projects arrive fully formed, or do they emerge through research and making?
I don’t think they arrive fully formed, no, but I do a lot of reading and research to get to a point where I think, ‘this is a project’ to go forward with.
I constantly jot down things or take photos on my phone of things that I’ve seen that have piqued my interest, or ideas, or phrases, or compositions, which I then either forget about or keep coming back to and adding to before they might start developing into something more final.
I tend to have a vague sketch or composition, or at least a list of what I want to include in a finished image, but that tends to develop and change as I’m making it. I often draw lots of separate elements, which I sort of patchwork together to make my finished pieces (hence the cabinet of curiosities feel), so things often chop and change at that point.
I do tend to work in self-imposed ‘series’ or ‘projects’, which I think comes from being used to working on commissioned briefs. Whilst in my own work I allow for more time, and ideas to grow a little more organically, I do also like to self-impose constraints.
Is there a particular town, landscape, museum or archive that never fails to spark ideas?
Maybe an obvious one, but I do love the V&A. The new V&A East Storehouse has just opened a stone’s throw from my studio, which is great to have so near, but at the original Cromwell Road site I have my favourite things I like to go and look at each time I’m there (for example Anna Maria Garthwaite’s paper cut, the stumpwork casket in the same room, and the ceramics galleries).
I love the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden, where I feel like I always see something by the Great Bardfield artists that I’ve never seen before.
The Glandford Shell Museum holds a special place in my heart from childhood. I love little local museums that still have handwritten labels and often a very esoteric collection. I’m thinking of Whitby Museum, Kirkcudbright Stewartry Museum, as well as the Shell Museum.
I finally made it back to the Ethnographic Museum in Kraków in winter, which was very inspirational. I’d been regularly looking back at photos I’d taken on a visit more than a decade before, so it was nice to update those.
I went back to Beamish last year for the first time as an adult and found that very inspirational. I don’t think I appreciated what an amazing archive it was as a child; I just wanted to go to the ye olde sweet shop.
Your work often draws on the past. Is there a tradition, object or piece of folklore you’d hate to see disappear?
Yes, I’m not sure why—maybe as a retreat from, or escape into, something beyond modern life? It does feel like a struggle some days. I do always seem to have been slightly nostalgic for a time that wasn’t my own, but I’ve never been able to quite put my finger on why.
I actually feel like there is a real resurgence of interest in British folklore and local customs and traditions at the moment, which is allowing them to be (re)discovered by a younger and wider audience, which is wonderful to see.
I’d hate to see the country fair disappear, but from the ones I’ve visited there’s still a great popularity that will keep them going, as they serve as a local community event and showcase. Although, having said that, the London Lambeth Country Show has been cancelled this year due to a lack of funding, so I do hope that comes back.
Something I do feel is dying out is letter writing. Whilst sending a card (thank you, AA!) is still customary, I feel like we don’t write longer letters anymore. I’m guilty of this too. I know modern convenience has usurped this (along with inflated stamp costs), but there is something lovely about both taking the time to sit and write an update to loved ones and receiving one.
If your work had a soundtrack, what would be playing?
I’d like to say something more interesting, but my mornings are generally fuelled by Radio 6 in the studio and often Desert Island Discs in the afternoon, so it would probably just be a BBC broadcast featuring Lauren Laverne.
I’m also alternating between listening to Aldous Harding, Kevin Morby’s new album and George Michael’s Too Funky at the moment. Quite a combination.
Can you tell us about the inspirations for your Art Angels pieces?
Yes, I’d been thinking that the country fair would be a lovely starting point for a print and had been visiting various shows around the country as research. Because there are so many different events and tents, there are lots of inspirations and little ‘stories’ to draw from.
The horticultural tents have a particular aesthetic appeal, with their organised rows of vegetables and flowers. I love how each competitor has their own little flourish as to how they choose to present their peas on a plate, for example, and how amusing and biting some of the judges’ comments can be.
My wrapping paper design was an image I’d kept coming back to year after year, adding little vignettes of things I’d seen that year into it. I’ve still got lots more related scenes I want to draw that I couldn’t fit in, namely the heavy horses and the gig racing.
The Lion and Unicorn, rather than being heraldic, are more inspired by the French Lady and the Unicorn millefleur tapestries, so they are happily sitting amongst the flowers together. I think, living a very urban life in London, I do vicariously channel my love for gardens, nature and plants into my work.
My forthcoming Frost Fair advent calendar travels through time, taking inspiration from activities and events from both the Great Fair of the winter of 1683–84 and the most famous and final fair of 1814.
The London Frost Fairs were a phenomenon that spanned more than 200 years, with the last fair being held in 1814. When London was at its coldest, the River Thames would freeze over, stopping transport along the river and forcing Londoners to take their trades onto the ice.
Over time this resulted in a winter-long spectacle where visitors could experience all sorts on the ice, including ice skating, sledging, nine-pin bowling, fox hunting, rides in horse-drawn boats and, purportedly, one year watching an elephant being paraded across the ice. You could treat yourself to hot chocolate, gingerbread, hot codlins, spit-roasted ox and purl (a hot ale mixed with gin and spices) from makeshift pubs in tents made from sails held up with oars. If you could bear the queues, you could even go home with a personalised printed souvenir from one of the multiple printing presses set up on the ice.
There is much printed ephemera (some printed on the ice itself) depicting the fun and festivities on the frozen Thames, and these were a huge inspiration for my advent calendar. They provide lists, illustrations and maps of the different entertainments that were held on the ice, while also offering a historical reference for the riverside architectural backdrop that informed my composition.
What are you excited to explore next, whether in your work or beyond it?
I’ve got quite a busy summer of commissions, so I’m going to have little free time, but I hope to focus a bit more on my own work again in the autumn.
I have a big list over my desk of ideas I’m excited to explore, but I’m not sure which to tackle first. Watch this space.
I’m also hoping to master making a new paper flower variety to add to my collection. I’m thinking gladioli next!
Most imminently, I’m looking forward to a fleeting visit back home to Newcastle, where I hope to squeeze in a walk around St Mary’s Lighthouse to see the seals.
