Alice-Andrea Ewing
Artist and founder-sculptor
Alice Andrea Ewing is an artist and founder-sculptor based in Suffolk. She runs her own foundry and studio alongside the craft-design studio, Pomarius. Pomarius produces limited edition bronze casts of the produce of gardens and notable botanical sites around the UK. Each work is a unique bronze cast produced through an adaption of the Italian or Renaissance lost wax process. Alice has exhibited in the UK, USA, Australia and the Netherlands, and collaborated with the fashion brand Loewe on their collections.
Your three favourite flowers?
I’m a fan of Foxgloves; an unfussy Clematis; and Gaura
Tell us about your childhood garden?
It was large with wild edges. We were lucky to have lots of trees to climb. Originally, the property was the doctor’s house, part of an old hospital site. One of the previous occupants had an interest in arboriculture so we had a great many tree varieties forming a sort of thick green wall around the garden and house. A giant silver-birch came down in a storm one night and missed my room by a couple of feet. My favourite spot was an old shed opposite the compost heaps. I’d pretend I lived in there, and that the slatted compost bins were sheep pens.
Who or what inspired your career choice?
I’m not entirely sure. I don’t come from a family of artists but I knew from very early on that I wanted to make my own work. I set my own course very early, I think.
What is a typical day in the life of Alice?
A lot of coffee at the start. Probably quite early in the morning. There may be some sculptures at home I’m finishing off whilst I drink this (can’t seem to keep a boundary between house and studio). The rest of the day normally takes place at my studio in Brandeston. Ideally, it will end with an elaborately cooked meal.
No garden is complete without …
Bats
Something we’d find:
• On your bedside table: Books being read and to be read.
• In your flower arrangement: Rosemary
• In your garden shed: A mouse
The flaw you wish you didn’t have?
An inability to fully ‘stop’ (without a lot of trying)
What would you be in another life?
I’ve been reading ‘Make Prayers to the Raven’ by Richard K. Nelson recently so this is influencing my decision - I think it’d be interesting to have a go as porcupine or a beaver. But maybe a turn as a wolf too.
Guiding principles?
Honesty - or at least aiming to be… To be curious.
Who is a horticultural and/or botanical hero?
In truth, I greatly admire most of the horticulturists I meet. I admire their knowledge, the naming and recognition of so many things.
What is the one flower or plant you’d never plant in your garden, but don’t detest when you see others plant it?
Ornamental grasses
If there was a fire, and you could only keep one book on flowers and plants, what would it be?
My little copy of the Observer’s book of wild flowers.
For posterity, what would you like your work to be known for?
I have two quite different approaches in my work but, for me, they’re just different ways of exploring and ‘communicating’ a place. It would be good to have both forms ‘known’, the full picture.
Contact: On Instagram - @aliceandreaewing and @pomarius_collections
Website and contact details via: www.aliceandreaewing.com (botanical studio -
www.pomarius-collec2ons.com); works currently available through Lyndsey Ingram Gallery
and other locations listed on my website.
Quick fire: some favourite things
• Book (fiction): Sons and Lovers or something by Virginia Woolf
• Film: The Piano
• Painting: Too many!
• Smell: Rosemary from grabbing or Frankincense
• Meal: Venison with blackberries
• Travel Destination: Depends on the time of year
• A cause near and dear to me: Repetitive housing sprawl eating up wild places
• Place to go for inspiration: Marsh and Fens
• A great walk near where you live: Walberswick or Boyton Marshes
• Thing to collect obsessively: Paper samples
• Museum: Hepworth’s Museum and Garden in St Ives
• Favourite person to follow on Instagram: Tat London? I’m not sure
• Garden in the UK: Rachel’s garden or Cambridge Botanical
• Garden anywhere else: A garden of sorts, Julian’s house in Connemara
