Company: Tongue in Cheek - Saturday Art Saves: Jane Ashelford Edwards
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About: Photo and artwork by Jane Ashelford Edwards. Every Saturday I focus on a different artist that I admire. From potters to painters, chefs to collectors, seamstress to songwriters, lifestyle to lovers... anyone who set the paintbrush, pastry brush, hands and heart on fire to create. Those who inspire art to flow where it may. Jane Ashelford: In the English Service. I have the pleasure of knowing Jane Ashelford Edwards through blogging. Jane has written many books about the art of dressing, clothing and historical costume and lifestyle. In her spare time she makes cards for friends and family. Photo and artwork by Jane Ashelford Edwards. I asked Jane to tell me about herself and her art: "In my final year at University College London where I was studying for a joint degree in History of Art and English Literature I had no clear idea of what to do next. Almost by chance my tutor suggested that I should apply to the Courtauld Institute of Art to do a Masters Degree in the History of Dress. He happened to know Stella Mary Newton, the formidable lady who ran the course and thought that my somewhat extrovert style of dress might be an advantage. He rang her up there and then and arranged for an interview. Not having much hope of success, only four students were admitted to the two-year course, I was stunned when I was offered a place." Photo and artwork by Jane Ashelford Edwards. "Always working from primary sources they were trained to specialise in a particular era of English history, I had always been fascinated by the Elizabethan period and wrote my thesis on ‘Elizabethan Emblematic Embroidery’. When I left the Courtauld I enjoyed living in London and working freelance as a lecturer in the fashion department of Kingston Art College and teaching kids in the period rooms of the Geffrye Museum. I also worked as a stylist on photographic shoots and as a picture researcher. All the time I was researching the Elizabethan period and was fortunate to be asked to write two books for Batsford Books, ‘A Visual History of Dress. The Sixteenth Century’ and ‘Dress in the Age of Elizabeth 1’" Photo and artwork by Jane Ashelford Edwards. One of Jane Ashelford Edward
