The Right Ingredient’s is more than just a cookbook.
The idea for us to create a cookbook stemmed from the ‘bring and share’ lunches we have in our studio and celebrating peoples birthdays with cake- lots of cake.
The project started back in January and began with everyone bringing in fruits and veggies to draw. We felt a little bit like we were back in school and practising our best still lives.
As everything always does here, the initial drawings and ideas blossomed, turning into collages, embroideries, screen prints and mono prints. We moved from foods to looking at where we live and commute to – Oswestry. Taking inspiration from our local landmarks and incorporating them in to artwork using various techniques and processes. From Oswestry Hill Fort to the Welsh Farmer Statue on Red Square and from Toni and Guys tudor building on the corner to a local pub sign.
This all was going on when I was working away for a few months in London and when I got back I arrived to mountains of artwork and a pile of recipes with the question, right can you make this work? And the question in my head…
What have I signed up for?!
So in to the cupboard I went and it was my home for the following months. I had all this beautiful artwork and I wanted the cookbook to really show it off. I had the editing of pictures to do and playing around with images, taking elements from someones work and layering it with somebody else’s. When I needed to find a background for the text I would nip in to the print studio to photograph the paint mess left on the tables (which are beautiful and so inspiring of how unpredictable mess can be).
It was a long process, lots of toing and froing and towards the deadline I thought it would never end!
Then it got to the choosing of card and printers – which is a completely different world! Matt card, silk card, semi silk, gloss – getting sent samples almost everyday and the comedy of everyone feeling and inspecting the cards. With some we were sure they were the same, but we found what we wanted in the end and went with a local printer in Shrewsbury.
The await for the finished cook book was nerve racking and when they came (on the morning of our launch) everyone was over the moon with the finished product! Hoorah! Such a great product to showcase a piece of everyones efforts here, a collaboration of all and with super tasty treats.
The Right Ingredients Cook Book was supported by The Rotary Club of Oswestry
‘The Rotary Club of Oswestry feels privileged to undertake this work in memory of Mary Hignett and is delighted that her name should be perpetuated by the Fund’s support of such local valuable projects’