Do you know Tasha Tudor?

Google her name and you’ll find that she illustrated over 100 books, as well as  publishing a number of books herself, many of which contain illustrations of her beloved Corgis – her favorite pet.

Tasha’s Inspiration:

She is know for her whimsical, quaint watercolors depicting daily life from an earlier time. Often her paintings contain  accurate depictions of nature and flowers.

What may be less know, is that Tasha, like any great artist, took inspiration for her art from her own daily life, and more notably, from her own garden. 

She was born into a family with a prestigious New England pedigree, who by the time of her birth had “…reached a state of genteel poverty.”

Her parents divided their time between large East Coast cities like Boston and New York. But it was her time as a child spent living with her aunt and uncle in rural Connecticut that imprinted a love for the natural world in her heart.

Tasha’s Adult Life:

When she married she chose to raise her family in rural New Hampshire, in a 1780’s  New England farmhouse without indoor plumbing or electricity. 

Imagine her in the 1940’s and 1950’s drawing water, coaxing a wood stove to life to cook meals for her family, hanging clothes on the line, and growing much of her own food in an era when the rest of the country was buying electric clothes dryers and microwaves to warm up their TV dinners.

“Drawn to the Old Ways…”

She often said that she was meant to live in an earlier time.

“I’m drawn to the old ways, convinced that I lived before, in the 1830’s. Everything comes so easily to me from that period of time: threading a loom, growing flax, spinning, milking a cow.”

She realized her dream living in her New England farmhouse for nearly 30 years, and then moving to a classic, New England cottage hand-built by her son Seth where she lived out the rest of her days. 

We may imagine her life as idyllic, but it was not without hard work and heartbreak. She divorced from her husband and at her death was estranged from at least two of her children.

Tasha’s Outlook:

Even with a life of hard work and, I”m sure, many disappointments along the way, she constantly saw the good, and took comfort in her animals and flowers. 

Tasha would scold her animals like children when one misbehaved, and she knew each plant like it was a friend. She could describe the personality of every flower in detail whether the trait be, in her opinion, good or bad. She would say things like,

“Daffodils are an optimistic flower.”

Or “African violets….they’re loathsome!” (Personally, I can’t agree with her there. I love them!)

Tasha’s Garden:

Of her garden she said that, “Some people call this a cottage garden. There’s no plan. It’s not like a painting – I just stick the plants in. I like large quantities of blooms all jumbled together…. I like flowers in real abundance. If you have just so much money, spend it all on one variety and make a big splash.”

(I should have listened to Tasha on this last point when I started gardening.)

Tasha Tudor’s Connection to Nature:

She had an intuitive connection to the Earth and the things that grew from it. Perhaps this was in part due to her tendency to go barefoot. 

She would often say that she could tell when it was going to freeze by the way the ground felt. I imagine she was a better predictor of a freeze than the weather man. 

Tasha’s Art:

Her art shows her strong connection to things that are real in life.

“People like…my drawings…[because] they are done from actuality, not imagined. I know which side a cow is milled from, and what side you should mount a horse from, and how to make a haystack. It’s not made up. The people in my pictures are my own grandchildren and friends, and the surroundings are drawn from my surroundings. The flowers are growing wild from my fields or are in my garden.”

Book Recommendation: “The Private World of Tasha Tudor,” by Tasha Tudor and Richard Brown

If you don’t know Tasha Tudor (or Starling Burgess – her given name), look her up online or find a used copy of this book. 

The book is a portrait of Tasha in words and pictures. Part coffee table book and part short, written profiles showing Tasha’s determined opinions and habitual  ways. It’s a pleasure to spend a half hour flipping through it learning more about the book’s namesake.

You’ll find it to be nice hardcover full of color photos of Tasha (by Richard Brown) and sayings by the lady herself. 

Get to know Tasha. She’s a lady worth knowing. 

“What you want is entirely a state of mind. I think happiness is a state of mind. Everything here gives me satisfaction. My home, my garden, my animals, the weather, the state of Vermont.”

A good outlook, don’t you think?

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All quotes are take from “The Private World of Tasha Tudor” by Tasha Tudor and Richard Brown.