Fiona McLees
@mclees-fiona.bsky.social
Paper conservator in Wales. Manuscripts, drawings, artists’ materials, studios, sideline interests in holy wells, roodscreens, and all manner of heritage at the end of long country lanes. Colour-related Instagram posts @chromatic_dispatches
Here’s the outside of the cottage he was born in, Georgetown, Merthyr Tydfil
November 19, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Here’s the outside of the cottage he was born in, Georgetown, Merthyr Tydfil
Disappointed clock with the cutest lettering / misspelling. An endearing inhabitant of Joseph Parry’s cottage, Merthyr Tydfil
November 18, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Disappointed clock with the cutest lettering / misspelling. An endearing inhabitant of Joseph Parry’s cottage, Merthyr Tydfil
Do Ho Suh at Tate Modern (exhibition just closed). A perfect approach to translating insubstantial memories of space into ethereal structures that can be experienced but not interacted with. Brought to mind many lost spaces from my own life
November 13, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Do Ho Suh at Tate Modern (exhibition just closed). A perfect approach to translating insubstantial memories of space into ethereal structures that can be experienced but not interacted with. Brought to mind many lost spaces from my own life
Here’s part of it. The graphic didn’t even extend all the way to the floor!
November 9, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Here’s part of it. The graphic didn’t even extend all the way to the floor!
Proofing some pages from a forthcoming book about Gwen John! Focusing largely upon her technique, materials, and working processes, this is a snippet of the chapter on Colour
November 6, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Proofing some pages from a forthcoming book about Gwen John! Focusing largely upon her technique, materials, and working processes, this is a snippet of the chapter on Colour
The tallest apple tree I’ve ever seen, and rather bedraggled with it, in the lower walled garden at Aberglasney. Same garden, the neatest and most impressive espaliering I’ve ever seen, reaching 5.5m high and 25m long, in a lattice-work pattern called “the Belgian Fence”, using 40 trees.
November 3, 2025 at 10:19 PM
The tallest apple tree I’ve ever seen, and rather bedraggled with it, in the lower walled garden at Aberglasney. Same garden, the neatest and most impressive espaliering I’ve ever seen, reaching 5.5m high and 25m long, in a lattice-work pattern called “the Belgian Fence”, using 40 trees.
Pentre Ifan c.1910, with the Cardigan Library & Debating Society #StandingStoneSunday
November 2, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Pentre Ifan c.1910, with the Cardigan Library & Debating Society #StandingStoneSunday
My new garden love, now that Dewstow is out-of-bounds. The Ninfarium at Aberglasney was completed in 2005 in the ruins of the mansion house, planted with subtropical species. The garden was inspired by the Italian gardens of Ninfa where wisteria drapes the ruins of an abandoned medieval village.
October 30, 2025 at 11:08 PM
My new garden love, now that Dewstow is out-of-bounds. The Ninfarium at Aberglasney was completed in 2005 in the ruins of the mansion house, planted with subtropical species. The garden was inspired by the Italian gardens of Ninfa where wisteria drapes the ruins of an abandoned medieval village.
Autumn in Parc Cefn Onn, one of my favourite places in Cardiff. The beautiful park with former bathing pool & summerhouse was created by Ernest Prosser in 1911 for his son Cecil to recuperate from TB. Prosser planned to build a house on the site but his son died in 1922 and he never did so.
October 30, 2025 at 7:21 AM
Autumn in Parc Cefn Onn, one of my favourite places in Cardiff. The beautiful park with former bathing pool & summerhouse was created by Ernest Prosser in 1911 for his son Cecil to recuperate from TB. Prosser planned to build a house on the site but his son died in 1922 and he never did so.
Excited about this gift left at my desk by a lovely colleague! Porcupine quills - haven’t used them before myself but I know conservators who use them for gently removing encrusted dirt and deposits, where they can be kinder than a metal point. Looking forward to incorporating them into my tool roll
October 25, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Excited about this gift left at my desk by a lovely colleague! Porcupine quills - haven’t used them before myself but I know conservators who use them for gently removing encrusted dirt and deposits, where they can be kinder than a metal point. Looking forward to incorporating them into my tool roll
Today’s tea break was even more blessed than usual: lebkuchen accompanied by some water from St Winefride’s Well, Holywell, kindly retrieved by a work friend who knows my enthusiasm for holy wells
October 24, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Today’s tea break was even more blessed than usual: lebkuchen accompanied by some water from St Winefride’s Well, Holywell, kindly retrieved by a work friend who knows my enthusiasm for holy wells
Candy-pink brushstrokes, in Piles of French Novels, Van Gogh, 1887
October 24, 2025 at 7:04 AM
Candy-pink brushstrokes, in Piles of French Novels, Van Gogh, 1887
“Where friends…park”
“Where friends…films”
“Where friends…films”
October 22, 2025 at 4:45 AM
“Where friends…park”
“Where friends…films”
“Where friends…films”
Very different subject matter but this work at Amgueddfa Cymru by Andrews stayed in my head, ever since I saw it as a child (perhaps partly due to the scale of it at 2.43 x 3.88m, though also the combination of haziness and clarity) museum.wales/collections/...
October 21, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Very different subject matter but this work at Amgueddfa Cymru by Andrews stayed in my head, ever since I saw it as a child (perhaps partly due to the scale of it at 2.43 x 3.88m, though also the combination of haziness and clarity) museum.wales/collections/...
The whole print - which shows an “observatory” created at the top of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1820 so that artist Thomas Hornor could draw a panorama of London. His initial idea to sell prints or sketches escalated into a 360 degree panorama inside a specially built Pantheon in Regent’s Park
October 20, 2025 at 8:41 PM
The whole print - which shows an “observatory” created at the top of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1820 so that artist Thomas Hornor could draw a panorama of London. His initial idea to sell prints or sketches escalated into a 360 degree panorama inside a specially built Pantheon in Regent’s Park
Here’s a different view of it, from the same print - perched right at the top
October 20, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Here’s a different view of it, from the same print - perched right at the top
Three guesses for what this structure might be! A hovel for a shipwrecked mariner? A platform for a tree-dwelling recluse? An illustration for an adventure/fantasy novel? We’ve been washing this print in the studio today and I am totally enamoured (full image to follow in due course…)
October 20, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Three guesses for what this structure might be! A hovel for a shipwrecked mariner? A platform for a tree-dwelling recluse? An illustration for an adventure/fantasy novel? We’ve been washing this print in the studio today and I am totally enamoured (full image to follow in due course…)
An old sign has been uncovered (wish it was becoming a bakery again rather than an ice-cream parlour), check out the kerning on that!
![A shop front. The sig above it reads St.Isan [huge space] bakery. The shop window has a huge graphic advertising “Moo coming soon”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hqzbb6kpyw77k7vl5rtvw3eh/bafkreib4wfsbhfm4fi44wh5e2u3gmbq3b5jqjyjzkvk5taxp7infjuy4e4@jpeg)
October 19, 2025 at 5:49 PM
An old sign has been uncovered (wish it was becoming a bakery again rather than an ice-cream parlour), check out the kerning on that!
An absolute scourge in my garden, but pretty in this book, creeping cinquefoil (with knotgrass), from the 13/14th century Treatise on Herbs / Tractatus de herbis, British Library Egerton MS 747
October 17, 2025 at 8:15 PM
An absolute scourge in my garden, but pretty in this book, creeping cinquefoil (with knotgrass), from the 13/14th century Treatise on Herbs / Tractatus de herbis, British Library Egerton MS 747
18th century master of flowers, Mary Delaney, with her exquisite collage technique, here recreating Cynoglossum Omphalodes (creeping forget-me-not, I think). Mistress would not be the right word for one who gained such mastery of tiny slips of paper in order to create this dupe of nature! (1776)
October 17, 2025 at 7:59 PM
18th century master of flowers, Mary Delaney, with her exquisite collage technique, here recreating Cynoglossum Omphalodes (creeping forget-me-not, I think). Mistress would not be the right word for one who gained such mastery of tiny slips of paper in order to create this dupe of nature! (1776)
Moving slightly away from weeds and wildflowers, here’s Cedric Morris, Blackbird and Flowers, 1952. Oil on canvas. A painter and gardener who bred many cultivars of iris & registered over 90 new varieties. None in evidence here, instead crocuses & verbena & pears & more against a deep lilac/indigo
October 17, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Moving slightly away from weeds and wildflowers, here’s Cedric Morris, Blackbird and Flowers, 1952. Oil on canvas. A painter and gardener who bred many cultivars of iris & registered over 90 new varieties. None in evidence here, instead crocuses & verbena & pears & more against a deep lilac/indigo
Stanley Spencer, Winter Aconites, 1957. Oil on canvas. Painted in the Cookham Vicarage garden on commission for the Rev. Canon R.M.L. Westropp as a present for his wife, Rachel. Sold at auction in 2013 for £51,650.
October 17, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Stanley Spencer, Winter Aconites, 1957. Oil on canvas. Painted in the Cookham Vicarage garden on commission for the Rev. Canon R.M.L. Westropp as a present for his wife, Rachel. Sold at auction in 2013 for £51,650.
I like to document this yellow hula hoop in a tree through the changing seasons
October 17, 2025 at 2:18 PM
I like to document this yellow hula hoop in a tree through the changing seasons
Das große Rasenstück / The Great Piece of Turf, Albrecht Dürer, 1503. Watercolour. It is a great piece of turf.
October 17, 2025 at 6:25 AM
Das große Rasenstück / The Great Piece of Turf, Albrecht Dürer, 1503. Watercolour. It is a great piece of turf.
Les Pissenlits / Dandelions, Jean-François Millet, 1867-8. Pastel on paper. Can’t help thinking of Dürer’s piece of turf & other artists who have looked at smaller & overlooked plants at our feet. Though also struck that the provenance on MFA website says it was a work done on commission…
October 17, 2025 at 6:20 AM
Les Pissenlits / Dandelions, Jean-François Millet, 1867-8. Pastel on paper. Can’t help thinking of Dürer’s piece of turf & other artists who have looked at smaller & overlooked plants at our feet. Though also struck that the provenance on MFA website says it was a work done on commission…