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Vanessa Spiro Mrs Bilton

@vanessaspirobilton

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The wild mushroom lady of an isle 🍂🍄 Lurcher custodian

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From the makeup archives.
Was reminded of the Looks magazine days and found this.
I still love this cover and the makeup story we did, shot by Chris Craymer.
However
Hadnt noticed the headline before- Does Make-up have to mean murder 🤔🙂
I dont have the article, but curious?

#makeup #magazinecovers #looksmagazine

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The Face Magazine: Culture Shift @ NPG #jeremyhealy #richardcorriganrestaurants #thefacemagazine #cultureshift

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As 2024 closes we bring our focus even more onto the natural and beautiful place on which we live. Reposting one of our favourite posts of this year from @mariabellphoto which does exactly that. 'Tide to an Island’ is a ongoing project I’ve been working on since 2016. What was initially a look into the rural lives of farmers and growers on the the Isle of Wight - my home, England’s largest offshore island and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve - has shifted into a gathering of stories of Islanders working and shaping the land in all its forms. From the gardens of the local monastery, ceramicists, woodworkers, burgeoning market gardens, artisan cheese makers to the history of foragers, all drawn in varying degrees to the land. At its core it’s a celebration and love letter to my home and an exploration of my own complex relationship to it.

This is Vanessa Bilton. One wildly windy morning as the sun rose over the downs of West Wight, I joined her on her hunt for mushrooms. In the years since moving to the Island, Vanessa’s presence has grown in local lore. Taking her cues from the seasons, ‘The Wild Mushroom Lady’ mostly keeps what she does subdued; an everyday for family and friends, supplying local chef Robert Thompson when there is a glut. Foraging isn’t her profession as she’s keen to point out.

“I’ve been thinking about the meaning of the word amateur,” she tells me. “We’ve twisted the meaning, made the word into something you do but don’t get paid for whereas the actual meaning is to do something for the love of it and that’s what I do; I do it for love.” ~ @mariabellphoto 📸 @mariabellphoto X

#yarmouth #totlandbay #alumbay #colwellbay #freshwaterbay #isleofwight #westwightlife #unesco #biosphere #iwbiosphere #naturereserve #comptonbeach #brighstone #godshill #longstone #englandscoast #condenasttraveller #yarmouthharbour #riveryar #thesolent #marinelife #theneedles
#nationallandscape #unescoworldheritage #unescobiospherereserve

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A beautiful piece and post • @mariabellphoto ‘Tide to an Island’ is a ongoing project I’ve been working on since 2016. What was initially a look into the rural lives of farmers and growers on the the Isle of Wight - my home, England’s largest offshore island and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve - has shifted into a gathering of stories of Islanders working and shaping the land in all its forms. From the gardens of the local monastery, ceramicists, woodworkers, burgeoning market gardens, artisan cheese makers to the history of foragers, all drawn in varying degrees to the land. At its core it’s a celebration and love letter to my home and an exploration of my own complex relationship to it.

This is Vanessa Bilton. One wildly windy morning as the sun rose over the downs of West Wight, I joined her on her hunt for mushrooms. In the years since moving to the Island, Vanessa’s presence has grown in local lore. Taking her cues from the seasons, ‘The Wild Mushroom Lady’ mostly keeps what she does subdued; an everyday for family and friends, supplying local chef Robert Thompson when there is a glut. Foraging isn’t her profession as she’s keen to point out.

“I’ve been thinking about the meaning of the word amateur,” she tells me. “We’ve twisted the meaning, made the word into something you do but don’t get paid for whereas the actual meaning is to do something for the love of it and that’s what I do; I do it for love.” 📸 @mariabellphoto
#iwbiosphere #yarmouth #totlandbay #alumbay #colwellbay #freshwaterbay #isleofwight #westwightlife #unesco #biosphere #naturereserve #westwight #comptonbeach #brighstone #godshill #longstone #ecobusiness#yarmouthharbour #riverywar #thesolent #marinelife #theneedles #aonb #unescoworldheritage

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Bespoke golden bottle 💫

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A special design for @vanessaspirobilton
A tricky one to make but I love a challenge, crafted in 9ct gold 🏺✨

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#tbt.
‘Lovely’ shot of Bob, me and Jim after filming some sketches for Shooting Stars in 2009.
My career as a comedy director has always been severely limited by my inability to stop giggling like a bastard during takes.
📸 by @vanessaspirobilton

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Many, many mushrooms. I’ve been actively trying to make the most of living by the sea this year, taking my @rivercottage Edible Seashore with me when I swim. Nursing a pretty strong pepper dulse addiction & scouting out some Spring spots but often forget how incredible the land is. This shot of foraging for mushrooms along the South Downs with @vanessaspirobilton is the perfect reminder 🍄 SO ready for the coming season’s wild garlic 🌱

#foraging #getoutside #whereiwander #foragingforfood #allthegoodstuff #seasonalfood #wildfoodlove #sustainablefood #slowfooduk #mushroomhunting #mushroomhunter

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Years ago I spent a day filming sketches with these two and the Shooting Stars gang.
Vanessa kindly came along to help.
I am a rubbish comedy director because I giggle too much and ruin the sound.
That’s also why I didn’t last long in Tinker’s Rucksack, that revered hiking / whistling troupe from the Big Night Out days. I remember being on stage and crying with laughter and consequently not being able to whistle a bloody thing..

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Later she’ll list off these ten delicacies like a well-oiled shopping list: “blewits, ceps, oyster mushrooms, hedgehog mushrooms, parasols, velvet shanks, field mushrooms, winter chanterelles, cauliflower fungus and chicken of the woods”.

We take a mushroom that she wants to examine further, a specimen to spore print. Looking round her kitchen there are jars with deep brown & purple hues, home-ground powders and an overflowing bag of chestnuts on the side. We talk of wild mushroom pasta, parasols on toast, powerful stocks and miso soups with ‘velvet shanks’. I leave with a bag bursting with chestnuts.

“The beauty of it is is that if you are interested in foraging you can’t help but respect the world that we live in, you become more aware of seasons changing and your surroundings,” she says. In a time when most pursuits are commodified, I can’t help but think Vanessa’s justification for her mushroom hunts are all we really need. Simply put “for the love of it.”

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Growing up in London marvelling at a friend’s mother gathering mushrooms from a nearby park, it wasn’t until she moved down to the Island that her intrigue for foraging regrew it’s roots. “I remember as a child, there was a girl who lived two roads down from me. Her mother used to go to Richmond Park and come back with these massive field mushrooms and puffballs and serve them to us. To go out and pick your own food, was just bonkers to me, I’d only ever gone to the supermarket with my parents. I just loved the idea of being able to pick something and eat it, I thought it was phenomenal,” she says.

After moving down here with her husband and a self titled “smorgasbord” of nature on her doorstep, she built on those childhood foundations. Entirely self taught, initially relying on the irreplaceable handbooks of Roger Phillips and a lot of trial and error she’s built up an intrinsic knowledge of the local landscape; scoping spots for yearly harvests hidden away from the public eye, never taking too much and only eating what she’s 100% sure of. “I’m not a risk taker, I’m not a gambler, I wasn’t really brave to begin with but I realised that with more knowledge you do become confident. So I’d pick things and make spore prints and I read as much as I could. I began to recognise the smell of the mushrooms, I’d see how the mushroom changed, the evolution of it from the spore prints until I just knew them.”

On our walk we find a plentiful lot of parasols unspoiled upon the downs. Then puff balls, field mushrooms, even a small crop of oyster mushrooms from a tree that’s taken her years to discover. “We won’t just eat anything that’s edible, we only eat things that are delicious.” Not to say that she’s uninterested in the identification and exploration of any mushroom she encounters - quite the opposite - but it’s the taste that drives her pursuits. “There are probably only about 10 or so really flavourful mushrooms you can find here on the Island, which isn’t a lot when you think about how many hundreds of mushrooms there are but a lot of them just have no flavour.”... (cont in following post)

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‘Tide to an Island’ is a ongoing project I’ve been working on since 2016. What was initially a look into the rural lives of farmers and growers on the the Isle of Wight - my home, England’s largest offshore island and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve - has shifted into a gathering of stories of Islanders working and shaping the land in all its forms. From the gardens of the local monastery, ceramicists, woodworkers, burgeoning market gardens, artisan cheese makers to the history of foragers, all drawn in varying degrees to the land. At its core it’s a celebration and love letter to my home and an exploration of my own complex relationship to it.

This is Vanessa Bilton. One wildly windy morning as the sun rose over the downs of West Wight, I joined her on her hunt for mushrooms. In the years since moving to the Island, Vanessa’s presence has grown in local lore. Taking her cues from the seasons, ‘The Wild Mushroom Lady’ mostly keeps what she does subdued; an everyday for family and friends, supplying local chef Robert Thompson when there is a glut. Foraging isn’t her profession as she’s keen to point out.

“I’ve been thinking about the meaning of the word amateur,” she tells me. “We’ve twisted the meaning, made the word into something you do but don’t get paid for whereas the actual meaning is to do something for the love of it and that’s what I do; I do it for love.” ...(cont in following post)

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