It's a funny time of year ...

... to be preparing for a big exhibition, but I am.  Followers will be familiar with Another Beastly Art Exhibition but I should probably explain briefly to new readers (hoping there are some!) that Another Beastly Art Exhibition has been a group event running first annually and now occasionally since 1999 involving me, jeweller Hazel Morris (Arkane Jewellery) and painter and printmaker Nat Morley.  We used to exhibit in Painswick but for various reasons (including the obvious one of venues becoming unavailable) we won't be there again. 

This year we're really excited to be exhibiting at Nature In Art, a fabulous museum and art gallery dedicated entirely to ... well, work it out.  They have permanent exhibits, big touring exhibitions and other events, of which Another Beastly Art Exhibition  is one, setting up on Monday, open from Tuesday.  Since we will be taking it in turns to be sitting in the exhibition we're also billed as being artists in residence.  (Follow the link to see full details of our exhibition, including which days each of us will be there.) I've been artist in residence at Nature In Art a few times and people do like to come and chat to find out about the person behind the artwork.  We're hoping there will be lots of visitors because the touring exhibition which will be there at the same time is the Wildlife Photographer of the Year. 

So, as I say, it's a funny time of year.  Generally at this point I'm recovering from autumn markets, collecting what I laughingly call my wits and pondering on new ideas.  This year, though, I was straight back into the pottery making beastly dishes and firing them and the vases that I've been making on and off for a year or more.  My showroom is now full to bursting with fish and lizards.  You can have a sneak preview of one of the vases now, but you'll have to wait for the exhibition to see the rest:

Back and front views, obviously.

Then, as heralded by my last blog post, I had planned to work on new canvasses.  Unfortunately, the ideas I'd had last summer were just too far away and I couldn't get back to them in a hurry.  I thought if I spent an afternoon tidying my studio it might help.  This turned into an entire week of tidying, cleaning, throwing out masses of rubbish and freecycling a lot of other things and moving things round a bit.   This was much more the sort of thing I would expect to be doing at this time of year and in fact it really did free me up so that this week I have been working on a group of new, tiny canvasses.  I've finished the creative part.  Now I just need to attach them to their stretchers, saw up backing board, attach it and hanging hooks.  That shouldn't take too long.  However, I also need to finish re-painting my display kit (shelves, boards, blocks, etc), make a few greetings cards to top up the most popular ones, make sure I've got all my publicity literature printed out, make labels for all the textiles pieces and pack everything up.  I've got three days, including today.  I think it should be possible so long as I stop writing this and go and get on with it ......

Blank canvasses

In a way I see every new year as a blank canvas.  I've written before about how I love the structure of times and seasons and a new year always looks like an opportunity to me.  Of late new years have been opportunities to catch up with work which then haven't turned out as I'd hoped.  In 2012, though, I got my general health back.  I hadn't really realised how much of it I'd lost until it returned!  Almost immediately after I was recovered from surgery I fell over hard on the pavement, sustaining an injured tendon in one place, cartilege in another and ligament in a third.  These injuries haven't really healed much, to be honest,  but I'm still well.  Well, but injured.  There's a huge difference.

During the autumn we worked really hard at doing lots more markets, since the permanent outlets I'd been selling in started closing.  I say we because I'd find it really hard going without the work done by M as roadie and pot shifter.  My showroom is upstairs so for any event the work has to be packed up, boxes brought downstairs and into the car and then afterwards carried upstairs again.  It's heavy work and I'm so grateful that I don't have to do it all myself.  Anyway, amongst the markets I also just ploughed on making pots and although I haven't caught up, I have done reasonably well and for the first time in ages I don't need to concentrate on catching up.

So - a blank canvas.  And the photo shows eight new pieces of dupion silk which arrived this morning, ready for some new embroidered canvasses.  Another Beastly Art Exhibition opens at Nature in Art on 5th February and there is new work to make for it.  More about the exhibition, and the new work, anon.

Happy New Year.

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles

These are, of course, a few of my favourite things. 

I've written about my firing cycle before.  Well, I'm just at the end of a making/firing cycle and had a lustre firing on Wednesday.  Yesterday was unpacking, photographing and then making up some deliveries and today I'm just going to share a few of the things that came out that I particularly like.

So here are some more lizard cereal bowls.  All of these pots are unique but I have returned to certain colourways which have been particularly successful.  On the left is a blue lizard and leaves with red spots, which does look like the first colourway but isn't.  That had silver lustre and this has gold and that one had red spots made with carmine lustre, whereas this has red spots made with red lustre.  The carmine spots had been so successful that I ordered (at some expense) 25g of it to replace the first 5g I'd bought when it ran out.  But then ....  it came out a completely different colour.  Some research suggestst that my first bottle was the weird one and should never have come out as red as it did.  Further research identified another supplier with a different selection of lustres.  Talking it all through with them confirmed that of all the materials potters need to buy, lustres change most often, possibly even every batch is different in some colours.  Ah well.  Something you just have to go with.  So I ordered 5g of red and applied it merrily to pots.  I also accepted samples of tangerine, purple and emerald.

The red, as you see, is lovely and red.  Success.  The purple is ok too, though as I've mentioned before, I already have a dark and light purple which arrive under the pseudonyms of dark and light green.  I had hopes for emerald, but alas, it is only a duller sort of mauve.  The centre bowl above has emerald veins on the leaves.  I think you can just catch the mauve.  There's some on the lizard too, but it works fine.  The one on the right was just another colourway, going for something a bit darker for those who prefer that, and all in all I think it works.

The tangerine is delicious.

Here it is the darker of the leaves, the lighter ones using "real orange" underglaze colour (this time actually used under the glaze) and gold lustre spots.  I love this mug and these colours.  I expect to be using more tangerine.  I also expect to be asking for some more samples of the large number of colours this new supplier has in case some of the others turn out as zingy as the red and tangerine. 

I'm slightly worried about my favourite things, though.  They seem to be lizards, closely followed by ivy, with or without the lizards.  All of which is fine, but does it matter that most of my new work is still dominated by them?  They may be my favourite things but are they everyone else's?  And again, the colours.  If I think back to the wallhangings I've made over the years, my favourites have often been in the red/rust/orange/cream range.  They've sold - eventually -  but I sense that the majority of people like the blue range better.  So should I be planning to go further with the red/tangerine/gold/yellow idea or will I end up with shelves full of pots nobody wants?  My policy has always been to make the work I'm most passionate about, though.  I always said that although I could make patchwork cushions for sale, I never would because I would be bored.  This is the work I do and if you don't like it you don't have to buy it, kind of thing.  On the other hand, of course, if you don't buy anything, I won't make a living, so I do make more commercial decisions.  I work hard at maintaining my stocks of "everyday" designs. I think this means I'll continue to follow my heart so lizards and leaves will be it for a while longer.

And finally, talking of hearts, I wish I'd made more of these:

I've made one with the silver hearts before but really like the gold hearts.  I think they'll go soon, but I'll definitely do some more next year.

Hot and Cold

This is a painfully contrived blog title, for which I apologise. It's on a par with some of the segues they use on The Today Programme on radio 4.  It's the only thing I could come up with in a hurry, the first photo being of frost on a curry plant.  Sorry 'bout that.*  I've become aware that there hasn't been much in the way of photo blogs lately and wanted to put that right, but then what to call it?  Photos?  Perhaps you'd prefer that next time.

* Years ago, when I had more money and more time (some of my working hours were teaching, which paid me much more per hour than making!) I used to attend quite a few poetry events and some of the highlights were readings by the poet Adrian Mitchell, who died in 2008.  I didn't always agree with his politics but I admired his constancy and dedication to trying to right what he saw as the many wrongs of the world.  His readings were the most 'human' of any of the poets I saw.  He seemed to have no 'side' to him - what you saw was what you got.  One of his poems is called "Sorry Bout That".  I was just reminded of it, and him, when putting in the apology for the corny title. 

So in the end, you get a bit more for your money than expected.  Enjoy!

 

Just For The Present

"Just For The Present" is now open!  It will be at the Cotswold Craftsmen Gallery, Market Street, Nailsworth, until 24th November.  Tuesdays - Saturdays, 10.00 - 5.00

Artist's statement

As we develop as artists, our ideas sometimes take on a life of their own and lead us to new discoveries and passions so that we sometimes find ourselves taking surprising roads.  2012 has been a year when I have been following new roads which may themselves lead in directions I haven’t yet imagined.  So, Just For The Present, what you see here is a selection of the work I am making currently. 

This year I’ve returned to my roots in fashion (nearly forty years ago I studied fashion and textiles at college) and I’m delighted to be showing some of my new silk-painted scarves.  Having worked on silk-painting in isolation, I then moved on to give machine embroidery the same treatment and three new pieces portraying lizards are worked entirely in machine stitching with no other added colour.

Lizards seem to have become my theme of the moment in ceramics too as they are ideal subjects for rich decoration.  As well as my tableware ranges, I’m now making more one-off items - mugs, bowls, plates and vases - decorated with individual designs in coloured underglazes, slips, lustres and precious metal lustres. 

Just for the present, these are my preoccupations.  Next year – who knows?

 The Purple Corner!

 

To market, to market

It's the market season for me.  Normally I'm at Stroud Farmers Market a number of times in the autumn; this year I'm branching out and trying elsewhere as well.  Here is my stall at Gloucester Arts and Crafts Market where I was for the first time on 13th October.  You get a big stall in Gloucester - ten feet wide by four foot.  Plenty of room to spread out with a good selection of products, including, for the first time at a market, my scarves and earrings.

Lots of people at Gloucester took leaflets etc, which was part of the point of going - I don't have a 'presence' in Gloucester at the moment.

This last Saturday I was back at Stroud Farmers Market, which I do love.  For one thing it's a great market - masses of choice of meat, fish, cooked food, as well as the obvious vegetables, and always a selection of us craft stalls.  Half of what I sell there is to people who've bought from me before, which is always pleasing.

Next Saturday I'm trying Nailsworth Farmers Market for the first time.  It's a much smaller market, and with very much smaller table space than any others, but has a lovely friendly feel to it so I'm hoping I'll be well received.

If there's room, I'm hoping to do Gloucester and Nailsworth markets again in December (I happen to be busy doing other things on the second and fourth Saturdays in November) and I'll be at Stroud on the first and third Saturdays of November and December.

To market, to market to buy a fat mug

Home again, home again, juggety jug.

La rentrée

In France la rentrée happens every September.  Literally meaning "the return", it means not only the start of a new academic year for schools and colleges but also returning to work after the holiday period.  Much of France still goes on holiday for the month of August.  La rentrée is heralded in supermarkets and other shops with special promotions of stationery, clothes suitable for work in autumn or whatever promotion they can think of in their case and for us it's always a rather early reminder that we'll be heading back to the UK sometime.  This year, because we were so late in going, la rentrée was already plastered everywhere when we arrived, which seemed an unfair reminder that our visit was so short.  I know, I know, five weeks in France doesn't sound short to most people.  But if you're living somewhere rather than holidaying, it is.  Still, you might like to see the last photo I took as we left and compare it with the photo in my last post as it shows we actually did make an impression on the place.

Back to la rentrée (which may be a tautology, but I don't care.)  I really like the concept, as it fits with my approach to life.  I've always related to time in a physical and unconscious way, which I think I've written about here before.  Times of year have reminders for my whole system which I can be quite unaware of until I realise what is happening.  Some, though, like the start of the academic year, are much more conscious.  Until about five years ago part of my life was always organised around the academic year and as well as often feeling it was a chance to do better work in a new academic year, I've always arranged my life around it.  Even my household finance budget is organised from September to August, a throwback to the time when I first took over organising the joint incomes in my first marriage.

Now I'm only involved in my creative work, la rentrée is still a significant time for me.  It marks the beginning of doing more markets and shows and making work specifically for seasonal shoppers.  (I was going to use another word instead of 'seasonal' but decided that September was too early for it.)

This year, in particular, la rentrée is particularly real for me.  I'm back at work.  Nothing all that startling in that, I suppose, but the notable thing is that I'm back at work and I'm well! Only now do I realise how unwell I was and for how long.  It's great to be back.  I've been working on new textiles pieces.  No, you can't see these until my exhibition in October/November, which I will be telling you more about in due course.  I've also been making new stock of earrings.  First a new design, stripey triangles, designed to go with the triangle scarf design:

And then a new colour range, which I hope will be popular for the autumn.  Black is the new black.