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.