It's oh so quiet (sssshhh, sssshhh)

Oh it has been quiet indeed.

After the fair was over I kind of went into hibernation mode. If you want to read about it Joe wrote a great little re-cap of the fair that you should have a look at.

So what have I been doing for the last couple of weeks?

Well. I did end up having some of these...


...and enjoying a little bit of peace. I buy magazines that I don't have time to read because I'm too busy and end up dragging them with me around town and country thinking I might get time to have a peek in them. Just don't get me started on the years worth of Icon I have sitting on a shelf at home, glaring at me, begging to be read. Can you hear them crying from neglect?

Apart from a few hours of rest here and there I've been finishing up some jewellery pieces for launching on Folksy, hopefully at the end of the week, which is also when I'm crossing my fingers and hoping Robin will have had time to help me finish my website.

This year I'm in charge of organising the studios for this years Exeter Open Studios, and I'm part of the steering group for the Open Studios as well. I need to find time to help out with the events out at Organic Arts and somewhere, somehow, I need to actually do some of my own work!!!

Last week was half-term and Robin was working from home so there really wasn't much time to work on anything anyway, but I did finish off that jewellery and on Saturday I went in and tidied and cleaned the studio and packed away the jewellery making things for a little bit; I've picked a project off my "Projects I really want to do" pile and I'll be starting to make tests this week. I'm very excited about working with paperclay porcelain for the first time ever. I've made some sketches and will have to do a fair bit of testing (which I always say I will do and then I end up jumping in at the deep end anyway because I get so excited...) but I'm liking the ideas I have. I'm not giving the game away just yet, that will have to wait until next time!

(But you can have two hints: "family" and "memory")

People tell me it's all happening at the fair

Ah yes, The Fair. There's only 8 days to go and it really does feel like it's all coming together. Finally.

When Joe asked me if I'd like to help with getting a craft fair started in Exeter I thought "Sure!" and somewhere I imagined it could be quite a lot of work but it still felt like something good to do and a great experience to get under my belt. I mean, how hard could it be, really?

I had NO IDEA how hard! Or how many hours worrying and stressing, how many late nights, early mornings, trips to printers and gazillions of e-mails it was going to be. But it's happening, it truly is.


Now, I'm not an easy person to work with. I'm extremely critical and have super-high standards for a lot of things, I like planning ahead and getting every single little detail sorted. Joe's been incredibly patient and understanding and put up with everything, met me for lunches and coffees and sent me at least half a gazillion emails back at all hours of the day. Such a trooper!

In hopefully less than 15 minutes my transfers will be ordered and paid for, then I'm off to the studio to glaze the last of my work, which I will also be doing tomorrow, and then firing on Sunday, applying transfers and lusters on Monday and firing again either Monday or Tuesday.

Did you guess I've put in for another meeting next week..?

Functional?

I've been extremely tired lately. Now, I say "lately" but it's probably closer to a few months, with spikes of sheer exhaustion. Yesterday I went home early from the studio; I was having problems concentrating and was worried I might start accidentally breaking things. On the way home I decided to walk a different way that was slightly longer and when I got home I'd walked off my frustration and promptly fell asleep on the sofa... I woke up briefly and realised I simply couldn't make it into town for Make, Do & Mend, and went back to sleep...

In the end I think resting helped as I was able to take part in my choir later in the evening (we call ourselves a choir, but it's really a quintet). It was a great session and although still tired I felt better afterwards. We are so lucky to have the incredibly talented Rosa Rebecka leading us on our musical adventures, who always writes beautiful arrangements that make all out voices shine.

Work is going through a bit of a slump at the moment. Functional is just not where my passion is so I find it hard to get really excited about it. I did promise some pictures of WIP last week, so here's a bit of that:


Jewellery en masse! It looks like quite a lot but I still have quite a few bits to do...

I also decided to review and re-make some of the jewellery pieces I wasn't quite happy with, and also make some more of things I was happy with. These flowers go on hair clips or slides.


At this point they're very rough; I let them dry out before sponging and tidying edges, plus when they've been fired I sand them as well. Now I "only" have to make up my mind about the colours!

I wanted to end with pictures of something I can be a little bit more excited about; these flower vases (or that's what they will end up being, vases) are a bit of a merger between something I'm still working on that was/is not functional and function. The flowers are very delicate and I'm slightly concerned about how to package them in the best possible way to discourage breakage... The solution most likely lies in making the flowers less thin and have them protrude less from the body of the vase itself. But I like them this way! I want them to be looking more like they are a part of the receptacle and less of decoration; that's the idea!



And then one single flower, just before it goes on the vase:


I'm impressed I managed to take a picture that didn't have plastic bags in the background! They are everywhere in the studio; I use them to cover up work/clay so it won't dry while I'm working on something else. Baglady, moi?

I'm trying to sneak in some time to work on my Secret Semi-Big Project but I find myself lacking some of the information I need, so I will have to do more research before I can press on with that.

Next update should see more about the Handmade Home Fair that I've been working on with my friend Joe for what seems like an eternity now and it's starting to feel a bit frightening that it's on in less than 3 weeks!

Lions and tigers and business advisers, oh my!

This Tuesday past I went to the Civic Centre to meet with a business adviser. I didn't really know what to expect; I'd asked Other Half to come along in case there were numbers involved and before I left I told him "I don't need too much tough love, so please stop him if it gets nasty".

I would say that it was a very frank meeting; there was some tough love involved but I don't feel I got any advice that wasn't constructive. It all comes down to me having to profile myself (and my work!) more and better. A lot of the things I need to do I have done for others or helped others do, but not done for myself. That's a little bit me in a nutshell. I also need to work on my versatility and expand functional work because I can't afford to (at this point) only do what I love and follow my passion. I have been making jewellery for a while now and I need to step up my production of this and work in a "functional line" as well. Sew Crafty Fox said something along those lines to me at the last meeting of the Make, Do and Mend craft group; fashion houses have ready to wear lines that are accessible to everybody but they also do their couture lines that are much more narrow. She's right. I've had some ideas rattling around in the back of my mind for a while now in regards to functionality so I'm going to try some of them out. The point is to retain your aesthetic vision and feel while still making your work broader.

For the rest of the week I have just been working away in the studio doing both my own work and admin things. There's so much to do in both departments! I'll give you a little sneak peek of my little space:


I actually took this image week before last so things are more ordered now, apart from my desk where, since I have started working again, there's a mess.

Tomorrow I've got a stack of things to do which will keep me from going over to the studio. But I intend to make the most of my time and pick up some items in town I need. The most important one being an electricity meter so we can gauge how much electricity the kiln uses. When this is sorted and plugged in we can start firing again! Looking forward to bringing the camera into the studio and snapping some previews of Work In Progress!

Day off

As important as all the work is, it's also important to stop sometimes, take a deep breath and regenerate.

So last Thursday this is exactly what we did.



Me and Other Half packed up enough of our things to weather a nuclear holocaust and took daughter on a trip to the beach at Dawlish Warren. Between the train and the beach we picked up a small beach tent, which was the best investment of the day as the wind was chilly even though the sun was warm.

There were sandcastles made...


...and kites flown...



as well as a short moment in time when OH actually took a picture of me that came out decent.


All in all, we had a marvelous day and hope to be able to do it again soon!


And now the schools have started again, which is a relief, and life can start to assume some kind of normality. My studio is finished and I have managed to do a little itty bit of work, although with there still being work to do around the building I feel guilty whenever I do something for myself... Hopefully this feeling will gradually go away and I can go back to enjoying making things and helping out with things. Finding the balance between the two is the hard part...

It was the worst of times...and it was the worst of times...

And so it was finally time to say goodbye to Exeter Castle.

I would love to be able to say that it was a great experience and that I'm going to miss the place...but no. The unprofessional behaviour of The Castle towards us as artists and as an organisation was at best neglectful and at worst appalling. To avoid any mudslinging I think the best thing that can be said is that we've moved out, we've moved on and we're working hard to build something bigger and better, both as an organisation and in terms of the new studios!

Exeter Castle; a shame that all the glitters isn't gold...

Now we are resident at Alphinbrook road, pulling apart and rebuilding what used to be an auctioneers place. It is a lot of work but when you work together with a great goal in mind it all becomes so much easier!

Coming out of hibernation

I know it's already March, but I'm slow at shaking off the winter sleep... There's still that feeling of "are you absolutely sure I have to wake up now?" and the intense desire to pull the quilt back over my head and continue dreaming.

We didn't have much snow this year and when we did have some it just seemed to be a nuisance more than anything! It made it impossible to work in the studio; I went up one day and the clay had crunchy ice-crystals in it and was much too hard to work with.



Just to prove I didn't make up us actually having snow!



My studio is moving and it is an unsettling, frustrating experience. It hasn't actually grown feet of its own but all of us artists at the Exeter Artspace are packing up and moving to larger, better, HEATED premises. As much as we all know it will be better it is still a difficult transition from one place to another and we are losing some artists along the way, which is a shame.

I'm also helping my friend Joe with setting up a craft-fair here in Exeter. She's also running a craft group, Make, Do and Mend which meet on a monthly basis. Brilliant, no?

Otherwise I'm researching my Next Big Project so that I can jump right in and get started on it properly when the studio move is completed. I'm also making some smaller pieces at home and doing digital work.

The bed and warm blanket still look terribly inviting...