Hoping Santa will still be kind....

Cos I have been a BAAAAAD blogger again, haven't I? 22nd November was my last post. Tut tut.

I do have an excuse, strike that, a *reason*. The dissertation was due in on Friday, so on top of trying to get shopping for Christmas, falling off loft ladders, still practical work at Uni, and attending various concerts and events - and for same strange reason, unbeknown to man, I thought it would be great idea to make my own cards this year!! Not like I haven't it before, and got lots of the stuff, but why did I think I might have time to do it!

Oh well, the dissertation got handed in a whole FOUR hours before the deadline. For me, this is unheard of. There is hope for me yet. And I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful it felt to get rid of that 35 sheet file.... (picture me with an inane grin on my face....)

Happy Christmas!

Craft Fair Comin' Up!!

Hi All

Yes, I am finally going to sell something (at least I hope!).

I have a stand next weekend at the Long Eaton Art Room on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th November, 10 - 4 pm both days.

Unfortunately, I have been so busy with Uni work, and you know, life occasionally gets in the way (what?? I hear you ask, you actually have a life? That's not allowed, oh no! And, no, I don't have much of one at the moment!).

So, unless I get a chance this week, ha ha, its going to be mainly pendants, but I have a few lovely new designs, such as this one:

This a a real Frit Happens! collaboration of my fusing, hand-dyed silk ribbons by Diane at SowerZe Designs, dichroic element from Denise at Chameleon Designs and finished with a bead by the lovely Julie at Lush Lampwork.

It's the first craft fair I have done in over a year, and I will be sitting there with one of my study books for those (hopefully not too often!) quiet times. Wish me luck!

Something lovely happened in the Print Room....

We're currently working on a "Negotiated Research" module at Uni. Basically, it means not necessarily towards a final aim, but exploring and refining working methods that we will be using in the Independent Study and final show next year.

I am carrying on with the tile theme (for now at least) and have been exploring different methods of making the casting moulds for ceramic and/or glass tiles.

To give my work some context, I am envisioning that a final piece might be a large scale public work in a healthcare environment (yes, the science bit is still there!)

So I have been working on different types of moulds but also different methods of surface decoration. One of those includes laser cut lino (the block printing type).

Before I took at cast of it, I wanted to run the lino through the printing press, but I was using the blind embossing method, where you don't use ink, you just get the texture in paper.

This image doesn't really show it's full loveliness, but the pressure of the press picked up some of the stained/burnt lino and transferred some colour onto the paper. This image has not been manipulated in any way, just scanned.

Thrilling!

Okay, so its not glass related, Uni related, or anything to do with Art or Craft.... but dear son went to school Halloween Disco on Thursday, the theme was Thriller.

He won first prize for fancy dress, and apparently he can dance, too!

Craft Matters - the Craft Council

The Crafts Council, who do a great job of promoting Craft in the UK

If you value Craft, please help by signing their petition here. to show your support.

DIY Disaster?

Well, not quite.

Last night, I was very proud of myself, as I put together a table I bought from Ikea a few months ago, that's just been sitting in a box for ages.

Did it all by myself, it was tough work I can tell you. It's a good, solid table, so I am quite pleased with it, there's only one problem....

It's so heavy, that I cannot actually pick it up by myself and turn it over. And I really don't know if we're going to get it out of the living room without removing a leg or two (built it in the comfort of the living room, so the top was protected and so were my knees!).

See, I am fine with glass, but perhaps I really shouldn't be let loose with a screwdriver....

I am a BAD Blogger.....

Honestly, I don't know where the time goes.....

So,we've got started, this is it, final and most important year. Hard to picture that in only EIGHT months time, we will have opened the graduate show (gulp!)

We've squeezed into our matchboxes spaces at Uni now, so just got to get on with some actual work.

Hit the ground running with dissertation information, meetings and deadlines..... if it wasn't for this module, I would be fine and dandy and a happy little third year. Hey ho, not got much choice in the matter. Actually, I was very good recently, and I wrote a piece of work that doesn't have to be submitted until tomorrow morning! Well, its still got a few tweaks, but those who know me well, will also know that my usual style would be Monday morning deadline = Sunday start. Yes, I probably won't actually finish it off completely til later this evening, but I am not sure I have ever been his far ahead....


Was given the go ahead to start my Negotiated Research Project, so I will try and update the blog with how things are going, but don't hold your breath! At the moment, I will be working on more tiles, but trying out different methods of surface decoration, whether it be print, colour and or texture. Doing some lino cutting this week, I will try my best not to cut my hand. Printing with these, and then casting them....

Mary Johnson Ceramics.

Mary was a year above me at University, so she completed her BA (Hons) Crafts degree this summer.

I went over to her house last week (With its beautiful garden), where she has as set up a ceramics studio at home - I wasn't at all jealous, really I wasn't!

We'd talked about blogs at Uni and how I thought they were useful. In the third year, we have to set up a website, but as a lot of you will already know, they are not so easy to update at times, and I think using a blog is much easier, especially if its main purpose is for information and updated pictures, as opposed for selling. So I'd offered to help her set one up.

Mary was at Wirksworth Festival and asked me if I would still go and help, which I did, last week, and here is Mary's new blog,

Mary does lovely pottery - slip decorated, wheel thrown earthenware.  To be honest, it's not the type I am normally into, but Mary's is fun and interesting,  and often very tactile too. This is one of Mary's rhubarb forcers, which I love.

It was enrolment on Thursday, well confirmation of attendance. The hard work starts on Monday, our first session being context, and the dreaded dissertation.....

Good Time at Wirksworth Festival

There's currently an Arts Festival in the village Wirksworth in Derbyshire.

We've (me and Ashley) never been before, weather was against us one year, time another. Last year we made it to the one in Melbourne (Derbyshire, not Oz!) and thoroughly enjoyed it, and I resolved we'd do both this year. Well that was the plan, until I realised that the Arts Trail of each were on the same weekend.

For anybody who's never been along to this kind of thing, over a weekend, the people of said festival village, open up their houses and gardens - but not so we can nosy at their interiors, it is so artists and makers can display and sell their work. Churches, school halls, and of course shops are open too.

As I said, we enjoyed Melbourne, but seeing as we'd not done Wirksworth before, and they are about the same distance away from home, we opted for the latter.

Not sure if we went in less houses this time, but there seemed to be less work - perhaps its more spread out. But what they did seem to have, which we didn't come across last year, is far more other things going on. Music - lots of, different types. Jazz band on one corner, guitar bands, even a bagpipe player, beer festivals, lots of foodie places and a makers market - and we only really did half. There just seemed to be a whole lot more "going on" - as Ashley said, there was a buzz - "let's get back to the lively bit".

As always, lots of lovely work, variety of homes and some gorgeous gardens. My favourite find though, was Bruce Aitken, Clockmaker.

Lovingly crafted, wooden clocks, with exposed mechanisms. Obviously a lot of work goes into these time-pieces, which not only are functional but are beautiful pieces of art in their own right.



Bruce clearly not only makes these with lots of care and attention, but was a lovely chap to talk to, who tirelessly explained to us how they work.

He's going to Origin in London later this year - and I wish him well. One day I would love to give one of these lovely clocks a home.

The kiln faeries were kind last night....

Like my blog posting, doing some glass work seems to be a bit of rare thing at the moment. I've done a couple of firings over the last few weeks, and the last one especially disappointed me.

But not one to give up, I spent last Saturday afternoon in the garden, with my flat lap grinder, working on those disappointments until, quite frankly, I was soaking wet and I'd had enough of the noise - I thought my ears were going to drop off!!

So, last night, some re-shaped pieces went back in my kiln, along with some that I have added glass bails to, and a few with dichroic additions. I don't tend to buy dichroic glass very often, its not really my *thing* - but I couldn't resist a posting a few months back on Frit Happens, where someone was selling "100 Horrors" - this lady does lots with dichroic, but had a batch of ready fired cabs the weren't up to her liking. They were a good price, and it meant I got a good variety without buying loads of glass - because I really, really, really don't need any more....

So, in the slide show below (too lazy to post individual links, sorry!), you'll see some with blobs that look as though they are sitting on top. They were "tack fused" on, which means where the glass is actually fused together, but doesn't melt all into one blob.

I've put some lovely hand-dyed silk ribbons on a couple, which have a bead at the other end, which acts as a slider - so the pendant can be adjusted from about 30" long, to as short as you like, and then worn long again at a later occasion (I often find that I might want a different length pendant, depending on what top I am wearing, so how useful is that??)

As usual, the colour of glass is often difficult to capture, especially dichroic, as you really can't see all the different reflecting colours. Oh, and I did this in a pop-up light tent which has been lent to me to see if I like it - I do, and one will definitely be in my letter to Santa. It was great to be able to take the picture without worrying about what was reflected in the glass.

I used my new dSLR, a tripod (something else I need new, this one is 27 years old and a bit lightweight), I was outside; it was cloudy, and late evening, which didn't help with colours, so they did go through photoshop, but not a huge amount. I am still getting used to all the settings on the new camera (might help if I read the instructions!), and it was threatening to rain, so they're not the best photos, but I will get there.

Anyway, here's the pics:

Sculpture in the Sanctuary

On Tuesday, me and Ashley, and several of my lovely friends from University, went along to the above, which a sculpture trail in the Swan Sanctuary at Roger Taylor's Garden Centre at Southwell, in Nottingham.

It's only a temporary exhibition, so if you get the chance to go, before it finishes at the end of August, then DO! It's free entry, but in all honesty, I would have been happy to pay anyway.

There's no particular theme, just an interesting and eclectic assortment of sculpture of all sizes, shapes and prices.

Rather than post individual pictures, I have just provided my Photobucket slideshow. Beware, over a hundred images to browse through! I might come back in a bit and post a link to the album, so you can just look which you fancy, or I might post a few of my favourite images from the day.

The swan sanctuary is lovely in itself, a pleasant stroll round, even without the lovely art. And it looks like a lovely garden centre, and like most of these, has a lovely tea rooms/restaurant, which we can highly recommend! (well, it would have been rude not to!)

It's that time again.....

Let's go back to this time last year.

I'd been doing my blog a few weeks, and a year ago, one sunny evening (remember them?), a Friday, we saw a balloon pass very low over the back garden, and land in a field nearby. Click here for the original blog entry.

I was fetching in the washing (yes, it was actually dry enough to leave it out there for a few hours), when my mobile started ringing, it was my friend Jo asking if I was at home. I thought she was going to pop round for a cuppa, but she asked if I had seen a hot air balloon, to which I replied that I hadn't.

I took another look out the back door, and spotted it. How I could have missed it, I do not know. Well, actually it was probably too low to see when I'd been getting the washing, because if I thought last year's was close, this one was even closer.

It was a few houses away, but had it been nearer my back garden, it wouldn't have made it over the trees. It looked as though it might struggle to make it over the roof tops, I shouted my son and we realised that it was heading over the front of the house - we thought it might be heading for the same field as the one did last year.

I told him to grab the camera (I was still yacking to Jo at this point, giving her a running commentary) and we went out the front - I am very lucky to have school fields at the back, and large open green at the front - and I think the balloon was rather lucky too, as it clearly wouldn't have made it over the next lot of houses to that next field!

Quite frankly, I have never seen so many people on the green at one time.


Here's some photos - they're not brilliant, as it was my 11 year old who grabbed the camera, and neither of us checked the settings, the exposure compensation was turned up, so they're a bit bleached out, and he got a wee bit excited, so there's a bit of camera shake.

Firstly, these two though, I thought Ashley did a good job with the framing, they've not been edited in any way, I think they make great pictures:



And here's the rest of them:
Coming in to land....

Oops, bumpy ride!

HOW close to the houses?

Mind the cars mate!

Feeling a bit deflated....

I think we might have damaged your lawn....





Fire her up, lets get out of here....

Here we go.....

Nope, its not gonna work....

Strange giant snail spotted on village green....

What a pretty tent.....

How do you get inside of it?

Ooooh, look, that's why we crashed, its got a hole in it.....

I wish I could fold up my sleeping bag that effectively!

I have a new toy!

I actually have something about me to blog about today!

(although, please don't forget my friend Shelley's fundraising!)

When I won the art competition back in May, I decided that I would use my winnings to buy a new camera.

As is the norm, I have been dithering about what to get for ages. Having used film SLR for years, and love it, but also loving the speed and convenience of digital, I was divided: start on a digital SLR (unfortunately I could not get one that would take my original film camera lenses, it is an old Fuji screw mount, rather outdated, even if it is still good!) - with the disadvantages of the higher costs of building up a range of lenses - or buy a "bridge" camera - you know, one of those chunky cameras that look like an SLR but have a fixed on lens. They're good in lots of ways, particularly some models that have a macro focussing right down to 1cm, and up to 18X zoom. I figured that a decent one of these would cover all eventualities.

So today, on a trip to Nottingham to buy a new iron, I went into John Lewis just to see what they'd got. I looked at a couple of bridge cameras, but the salesman took me to the SLR range, and put a Canon EOS 1000D in my hand. It felt so *right* - and it seemed really easy to use. Its a refurb, and over £100 less than anywhere else I have seen (not that I had even considered this model before 1pm today!)

Well, I bought it. Without research. How rash am I? But I figured that my compact Canon A540, which most of the images I have shown on here were taken on is ok. Actually, I've taken some cracking photos with it, as good as some bridge cameras can do - its just that I don't have the super macro or super zoom capabilities.

When I got it home, I got it out of the box, and took a few pics, and no, I haven't read the instructions at all, so I don't know how much better I could get. I have to say I am rather pleased with the result though (and it is with the standard lens, who needs macro?).




What do you think?

Friends are fundraising....

Back in 2007, I did a bit of teaching at Castle College at Stapleford, doing NOCN in Glass Fusing.

I met two lovely, lovely ladies there, Shelley and Sandra, both members of Frit Happens, and we still sometimes meet up for a bit of "ladies what lunch". (In fact, we're due for another meet, must arrange it).

Anyways, Shelley has been a busy bee, making some jewellery for fundraising. She has two lovely items of jewellery on Ebay, and all proceeds from the sales are going to two charities:

This bracelet for the Breast Cancer Campaign

And

This pendant for Tommy's baby charity

I follow Shelley's blog, so a link should be in the side bar, under good monkey chatter, but she'll drop down the list as others blog, so here is the link to the blog post about it:

Good Monkey Chatter (Shelley's blog)

I always aim to do something myself for charity, but honestly I am terrible at getting myself sorted into actually doing it. At least I can tell you about others who do get their asses into gear and raise money for charity though!

Out of the Ordinary....

It's a hard life being an artist/maker/craftsperson....

It's the summer break from Uni, and whilst we don't get an official summer project (other than dissertation research, yuk).

But what a few of us decided to do was make sure we still made regular visits to galleries and shows. I know just how easy it is to let the time slip away and before you know it, its time to go back to Uni and have been out of touch with what's going on.

A couple of years ago, there was an exhibition at the V&A that I wanted to get to, but never did. I found out last week that it's at Sheffield this summer, at the Millennium Galleries, so four of us went up today, and I have had a great day (thank you Debs, Nic and Sarah).

It's called "Out of The Ordinary: Spectacular Craft" - and their words "brings together the work of eight contemporary artists who place craft at the heart of their practice".

As we're on a Crafts course, this was a really relevant exhibition for us to see. And I was not disappointed. And I hope to get back again over the summer.

In Context studies, we have discussed the changing definitions and roles of "Craft" over the years, as well as looking at museums and exhibition methods and display, labelling, etc.

Aside from some really interesting work, I was intrigued at the method of display they have used in the exhibition. I would definitely say that it was shown as "art" and not "craft" (some rather subtle lighting for example, and all very minimalistic).

I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition, but I also very liked the Millennium Galleries, the Ruskin Gallery has a lovely piece by Keiko Mukaide, a glass artist who's work I love. I can't seem to get a picture to upload, but this link might work: Nature Water.

Go take a look.

In fact, I liked Sheffield on the whole - I didn't realise just how much work has been done in the city centre, it's still a work in progress, but felt much more like a cosmopolitan, European city than that steel city up north. Mind you, today's blistering heat might have had something to do with that "Holiday" feel....

We also had a walk through the Winter Gardens, where we had lunch, and saw the Hepworth/Moore/Nicholson exhibition at the Graves Gallery above the Central Library.

There's so much more to see. I'll certainly be going back to Sheffield.

Nasa Image for the Day....

Scroll down to the bottom of my blog screen, and you should see a new addition, as titled above.

Thought I would add it and see what interesting and fascinating images appear - should provide some inspiration...!

First, last.... but definitely not least.

collection of today's bumpies
Originally uploaded by Flame Born Beads

Titled that as its the last post I have written, but will appear top of the list....

It was Les, of Flame Born Beads, who kindly threw open the doors of her studio on a very very wet Sunday recently, let us play with her glass and torch, and that was where I met some lovely new friends from the Frit Happens! Forum. Many of which I already felt I knew after two years and couple of thousand posts! And it was lovely to see Shelley and Sandra again, and to meet Fabienne.

I wanted to show you some of the lovely work that these talented peeps from the forum produce. I've picked images at random, cos I like 'em - you'll just have to visit their websites if you want to find out if they're for sale! A lot of people have Etsy shops as well, but there's only so many links a person can post in one day!

Again, a big thank you to Les for arranging this day, now take a look at some lovely glass...

Pixie Willow Designs

Pixie Willow Designs
Originally uploaded by pixiewillowdesigns

Whilst I had either met, or messaged other people off the forum, I hadn't "spoken" to Lorna before. I had been admiring her work though, as I had been following a show and tell thread in which Lorna had been rather prolific. And rightly so! Lorna's fine stringer work is fantastic, and you really don't appreciate it until you see her beads in the flesh.

Lorna generously shared some of her methods with us on the open studio day. It was way above my head, having struggled to get a glob of glass to even stay on a mandrel, but a joy to watch all the same.

Here is Lorna's website.

Cheekey Cherub Designs

IMG_3017
Originally uploaded by Kaz ~ CheekyCherubDesigns

I first met Kaz last year at the International Festival of Glass at Stourbridge. She and Diane (Dilunah) had a stand on the saturday glass market (oh, now that WAS a feast for the eyes!).

The stall was full of glass goodies, too many to choose from!

Not only is Kaz a very talented bead maker, she is also a lovely patient lady who showed me how to make my first beads, and was kind enough to take the time to show Ashley too - I think its a brave decision to agree to teach an 11 year old boy how to play with hot glass in a flame! Here's Kaz's website for you to drool over.

Dilunah Glass Designs

I love Raku
Originally uploaded by dilunah

I also met Diane, who will tell you she only took a lesson in lamp-working to "get it out of her system".

She was, and still is a glass fuser like myself, with a bit of a penchant for blue and bubbles!

You can see more of Diane's on her website.

We've already said this, Diane doesn't show her work often enough on the forum, I couldn't decide which photo to show of her work there were so many yummy ones!