My workspace

I thought I'd post something about my studio. Its the old dining room of my house. Our kitchen is big enough to eat in, so this room's mine. We got the house a year ago and the room looked like this - you can't tell from this crappy picture but it was mouldy, both the the brown walls and the brown carpet.


I moved all my clobber in and set to work amongst the mould and dust. Then one day Bill and I cleared it out and pulled the carpet up. Two weeks later it looked like this. I painted the lino pale blue so its a lot lighter in there now.


I'll happily admit to being into house porn. I buy Elle Deco monthly - its a lot cheaper than doing my house up! And I look at websites full of inspiring workspaces. Mostly very sparse with a carefully placed mid century/vintage nik-nak or two. Inspiring to look at but I wouldn't get much done in that sort of room. 

My space is no shrine to design. Its functional. And its not very tidy. The making process is very fiddly and precise but I tend to chuck paper around and rummage through drawers looking for stuff. I'm sitting here with 2 cupboards, 1 drawer and a toolbox open right now, and that bureau is never closed! 

Here is a work room that I could work in. Fleur Cowles was an artist, philanthropist, publisher of Flair Magazine, aircraft pilot, and a lot more. This is her study. I think she probably had someone else do the dusting!



My studio is open for the Chew Valley Arts Trail this weekend 13 - 14 October. 

Along with my framed pictures, I'm hoping to have some paper mobiles for sale like this red and yellow one in my studio picture and also some a bit like this based on my Womans Realm pictures.

Come along and see.

Land of the rising obesity levels

I'm Scottish. So there. Mallow courses through my veins along with Irn Bru. Perhaps not, but I grew up there and its brilliant. Lochs, mountains, castles...

I grew up miles away from that stuff in a new town made of concrete and weird green landscaped hillocks by the side of a dual carriageway.  We did have this. Chocolate, mallow, jam and biscuit. Eaten in that precise order. And of course, most amazing packaging in the world.

After Sunday school my sister and I would, after carefully removing the teacake,  flatten out the wrapper and painstakingly remove every wrinkle (working from the outside to the middle) until left with a super shiny sheet of foil,  curving slightly at the edges. Sometimes we would then mould it or fold it into a shape. Very fiddly.  Not having access to google in 1983 it would mostly be a very limited origami fortune teller



Japan meets Scotland -  land of the rising obesity levels.


I'm still obsessed with super fiddly detail and painstaking, high risk creations. Also all things Japanese.

This may be where it all started, so along with the other stuff I haven't finished yet,  I'm going to be making some stuff about it...

Now what?

 
If you're the nice person that bought my picture then a great big THANK YOU!!!! 

Now for the difficult bit... what to do next? I know what I'm doing artwork wise but I've somehow got to get stuff into galleries or maybe apply for an MA?

Dunno. Feel a bit inert. A slight down after last weekends up, maybe. Its the end of something so my energy is tailing off, yet actually, in the broader sense this should be the beginning of something else.   

Its half term this week so I'll be dedicating time to the littlies. I am grateful for this bank holiday making it a 4 day week though. Bill is tinkering with bike things and Nos 1 and 2 are painting each others faces whilst number 3 has a nap. I've got no food or laundry liquid so I'm off to get provisions.

Check in soon for the next thrilling installment... 

Curtains


My latest effort for the Southbank Arts Trail on Saturday and Sunday. I'm showing my stuff in Paper Village on North Street, Southville, Bristol.

It is still a single piece of paper sandwiched between two pieces of glass but its a bit of a departure in process; a combination of a soldering iron and scalpel with synthetic paper. A more painterly process, using heat to remove the material, but just as time consuming! I'm sort of  hoping to get another bigger one done before the weekend but I'm probably kidding myself.

Got a billion things to do, like make business cards and sort out prices and of course, actually hang things on a wall! I'll probably sell nothing but it'll be an adventure.

Woman's Realm - 1st big one done!

Finished finally. 
Its fortunate that the sun's come out just as I got it finished yesterday! I'm really enjoying the shadows it makes against the background..


I got through quite a few scalpel blades.  

Now to get cracking on the rest of them. As usual, I've tonnes of ideas and not enough time. Its half term now so no school run and I’ll be hanging with my small people in the day. Taking things easy and hopefully I’ll have a bit more energy in the evenings to get some smaller pieces finished.

Weekend work

I got some time and space today to get stuff done.  I started with this one. Yes I've done it before, but after yesterday's shaky start I thought it would be best to go for a familiar warm up.

The Kozo paper is very lovely to cut, but you have to go so slowly as it is very easy to mess up.  On the lightbox, you can see the texture of the paper - very delicate, super strong fibres. Its tidier than the last version.



Template in progress for the biggest hangers piece - 0.5m diameter. I have an A4 printer so its a bit of a jigsaw puzzle. Took bloomin' ages.


Piece in progress. I'm about half way. I thought it would be done but alas, things take longer than you think and I can't really rush it!


Hopefully it'll be done and framed this week...

Byee.

Those magnificent men in their flying machines

Gotta love Terry Thomas
... up tiddly up, up
... down tiddly down, down.

Roller coasters,
Fear and fun, fun and fear.
Making art?
Sort of similar.

Got paper, got scalpel, got frames,
got TIME - for once!
and...
got a crisis of confidence.

The pressure to perform eh?
My very expensive new paper cuts sooo easily and its a bit scary how easy it is to make mistakes.
There is no Ctrl Z with this,
one mistake and its in the bin.

Got to get stuff made over the weekend.
Onwards and upwards...

Hina Aoyama

Look at this...
Super fine paper cutting. There are a number of artists out there cutting paper right now.  Some good some not. A Japanese artist living in France, Hina Aoyama's stuff is uncompromisingly intricate. With paper cutting, one mistake means starting again. I'm astounded that she uses scissors.



Yep, scissors. Really small ones.


Hina Aoyama's Photostream.