Gilding the lily

Hello. It has been a while. Here's a small list of things what I done of late...

AAF Battersea was good. I didn't sell well but it was a good experience.

Also in March, I got "Going Outside" into a show at the RWA. I was very pleased to be chosen. Its a great show - all drawing and mark making of some sort or other. Its on until 2nd June and well worth a visit.

During April I was wrote a pitch for a large scale paper installation. It was for a grand hall in a National Trust House in Somerset. I didn't win, but again, it was a really valuable experience. I've made contact with some good people through it. Also it got my brain really working and pushed some of my ideas in a new direction. 

Then earlier in May, I did the North Somerset Arts Trail. My friend Amy Shiner  and I showed our work in Amy's house.  I had lots of fun hanging out with a friend and avoiding my own housework! We even made a bit of money.

I'm tempted to stay true to the blog form and "tell all" how terribly busy I've been and how life is just a whirlwind! But...


Life is quite mundane most of the time, I find. My artwork is about trying to find some beauty and purpose in that. Instead of gilding the lily, I gilded this paper cut clothes peg instead.

More sooner, maybe.

Going Outside

This is the final one done for AAF Battersea. It was a longer haul to the finish line, than I thought it would be.

I've had a better go at describing the folds where the fabric is double in places. The next plan is to do lots of smaller pieces - both experimental in ideas and process. I never thought I could stick with one material for any length of time. But I've developed a real fetish for paper.




I'm off to London to the see the show on Saturday and also to go to Falkiners, the best paper shop in the world.

Taste

A couple of weeks ago I was directed to this by another blog.


This really got me thinking...

 Many people out there believe that having a good eye for appreciating other peoples stuff will make them a good artist. Its not about taste. Your good taste will only get you so far, and by that I mean maybe a toe in the door of being creative.

 The work out there that's really great comes from within the individual who made it. 

 At art school, in lieu of any critical analysis, some tutors would look at my work and then suggest I go to the library and look at 2 or 3 artists that they deemed similar to me. I tried to ignore what other people were doing. It can actually be quite dispiriting to see someone who is in a similar territory as you and has resolved the things that you have not. And very difficult to find your own individual solution once you've seen theirs.

 Look at your own experience rather than your taste. Work inspired by someone else's will be just a dilute version of their work. 

 Show people how you see the world. You have an opportunity to make something new, that no one else has seen yet! 

 If you want what you make to live up to your ambitions, then work out what those ambitions are. What are you trying to say? How do you want people to feel when they look at your work? Keep this in the forefront of your mind and ask yourself time and again, what percentage of this are you acheiving? This way you stay aware of heading down a blind alley of churning stuff out for the sake of it. If you lose sight of what you are doing then just keep working and you will find a new ambition. 

 The bit about making a great volume of work is very true. You move forward through doing, not thinking.  
It takes forever and if you're lucky you'll never quite get there. Its all in the chase!

Arts trail part 1 - paper mobiles

I have been playing with my paper robot again .


This is a remake of the 1st complex cut paper thing I made. I blogged about it here. 


This is based on another thing I blogged about here. 

I made a few mobiles  to hang up along with my pictures for the Chew valley arts trail. It was an experiment to see if anyone might be interested in them. Surprisingly, I sold loads and still have orders to make! A good friend will be selling some other similar designs at a local craft market in December.

Sorry my pictures are ropey!

Health and safety

I've just finished another curtain piece, so I thought I'd post a couple of work in progress pics.

I'm not sure how I managed to do the other ones without a mask. I make the holes in the paper with a soldering iron. The fumes aren't that bad but my head is about 8 inches from the paper. After a very short while on this, my nose was streaming an my eyelids were a bit crispy! I ran out and bought this mask.


The less enjoyable bit is picking out the all extraneous tiddly bits  which weld themselves to the paper. I do it in front of the telly. Its both painstaking and boring, but worth it to get to the moment when I can cut it away from the template.


Its framed and ready so will be on the Artwork page soon.

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.

The First Big Weekend

I refer to this post.

Not the track by Arab Strap, but what is for me, the 1st big weekend of the year - putting my work out there in public.
It went well, lots of really positive comments and I met some really lovely people.
Special thanks to all the people I know who made the effort to come along, especially Lou from Littlegreenshed for agreeing to take some decent pictures of my work.
Special thanks again to Vicx at Paper Village for letting me use the space, and for creating such a hub of creativity in South Bristol.

Tomorrow I'm off exploring the Arts Trail with friends and family. I'll report back later...