My second ever blog post....

Well, it's only been 10months since my first posting on this blog. Life just got too busy for me, what with it being my final year at uni and all. But here I am, with a degree in ceramics, and now a full time job, I find I need to get my arse into gear and start promoting myself, or I'll never my career started.

So what's happened apart from graduation? Well, I've done New Designers, which was an experience, that's for sure. Then there was the joint exhibition I did with some classmates, One Step Beyond that was hard work but fun and very nice learning experience. Also, I was selected for Art in Woodstock (Woodstock Oxfordshire), that was a real buzz, especially when I discovered they had used an image of my work on the promotional posters and banners all over Woodstock. I managed to get my hands on some of the posters as part of my hard copy resume.

And yesterday was the launch day for The Graduate Show at the Bevere Gallery http://beveregallery.com/exhibitions. THAT was totally awsome. They saw me at New Designers along with a fellow graduate by the name of Jeremiah Allman, spoke to both of us there, then followed up with a solid invitation to exhibit with them a few weeks later. So I'm a very happy bunny right now.

Artistically, I've been very busy as well, with 3 projects in the pipeline despite the fact I have no studio at this time which isn't such a bad thing really, as I can often get sidetracked if I just play with the clay and don't get on with the drawings/paintings/designs.

Project 1 A little bit steampunk, I've been exploring the old Victorian inventions etc. One of the bestest sources being Leonard De Vries' 'Victorian Inventions'. Also a lazy afternoon taking over 200 pics in the Science Museum in London gave me masses of fuel for the project, however it seems to have shifted into explorations of ink stains like this....

..... however, I do have pans of taking this project into the 3rd Dimension, with some floaty flying things and some unusual picture frames.

Project 2 is a past the knee crocheted cardigan. This has been fuelled as much by my disgust at the poor excuses for fashion this winter with 'warm winter clothing' that doesn't button or zip up but just hang due to the, uh, 'fashionable' hanky hem as by my finally settling on what to use the Rowan yarn I've been hoarding for the last 6years. How is this an art project you ask? I'm an artist and nothing is never simple! This won't be an affair of rows of trebles, or granny squares. It will be made in purples and greens, the starting point is 100% pure wool Magpie Aran(now discontinued) by Rowan in Teal. It will be made from side to side, not boring old bottom to top, the stitches will be varied, as well as the textures and yarns. I'm also including lace and ribbons as well as a ball of Noro Kureyon and skeins of awfully gorgeous Collinette yarns. I'm also planning to patchwork the lining, I happen to have some nice fat quarters and off-cuts in greens that look amazing with everything else. Obviously this project is going to progress a lot faster than the other 2, but that's ok, I want it finished for next winter and it will stop me climbing up the walls while I can't work with clay. Here are some of my samples....

I'm not ready to talk about my 3rd project yet as it's still in the very early stages but it involves furniture fringeing in super boring old fashioned colours and fabric dyes and a needle and thread.

The main reason the latter 2 projects are both in textiles is due to the fact that I now have a full time job at Sew 'N' Sew in the Bath Guildhall Market. So 5 days a week I'm totally immersed in everything crafty and non-ceramic, and me being who I am, I'm looking at all that gorgeous wool and ribbons and so on and thinking of what I can do with them. Before you ask, no, we don't sell Rowan and Colinette -I WISH!!!!!- We stock Sirdar and they do some very nice yarns too, such as Flirt, Baby Bamboo, Escape and Indie an amazing super chunky that practically flies off the shelves, it takes a 12mm needle and knits up a treat, but Sirdar haven't done the colour combinations this year that I'm needing for my cardy.

So this is me, 10 months on from my last post, I just hope that I manage to keep with this now