Three small pieces, made from a commitment to "I will spend 20 minutes making something today". I didn't really enjoy it, it felt like more of a 'have-to' but I bloody did it! (And I don't like them much, apart from the one which secretly says 'Start'.)
slow down
squares
tart
My studio is now here at home and being surrounded by my things is spurring me on.
glue m1
glue m2
dscf8698
These glue moulds are like an untidy and unorganised version of the piece 'Ladle Moulds' I exhibited at the Surface/Space/Time exhibition back in 2009. This time, working on a flat surface. It's made with Drawing inks and a pva/water mix. I’m have been adding bit by bit for the past year. It takes a long long time to dry, so it’s been another ongoing thing, which is now done and I can now find another use for the massive shower door which has been looming over my studio space (as much as a glass door can loom)Here is some more about the Glue Mould / Glue Quilt process
Collage, Organisation, Process, Sketchbook, Studio
photo
sketchbookscanz
sketchbookscanz2
sketchbookscanz23
poobincamping
Still thinking about how great this weekend was, full-on-studio-time. So good to commit days and elongated hours to it, not just snatching some time here and there, or never going at all. I completed six frames, started and finished - ready to hang. That's never happened! On top of that I created a couple of collages, and wrote lots of notes in my sketchbook. Completely productive and fulfilling!Here's some of the scanned sketchbook pages: Don't know where this came from in my head, but I like it. Poo Bin / Camping. Using unwanted photographs and a nice thin pen. These two go hand in hand. You know when you're in multitasking flow, and you have things going on in different areas of the place you're working in, and things like this just appear out of you? No? I didn't either - that's why this weekend was so great!
Art, Organisation, Process, Studio, Thoughts
triangles
Today is the THIRD day IN A ROW that I've been in my beautiful studio. It feels great! I've made more time for it, and a free weekend has been a lovely way to ease myself into making more time for studio and creating. I have made some things I really like, and which were fun to make. Working with multiples, thinking about an exhibition / arts trail event, where I show all the 'multiple' work I've been creating. Mostly centred around the Poppy pieces, but also on other multiples, things I have collected, like these metal triangles, which were in an old frame, keeping the back on and in place. Some of them are rusting, they are very sharp, and I used some extra strong and thin double sided tape to attach them on. It seems to fix most things, although some of the objects I have created are 3D and I'm playing with a glue gun today, to test the fix of that. I have started a shopping list, what do I need to make what I want to make, and have on-hand in the studio instead of being out and up and down Gloucester road shopping for big rolls of paper. Also I'm measuring up my old frames to find big paper for, or glass to fill the frames with, if it's been smashed or used for something else.
Art, Poppies, Studio, Text Project
Creating a wall using hung drawings I'm working on (although they do flap about too much)
Frames ready to be cleaned/painted
Text project artwork, taken out of crappy frames and ready to go into re-restored frames. (Restored with love this time, not a deadline. )
Spraying the frames - smooth, matt finish.
Here's a few, complete. I like hanging them and seeing them collectively, rather than wrapping them in cling-film straight away, ready for selling at Bristol Harbourside Market (more about that later, but for now, here's the Facebook and the Twitter)
Sweet peas from the garden - one of the last batches. Lovely to have them in the studio
Intricate, time-consuming drawing. Using china markers, a grey/lilac colored pencil and some un-watered down water colour paint. I might say that this is the start of a project, I want to create a body of work to exhibit next year, possibly at one of the Bristol open studio events, or one of the Arts Trails. Every piece will be in the same vein as this one - an accumulation and a collection of hours, doing the drawings little and often, each piece will hold around ten hours of my time, spread over around a month. Little and often. Little and often.
Stone paintings: some stones left over from knocking down a massive wall. Like an attractive paper weight, and a good surface to work with. This one ain't done, I want to fill it with lots of lines, like a precise Davenport!
Poppies: after collecting them for years and years, I'm at stage one of experimenting with my collected poppy petals (thousands) but this trial looked a bit Ikea - not quite what I'm going for, but maybe people would purchase?
Inky shower door: Better than glass because it's got edges you see. Like my glue mould work from a couple of years back, I'm not working in ladles any more, but instead I'm using the flat surface. working with Drawing inks and clear glue (not pva!) I'm going to be adding lots to this. It takes a long long time to dry, so it's another ongoing thing.
Tax disks, another thing I've collected long-term. Scavenged from scrap yards, it's about time I got them out and made something with them. I'll start by plonking them on my desk.
Some more updated photographs of my studio space in Stokes Croft, Bristol. How good it feels to move things around and feel more collected to the space and fresher within it.
Hello Easter break! I have been enjoying having the long weekend off, and now I have another week 'off work' (ie. no Light Box work, just me in my studio making stuff - which I have not done in months) I'm really enjoying it, and I have a week's holiday abroad to look forward to as well.Today it's just me in the studio, sorting some pens and making some stuff. Bliss.Music to work to today:
It's The Motherf**king Remix - The Rub (download volume 3 here for free!)
You Make My Dreams - Hall and Oates
Spirit Lake - Coco Rosie
Greatest Hits Vol 1 - The Eagles
Alphabet Street - Prince
U Got the Look - Prince
She Drives Me Crazy - Fine Young Cannibals
BBC Radio 4's MedMatters podcast
Brick House - Commodores
Greatest Hits - Herb Alpert
Yo La Tengo
One of my best-est friends came to see me in the studio yesterday. Hello!
Barfoot and Duggan, Lists, Silly, Stop Motion
We have been working really hard to get our Centrespace exhibition ready. We have under a month to go now, and plenty of lists to display; threading and pinning. We are making more reciept mountains and getting some lists and letters framed. There's a lot of work to be done, and we're having fun doing it. Apart from when the list-thread gets in knots!
Yesterday I had a great full day in the studio, the first dedicated day in a long time. I found myself doing the very important things (London exhibition prep) and then the stuff which has no serious deadline (presents for people, friend/family commissions, tidying) It was great to get both of those categories of things worked on.These three are for my great friend Samuel Rogers, who sent me a delightful package recently. I am starting to gather things to send back to him. The drawings are mono-print replicas of Warhol's 'Unidentified Male' 1957.
My text project is going well... after having a stall at the Redland Girls School Fete, I received three commissions, one for someone who wanted a present for a christening - 'Zoe Grace', and two commissions for a gift: 'Love' and 'Peace'I have discovered that selling at markets is more successful whent he customer feels like they are part of the making process - if they are supplying me with the word, and I go away and make it for them, it's a whole lot more personal and meaningful. It's bespoke.I'm going to continue with this 'commissioning stall' as opposed to a stall where I have all my stock for sale. And in all future stalls, I will be sat creating the work infront of all market-goers. It's important that people see I have drawn the lines on myself, it's not just pretty paper !Holly, Adrian and I had a stall at the 'Queen Elizabeth Country Park' Show, which is in Petersfield, and which was a complete disaster. It was raining so heavily, it was misty, there was a really poor turnout, no one was particullarly interested in our stall, which kept nearly falling down. Holly sold one piece, the money recieved was paid back to the train guard when she got charged on the train... and I had a rainy two and a half hour car journey back to Bristol with a car full of damp artwork.We're seeing this as 'research', we know now to not leave Bristol, there's so many different opportunities for us here.
Views from the roof of my studio in Stokes Croft. You can see over all the rooftops, it's one of the highest rooftops, apart from the tower-blocks. I like the roof a lot, apart from the pigeon bones and poo.
Art, color, Exhibitions, Process, Studio
I have been prolific today. I was in the studio till 8pm, inspired, I kept finding more things to do and I'm only home now because I'm hungry for fish and chips mmm. A Friday night treat from Bishopston Fish Bar!Today, I have: caught up on last night's Big Brother with my neighbour Mia, taken home all the crockery from my studio and put it all in my dishwasher, recycled, taken rubbish to the dump (I'm the 'head housekeeper' of the studio you see), done a layer of papier mache on the balloons ready for the Big Lebowski festival tonight at The Lanes, Bristol, put up a wall in the studio, painted that wall, watched 4 episodes of the L word whilst doing most of the above, made a friend a birthday present collage, bound my birthday blind-drawing papers, wrote this blog, started my glue molds,So these 'glue molds', they are for my my exhibition: 'Surface/Space/Time' at The Crypt Gallery, London (26th Aug - 9th Sept) which is curated by and also showing the work of Sam Clift who is a nice chap that I went to uni with.I have been meaning to get on with starting the glue molds for months. I created some whilst at uni, and made this small quilt with them:The idea I have for the exhibition is very similar, but with edited colors and on a much larger scale. The patchwork is made by filling big spoons with a mix of PVA, water and ink. They take AGES to dry, and the final stage sewing the patches together (but i'm thinking about spray-mount??)Today I started working out the quantities of glue to water I need to make the perfect mixture for the molds. I have five plastic cups, 1-5, 1 has 30 parts water to 70 parts glue, 2= 40:60, 3= 50:50, 4= 60:40, 5= 70:30 I need the mold to be the perfectly supple, and not brittle. I have poured the liquids into 5 different ladels, and I'll wait (about a week?) to see which mixture makes the perfect consistency of mold. Process! It's been a long time since I focussed on process. It's where my heart lies with my art, and it felt really good to get into this again today.
Art, Process, Studio, Text Project, Thoughts
I have been working pretty hard on my 'Text Project' and needed some escape from that. I've chosen it to be mundane and repetitive, and I love that, but sometimes I do need to release some more creativity within some other format. And yesterday, this came through mono printing. I used my little roller, and a piece of acetate to ink up, it's so easy and mess-free. I used some sequins too, and got involved with drawing a lot of small squares, again - very repetitive, I can't get away from it! The little pictures are not hanging on a washing-line type of structure in my studio - I have always wanted a studio with things hanging from washing lines, and now I have it. I'm so lucky.
Some pictures of my studio... Here are some gorgeous frames, the ornate one is a frame that my step-dad donated to me (thank you!) and the solid wood frame I found in a skip outside the Architecture Center, by Arnolfini, here in Bristol. Complete with map! (Which I hope to sell on Ebay)Here is where I do my sitting down. I treated my studio to a big tidy-up this week, It feels fresh and spring-cleaned. Must keep it like this so I don't waste time tidying. You can see more frames here, under the school desk, got to fill them up.Some text pieces, I have had a development in that area, as fantastic online shop Hunkydory Home want to sell my text project! I'm selling 'You're My Cup of Tea', 'Love', 'Hello', and 'This is it' with them, and want to get lots ready and in-stock as I'm being optimistic about them selling like hotcakes (that would make another nice text piece! I'm going to start talking in idioms only now)Some Receipt Mountains on the wall, and my monsters are hanging around too.
My studio is homely now, shelves to be put up this week (made by Nigel)Making:- Reciept mountain with Lucy- Text pieces: 'Persevere' particularly- A mess- Tidying that up
Finally, i have decided to get a studio! This may not look like much, but once i lay some white lino flooring down, put some shelves up and get my stuff in there, it will be just the kind of space I need! This is so exciting! It's in Stokes Croft Studios, right in the center of it all. Shared with lovely people too. I move in tomorrow!
