My little fatties...

...are finished! This is one of the pieces I will be entering in the Cork Street Open Exhibition. They all pull out and can be played with!

Roses...

One piece down... ohhh yeah...

More sneak peeks...

These little guys have a bright future ahead of them, and a nice log to live in!

Just a Quickie

Some current maquettes...

Updates and some plugging...

Well, there is a sure lack of recent work on here, but unfortunately its the easter break which means no kilns, studios or indeed much work for me! I have finally finished that essay though and I'm spending my three weeks off in Bristol.

Yesterday I went to see the Alinah Azadeh exhibition currently on in Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. If you get the chance GO! It really is something, and the other artist Rosa Nguyen's work is beautiful. I couldn't do it justice writing baout it here, but seriously, set yourself an hour or so and go and see it.

In other news I'm going to give someone very dear to me some serious credit here. Most of you will know that my lovely Scouser is a blacksmith, and if you didn't, he is. He'll hopefully be starting the artist blacksmithing degree in september, but the course he is on now have aranged an exhibitiion at the Salbox gallery and Gaz's work was included, now I'm very, very proud of him and I think he should be too, but hes not a blogger and never will be, hes just not a computer person, hes a blacksmith so essentially a luddite, so I'm going to post his pictures here as soon as I can get my hands on them.

I'm off out today with my sister to test my new Diana Mini camera, I'm very excited about this. Its a beautiful day and I hope you all enjoy it!

Disaster!

Yesterday as I was having a tutorial with Ken Eastman, an extremely well respected ceramicist, I slammed my research folder into my figure who is vomiting roses and smashed her arms off... needless to say I was devastated and my stomach felt like it would fall out of my bellybutton, added to which the look on Ken's face of utter horror made me feel even worse, yet all I could manage was a quiet "Oh.". I tried to remedy the situation by calmly standing her back up and brushing her shattered hands onto the pile of crap beneath my desk, at which point I realised I liked her more with no arms, so I said "I like her more with no arms actually" which earned me a look of concern, possibly for my mental wellbeing. That first interaction kind of set the tone for the whole tutorial, which was interesting, yet it was like discussing glass blowing with a double glazing salesman; we may both use clay, but theres a world of difference between a modernist potter and a figurative artist. But all in all, he is a very interesting man and meeting him was well worth those mortifying twenty minutes.

I also have my dissertation question ready to go, I think. I've given up on my previous idea about power figures and totems, I just couldn't find a hook. So my new question is:

Self expression through art, an innate or a learned practice?

Any thoughts? I've got about 1,300 words of poorly scribbled notes, so if anyone knows of any links or has an opinion on the subject I wold love to hear them!

Now... off to tackle Hulda.

Some new things...

My new project has begun, five months of solid making ahoy! Also a little preparation for my application for Hereford Craft Fair is in order. SO, first things first, the newest figure-in-the-making is based on the pagan Scandinavian superstition of never saying the word for "bear", it was considered disrespectful to the bears themselves and they would seldom mention them in conversation, however if they really had to then a euphimysm would be used. This new one is called Hulda Falls in Love with Soggy Brown Mead Paw. Hulda means obscure secret, and she needs a hair wedding dress which is proving to be a little harder to make than anticipated. However, perseverence is key! And the maquettes for her hair corset are coming on.

I have also finished two pieces! Yes, finished, really and truly! THese two go together as a set and they are based on people very dear to me, but don't ask who, because its a secret.

These are a little larger than usual, and have no textile clothing per se, although they do have human hair.

THe first one is stuffing herself with feathers

This skirt was made from textiles and then transformed into textured clay using slip and glazing techniques which I am developing,

The second figure is vomiting roses.

I accept that yes, they are a little scarier than usual, but these two are made from quite a raw emotion and I wanted to keep that in them. They have got quite mixed reactions so far, some people just can't go near them, some want to cuddle them.

I'm still alive, just one laptop down, so back to using computers at uni only I'm afraid. I'm also a little ill at the moment so I'm less active on the internet as I'm less active in university, hopefully this will all be over soon though! Now... off to clog a sewing machine up with hair...