Open Studio time

Well, here we are on Sunday afternoon, tired and happy. A good combination!

We had a wonderful weekend with the Studio open for drinks and nibbles on Friday evening, and then all day again on Saturday.

The week leading up to an Open Studio is often full of cleaning - more so than ever for me this year as the studio space was like an archaeological dig - layers and layers and layers of stuff that I had placed one on top of the other as I went along getting all the work done for the exhibition at Noosa. It felt all consuming, and I rarely had time to catch my breath and clean up totally - it always seemed to be just putting away enough stuff to clear a space for me to do the next thing.

So last week was the week - the moment of truth and more.

I must confess that I actually relish the Open Studio time as it gives us a real chance to get stuck in, clean, sort and organise and then enjoy people's company and sharing our work.

So, one of the funniest things was we ended up water-blasting (or gurneying as I call it) the concrete carport and outside areas, and then couldn't stop and went and cleaned the top of the concrete water tank that supplies the shed-studio. I am not sure it had ever been done before; we certainly haven't done it in the 10 years we've been here...

We were almost finished when I couldn't help myself and let loose with some writing...

Amazing how effective the cleaning is - the before and after are stark. In fact you almost need your sunglasses to gaze upon that tank-top these days; it's sooooo dazzling!

Here is where we got to setting up the downstairs areas with our work...

Barry's jewellery was all 20% off and looked sumptuous.

He made lots of sales which was great.

I had some books and some prints..

Only one of these prints is still here.

This image shows how I simply moved everything off my working desks onto this desk for the duration - pens, scissors, pencils, glues, papers, candles...the lot!

Friday night was a hoot - lots of folk and lots of fun and the odd little bit of buying frenzy and people seemed to enjoy getting together and having a glass of wine or bubbles to celebrate the end of the year.

Saturday was more settled - but lots of folk still visited and many of them stayed for a few hours so we were busy chatting and demonstrating and sharing the block with people all day.

Today, the shed-studio looks like this.

Slightly transformed, but by no means complete - the next little while will be all about resettling into the space.

And this was an accidental shot as I was tidying up beforehand - but I just loved the light on the threads...