Hanging, finishing and playing

We have been able to spend a bit of time in the new studio of late for which I am grateful.  We had started out with ideas and dreams of maybe having shows or exhibitions in a small part of the studio and despite the virus, we decided to buy some hanging tracks and last weekend we installed them.  Or should I say, Barry installed them and I helped.

The first items hanging - not for exhibition just for us and to showcase some our work. Two posters we have done for the Communities in Control conference in recent years.

Barry was up and down that ladder...

This wall will be just for us; the wall near the entrance will be more for showing and exhibiting works for sale... if and when.

And so to finishing... I managed to finish gilding the wee circles on the circles of concern/circle of control cards. Ta da!

A little bit of bling can go a long way. Altho I don't know why the photos haven't published with better definition - somedays Blogger has mind of its own.

They will be sold in packs of two.

And thirdly to play.  I had been feeling bit out of sorts kind of cranky about making for a bit and realised I felt as if I had just been going going going on product and doing things - all very purposeful - and had missed the time to just play.

I gave myself this week to simply play - not achieve anything, not be goal-oriented, just to follow up on some ideas I had had about things I wanted to try and it worked out well.

I began with some ideas for working with fabric.

I read a great article by Rebecca Solnit a few weeks ago and one of the phrases that stuck with me was "We are both becalmed and in a state of profound change".

It certainly feels like that so I played around with the words.

You can see just how tiny these little pieces of rubber stamp are (4mm high and I think that is 1/16 of an inch?). They fit in that stamper at the back there.

I had used a tissue to clean off the stamps that were in the machine and then over stamped the tissue with the new words.

And then I stamped onto fabric.  And I liked it.

More play was had though the week but that's a story for another day.  In between times I had the lightbulb moment of realising that it would be good if I could include some play, some serious art and some product each week.  That would seem to be a good recipe for keeping me balanced, but as ever, we shall see...