Learning and making new things

 When we spent time with Lindsey, I also wanted to learn how to solder small pebble forms side by side...

I had made 6 or seven small pebble forms here and my goal was to try and link them up to maybe make a pair of earrings.

Playing with layout and which pebbles went where.

Learning how to solder side by side.

Soldered. 

The thing I was wary of is that if you have already soldered once (to form the pebble) if you solder again too close to that join, it may well melt. So that is a good thing to avoid if possible. 

Success.

 

And then rolled through the rolling mill.

Then polished and made up into earrings just to see if they might work. Pretty happy with the results, although I think I might change the earwires to a stud, to make them not quite so dangly.

And I finished the commissions! I was able to access Lindsey's rolling mill, so put all of the pebble forms I had made through the mill which looks a whole lot nicer than the effect I can achieve simply by hammering. And then they were all oxidised in the workshed and put together.

Then two reminders of the beauty of nature... a seagull and a field of bog cotton.

Commissions underway and a couple of locals

 After our wee Pop Up Art Show I was asked to do a few jewellery commissions. Given I now have a small kit and set up here I was happy to go ahead and do them.  It is a bit trickier working my way through a few things, but mostly things go well. Or at least when I stumble and stutter I ask B for guidance and assistance!

One of the most important bits of gear I need is a pair of curved pliers. And look at these beauties! I couldn't buy plain or boring ones, these were all I could find, and wow they are beautiful and work brilliantly. And they make me smile whenever I pick them up.

I have completed one commission and it looks lovely - a combination of shiny, oxidised and textured.

I have another two large pendants and a pair of earrings to complete, and as of yesterday another pair of earrings if I can find the time! So today it was head down and bum up so to speak out in the workshop shed. B ably assisted by sawing all the wire I had cut with pliers to get the beautiful flat surface you need to solder.

Sorted into wire size and length.

And then the shaping and soldering began.

I then ground and shaped the solder joins to make them smooth and flat. And now there is flattening, oxidising and polishing to do, as well as making them up into the jewellery. Fingers are crossed for having them all done by the weekend.

And then to the locals...

This morning this solo sheep was sentinel on the hillside at the entrance to the village.

And yesterday, we came across these coos - all so relaxed and just hanging about.

Once again, a coo-let!

We drove by slowly and then turned around to drive back and this view made us both laugh as we came around the bend.

We feel so lucky to live nearby where the coos roam...

2022, the year in Review

 Over the years, I have stopped at the end of a year or the beginning of the next to look back and see what I made during the year. It is so helpful to me to be reminded of achievements, of work that I loved, or that I struggled with.  My sense of time remains flexible and I honestly didn't recall that I had done so much in 2022!

I entered the process this year feeling a bit sad and disillusioned that I hadn't done half the things I had hoped or planned to do; and then as the year unfolded before my eyes I recalled some fabulous and lovely things and it felt great to have them alongside for a while. Note to self, memory can be flawed. 

 Here are my Top 10 things I made this year - things that I love, things I am proud of, things that make me smile, things that matter to me and things I am simply happy to have out in the world. They appear alphabetically rather than in any order of merit.

1. Carried

The opportunity to take part in the Vessel exhibition provided real impetus for me to think about new work, and be creative yet true to myself. This work took a long time to resolve, yet tells its story so beautifully. Making the envelopes out of papers I had rubbed on the cottage walls and on a special chair in Maleny made the envelopes special, along with words I had written and the crazy dangling threads I love so much...

2. Cottage Post

This whimsical piece emerged out of our trips to the cove in Scotland, gathering driftwood and bibs and bobs. Some pieces of timber really talk to you and I love how this piece came into being as I held timbers, turned them around, put them together...all with Barry's help of course!

3. Fragile Gains 2

Another work that took several turns about and circular movements rather than a straight line to completion, this body of work builds on my earlier Fragile Gains work (2014) which examines gains made by women which I still consider fragile. With the overturning of Roe v Wade through the year, it became blazingly clear that choices is definitely still at risk. This felt like important work; tho it is small and quiet - it speaks truth.

4. Gleaning

I fell in love with this book after making it, and am so glad it has landed with a friend. It represents my efforts this year  to re-use work and re-make work and see if tired work can gain a new lease of life. This book did it beautifully, and inspired two more similar book re-makings.

5. Locon's book

This was the loveliest of commissions and I really enjoyed thinking my way through how to represent a person's life (the small bits that I knew). It came together really well and the recipient was thrilled. I have just realised I never actually posted the completed work! Shall try to remedy that soon.

6. Postcards Home

My ponderings about what home is came together in small part when I used threads I had dyed from our garden in Scotland alongside threads I had dyed from Maleny garden plants to create this small accordion book. The soft colours of the threads make it a gentle transition between two places.

7. Silversmithing

One of my absolute most favourite things this year was attending an Introduction to Silversmithing course with Lindsey Gallacher in Thurso. It was such a delight to design, resolve and make a piece in the space of a day! Slightly smitten could describe my response...

8. Turning Point

I finished this book/s early in the year and it became a Finalist in the Libris Awards, going on to be purchased for the Mackay Art Gallery's Collection. It is a coming together of the anger women have about sexual assault, rape, abuse and violence - from Me Too to many others, women will no longer be silenced.

9. Validating I & II

Companion pieces to the works below, these two fabric scroll books continue our sense of uncertainty and unease as we emerged from the worst of the lockdowns to try and work out what on earth it means to live  with such a scurrilous virus still circulating. I love the look and the feel of them; and how they make you feel unsure as you approach them. and of course, we (x) find ourselves within them.

10. Validation I, II & III

These words have floated in and out of my brain for months and I am still not convinced that we are all fine and dandy and that everything is settled again. There seems to still be much disruption and uncertainty around us.  Fragility, Tentativeness, Suspension, Isolation... all of the feelings, and we should be OK about validating them. This trio allow us to do just that. 

Thanks as ever for coming along on the ride looking back over the year that was. It helped me remember that there were many beautiful things and moments of magic and that there will be again.

The softness of my palette is repeated yet again this year - with that bold dash of red and black in Turning Point being the only detour amongst them. I covered territory around women, about the nature of home, the joy of gleaning and creating, and around the ongoing impacts of the pandemic. All of which sounds about right regarding the things that have made want to make and create this year. And Letraset go ta really good run!

Thanks again, and go well.

Beginning a commission

 I have been asked to think about designing a Title for the cover of a book of poetry. I have done calligraphic work for this series of works before, but there are three books to come and I am trying to settle into the rhythm again after quite a big break.

The Title is "Rough Sleepers" and I have been thinking about styles in those wide-awake-at-night moments. So on Friday aI sat down, gathered my thoughts, some paper, some ink and some pens and took the first steps. Oh, and a cup of tea too!

I wanted to test and trial some of my ruling pens; some moth pens and anything else that might look scratchy. There were 7 tools in the end that I thought would be worth a go.

So I used each of them to write the title out and it came down to two that had possibilities.

So I played around with them for a bit - changing the style of E; doing the words in lower case; then upper case; and combinations.

And ended up with 5 options to send to the client to check if I am anywhere close to being on track!

 

To take my mind off the serious work of commissions, I set about to make a few more 'congratulations on your new home' cards for a friend who is a real estate agent.

I used some handmade paper made approximately 15 years ago or more (trying hard to use up stocks in the studio) and glued the test and trial prints I did over here on the front after trimming them down a bit. Then I cut a piece of inner paper and stitched it through the soft handmade paper and wrote a few words inside. 

As ever, a bit of mix and match at play in the studio!

Key commission

 Occasionally people ask me to do calligraphic commissions. I inevitably say no as I don't trust my calligraphy to be perfectly satisfactory for a special item. I usually refer folk onto the Buderim calligraphers who have any number of skilled calligraphers who do commissions.

This time around, I said that and the client replied that the calligraphers had referred them to me! Laugh. It became clear that I seemed to be a more likely person to take on a tricky writing on wood kind of commission.

After hearing the client's story of desperation and rejection to this point I agreed to have a look at the project, and in the end agreed to do it, with the writing to simply be nice handwriting.

I was to write a name and the number 21 on a large wooden key.

Of course, the writing needed to be around the top curve (and may I say there is nothing much harder than trying to write around curves) and the number was to below the small hole.

I got a few riding instructions and played around a bit with a pen as we talked.

Together we chose the fine black pen, which guests could also use to write and sign on the back of the key.

I drew a template  and tried to get a sense of lettering that might work. In the end, the unjoined letters looked too weird and I felt it needed a bit of flow, to make it around the awkwardness of the curve, so the letters became a bit joined up.

I thought I had it right, until I realised my second tracing had  not included the hole and the letters were going to fall into the abyss!

Trying to work out how to transfer - the rubbing of lead pencil on the back did nothing at all on the hard wooden surface, so I opted to tuck some carbon paper under the tracing paper and work with that.

It transferred OK and I was able to begin drawing into it with the black marker.

 

And so it is done. Not the most perfect or elegant resolution, but some nice handwriting to help celebrate a  special birthday.

All sorts

 It is indeed a funny old studio time - it seems like a time of slow momentum. Of things happening slowly, on a small scale, and not in quick bursts. So many bits and pieces taking small steps - some barely getting any momentum, just the odd nudge.

The commission is the main game at the moment; but it is having its moments.  And funnily enough, every time I think I have a chunk of time to have a really good run at it, life happens and I end up only getting a small window to make small things happen. As an observer of my own making, I am finding this an odd project in the manner in which it is evolving. 

That aside,  I am beginning to try and work out the additions to the lettering. The marks and images and things that will personalise it as a gift.

Here I am playing with travel lines - journeys and places. I am using a heavy tracing paper to make the imagery and then lay it over the page and determine how it would sit; how it interacts with the lettering - does it interfere or does it support? How will I make the marks - solid? light? and so on.

And now playing with some symbols and imagery that are part of the person's life. Figuring out potential placement, and sizes.

I do like tracing paper! Such a usual bit of kit.

And here is a piece I used to sit on top of a book cover I was gluing to protect the book from any transfer marks from the weights upon it overnight.  I couldn't create these magical wave-lines if I tried.

In amongst everything I was considering my sewing set-up at home.  It was poorly organised and did not reflect that I no longer packed up my sewing on a weekly basis and travelled to my sewing class. I had previously had everything arranged for transit; and there was not  a lot of practicality in my set-up for sewing at home.  In a bit of  rush and a roar, I purchased a secondhand Horn sewing table - most excited - and then started sorting my fabrics and 'things' that were stored alongside my former table.

Now everything has a home and is packed away neatly (except I have to go through my dressmaking fabric boxes - two of them, with oodles of lovely fabrics, waiting to be made up).

And this is what I had to sort through at the end of my first tidy - dyed threads waiting to be wound on their pegs and labelled, scraps of material  and old cotton scarves. They all needed ironing before I could tell if they were of any value.  I quite liked the look of the stash.

And out of some of the scrap linen fabrics, I hand stitched this purse-pouch. On our last trip my very old jewellery pouch gave up the ghost so to speak, so I thought rather than go looking to buy one I would make one from scraps, and I did.

The sense of contentment and happiness I found by sorting out my sewing world has enthused me for more hand stitching and making. But I just need to be patient...