workshop stories, experiments, including fails, and the occasional guest appearance from a cat

As I'm in the midst of preparations for South East Open Studios in June (see https://www.seos-art.org/), I've been thinking about brighter colours as well as different qualities of smooth and rough textures in enamel. The smooth enamel finish is glossy, reflective and has a lovely tactile quality. The rough 'sugar surface' finish is very different, with a rough texture and brings different colour qualities to the vitreous enamels.

The blue square didn't quite work out as originally planned as after I'd laid the dry enamel powder onto the square (as per the second image above), I dropped the piece as I carried it on its way to firing. So, I changed the design a bit and laid the new enamel for a sugar surface. On firing, it should have stayed blue and ended up the same colour as the glossy finish. Some unexpected chemistry/physics has happened here where the enamel hasn't fully melted but has turned black. I'm used to red colours turning black (effectively being 'burnt') but it has never happened to me before with a blue colour... more experimentation needed ;-)

(May, 2024)

Much of the early part of April was spent preparing for my first makers fair of the year at the Artists & Makers Spring Market. It was a delight to see old friends and meet new creative makers and artists. The event raised £1191 towards Victoria Pavilions Arts' Arts for Wellbeing sessions. This will enable them to run extra sessions each week to help meet demand and ensure more people are able to access their beneficial classes. 

I also heard in March that my application to the Towner Eastbourne's Jewellery Fair has been successful. I'm so chuffed - others makers will be aware that many event organisers quite rightly 'curate' the makers at their fairs to ensure variety for their customers. Being selected to take part in this Jewellery Fair is important to me and recognises that my jewellery has a story to tell and is sufficiently unique and interesting enough to be featured in their Fair. Watch this space for more info....

(Apr, 2024)

So, February was a bit 'meh' on the weather front, and apart from my trip to West Dean College, I couldn't spend as much time creating in the studio as I would have liked. This means I'm full on March mayhem, I'm on my game again and back to making new colourful pieces. Yay! I must have been thinking of blue seas, beaches and sunny skies when I enamelled the piece above - bring on warm sunny weather ;-)

This month I'm also applying for a range of open studios, exhibitions, galleries etc. I'll be back at South East Open Studios in June (more details on my events page, here). For the first time, I'll also be at the Artists & Makers Spring Market (see here for more details) on Sunday 14th April. This one is to help raise funds to support  Victoria Pavilion Arts who do incredibly important work - do please check them out.

I'm awaiting a couple more applications and will post as and when I firm things up a bit.

(Mar, 2024)

This month, I had the enormous privilege to be able to spend a few days on an enamelling course at the amazing West Dean College. Not only is the setting wonderful, the jewellery workshop filled with all the equipment you'd ever need, but also the food is scrumptious and the accommodation so so comfy. The icing on the cake, though, has got to the opportunity to learn from the incredibly talented Christine Graf, and learn a bit about her enamelling techniques on copper mesh. She is such a generous, and patient, teacher.

Above is a piece I made during the workshop using the copper mesh to form the dish, with a sugar fire finish on the exterior. Still so much to learn and practice but very inspirational and motivating.  I can't wait to get into my home studio and start playing around.

 

(Feb, 2024)

 

 

No touch up, or colour enhancement on this photo at all - what a glorious day! Exploring the coastline at Cuckmere Haven on a sunny but cold day was wonderful. I took this photo just with my phone as I wanted to capture the blue contrasting with the white cliffs. It reminds me of why I love the colour blue so much.

January is a busy month of planning, scheduling, designing and a bit of making. I've submitted my application for South East Open Studios (June), have entered a few call outs for jewellers at various different events and have been to a very inspiring talk/workshop for creatives. Its lovely to meet local makers and share thoughts on our very common challenges.

In the studio, Valentine's Day is upon us and I've developed some designs in different metals - more on this later when I've manufactured a few.

(Jan, 2024)

December is a busy month for jewellers and makers and we can find ourselves locked up in studios for long stretches at a time. After a few days of realising I hadn't been outside, we wandered around our local woodland for a couple of hours.

This was so refreshing and also a great opportunity to seek inspiration from the wonderful natural environment. I love the colours and textures of the moss on this tree. The vibrant and lush green is definitely worth trying to emulate. My aim is to try to create the colour as well as the matt, textured finish. Time to experiment with sugar firing. This is a grainy, textured, non-glossy finish created by underfiring the glass enamels. Wish me luck!

(December, 2023)

Covid knocked it out of me a bit this month so studio time has been less than I would have liked. It did create some design time though. I'm playing around with shapes for pendants, possibilities for setting small stones and different textures.

Feathers hold an important symbolism for me, as I see them as a gift of encouragement from those who are no longer with us. I'd like to create an abstracted version of a feather pendant. I'm not happy yet with the overall shape and design because they're almost too abstracted and the sense of the feather has disappeared. I'd like to find a happy medium between a full representation of a feather and a weird triangle shape!!

Back to the drawing board for a bit.....

(November, 2023)

Each month, Starlings Art and Craft Collective change the window display to give its artists a chance to showcase their work more prominently to passersby. Apart from the rubbish photography, I'm excited to see my work displayed here, especially with the new necklace stands. These were made and decorated in a team effort with my husband using a real rust effect paint.

As a fan of texture, I'm very pleased with the way that they worked out and like the way that the colour shows some of the jewellery off at its best. We made sure to seal the rust to make sure it doesn't mark the sterling silver in any way.

 

(October, 2023)

Starlings Art and Craft Collective is a local gift shop based in Bexhill-on-Sea (13 Sackville Road, TN39 3JD). Its run by its members as a co-operative to support and promote local and regional artists and makers.

As well as making new pieces to stock in the gift shop, I've been playing around with different ideas for display. I really like the distressed, industrial look of rusted metal and found this amazing two part paint product that produces real rust!!

It took a bit of experimenting with to get it right and I love the way this mannequin turned out. Who would guess its made of plastic? It wasn't quite finished in time for the launch of my pieces in the collective but I'm sure I'll use them in any upcoming events.

(September, 2023)

I'm thrilled that Gallery 35 in Cranbrook has invited me to exhibit my work. Its been a bit of a mad rush to get everything together for the tight deadline but I managed to find two of these wonderful stone busts on facebook market place. They were originally covered in silver leaf effect and needed a bit of TLC.

I realised that spray painting is not one of my strengths so handed it over to my husband who did a wonderful job of making these look amazing.

If you ever find yourself with time for a day out, and are in and around Kent/Tunbridge Wells area, I strongly recommend popping over to Cranbrook - its a wonderful Kentish town, glorious buildings and steeped in history. The Gallery is on the High Street (TN17 3DN) and has some wonderful paintings, ceramics, wall art and jewellery ;-)

(August, 2023)

After several years of working at a repurposed desk, we finally created a more fit for purpose work bench. The new one is the correct height (no more back ache - yay!) and has a proper cut out.

There's so much space on here that even the studio supervisor approves. Her favourite spot at the moment is by the rotating stand for the pendant drill bit but she tends to slink off when I start hammering as she really doesn't like the noise ;-). She also doesn't like it when I have to kick her out of the studio when I'm using chemicals, heat or sifting enamels as that's just too risky for little cats, even if she still has her nine lives left.

This photo was taken before I fitted the 'skin' underneath the cutout, but this is now in place and I'm now all set up for lots of creating.

(July, 2023)