New studio and more ruffs

So, finally found a new studio. Lovely and warm and quiet. Great. It now means I can crack on with the lace based work, the Willow Pattern design which is slowly taking shape and getting my new website up.

Hope Placement update and some lovely birds.

It was my first day back at Hope today and over Christmas I've had time to think about what I'm going to make there.

I've been looking at medieval clothing, especially intricate lacework and ruffs. Using the very fine extruded strings of clay, I intend to make intricate 3D forms based on these designs. Think it will be very exciting, very labourious and technically tricky but hopefully worth it.

Over Christmas we went to Wolverhampton Art Gallery and saw these amazing ceramic phoenix style birds from ancient China. They were made as roof ornaments but deserve to be seen up close.

All change

Unfortunately we found out the other week that the CUC building, which is where we have our studio, is closing just after Christmas so we have to move. We had all thought about moving anyway and had been talking to a new organisation that has just taken over some buildings across the road about renting a space from them. We should be hearing from them in the next few days so fingers crossed.

It means I can't make any new work until we move into a new space which is a bugger but can't be helped. I've been making some new iron clocks just to see if they'll work, here's one that has only been biscuit fired.

Hope placement update

Spent another day at Hope ceramics department and made some test pieces, this time I coloured the clay with black stain and made some extruded shapes. Still not sure what I'm doing with them but I'll have to decide soon!

AA2A

Hello

Just looking at the Artists Acees into Colleges blog and realised that there is a vote for the best artist on the scheme..so if you fancy a vote then pop along to the site and vote! For me, obviously.

http://aa2a.org/artistvote

x

AA2A

These are a couple of images of test pieces I've been making at Hope University as part of the new Artists Access into Colleges scheme.

I had a good day today, just playing with my mini extruder, all above board, it's a genuine piece of ceramic equipment! Anyway here they are:

Electric Rabbit

The finished bunny head! I wore this for Tranny Hotel, a weekend long event that my partner, Adrian, co-produced at the Adelphi in Liverpool. It featured international trans gendered artists, performers and musicians taking over various rooms in the hotel. On Saturday, Adrian led a tranny trail across town from the Adelphi to Alternative Miss Liverpool where I donned the rabbit head and light up outfit. The weeeknd was amazing, too much to go into here but it was a great, intense and exhausting time, totally brilliant, met some fantastic people and the surreal Adelphi was the perfect place for the event! We shared the hotel with a tribute night to Stan Boardman, Elvis Presley(ish), a boxing match and Rod Stewart(ish)!

On a complete change of pace, I start my first day at Hope University as artist in placement tomorrow and my third day as an unemployed ceramicist as I left Southport College on Monday. A sad day but postive about future plans...