I don’t often do things in Bristol, the city where I live, but this weekend I’m taking part in ‘Inspired’ a group show in the Hayloft Gallery, Ashton Court Estate in Bristol. The exhibition runs from 20 – 28 October open 10-4 daily.

The focus of this exhibition is furniture, but there are a few other designer-makers thrown in for good measure including painting, enamelling (me), photography, ceramics. The furniture is really great and includes cabinets, boxes, tables and even guitars. The setting of Ashton Court Estate is wonderful.

I’ve just got a bit of wall space and a window sill, but in a very short space of time I think I did a good job of displaying my work.

I’m also showing a few new pieces including this panel ‘Landscape’ in large size (RRP £260).

Artist/makers include Tina Lewis, John Jacques, Sue Darlison, Fiona Denning, Mervyn Hewish, Blaire Russell, Rhys Gillard, Rebecca Thomas, Tim Chadsey, Avril Farley, Ray Tennant, Dan Burrough, Ian Smith, Derek Pearce, Martin Grierson, Norman Speller, Alun Heslop, Simon Jewell, Kevin Stamper, Scott Woyka.

The following furniture is on display at the exhibition – I took the photos before it was labelled and so am unable to attribute the furniture – but look how great it all looks!

Things have been hectic at home and stressful with the parents and so haven’t been blogging or tweeting for a while. In the midst of everything there have still been exhibitions to prepare for and a show to get ready for. Meant to send out a newsletter before the fair, but just plain ran out of time. Feel like I’m being pulled every which way, but am still making time for my work.

The Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in Manchester took place last weekend. It was it’s fifth year and I’ve taken part each year. Some years are better than others, but this year was a good one. There were a lot of new exhibititors including Jessica Turrell, an established and amazing enameller and jeweller of whom I am always in awe who comes from Bristol, Jin Eui Kim whose eye catching black and white ceramics played havoc with the eye and Rachel Elliott Glassworks, whose simple glass silhouettes of hares, foxes and hedgehogs were given an extra dimension through the use of print. I really enjoyed looking round the show and seeing all the new work.

Before going to Manchester I worked flat out to make sure I had new things to show and an interesting stand and I hope it was interesting to those who saw it. Several people said that they loved seeing how my work had changed and expanded over the years.

I showed some scalpel cut drawings as well as a selection of enamel combined with paper cut images for the first time.

A lot of the visitors to the show had already been to see the ‘The First Cut’ paper exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery which opened during our show. I couldn’t get to see it, but am going to make sure I do before it closes on 27 January 2013. Everyone said it was fantastic.

In the meantime – here are some pics of my stand.

It’s been a mixed summer – nice times with the family in Cornwall and the Isle of Man, going to the Olympics, watching the Olympics and Paralympics, difficult times with my ailing parents in Stoke including a week sitting by a hospital bed.

Things have improved slightly, but time is still squeezed, and so it’s been a bit of a struggle to get going after a long summer break.

I had a number of private orders outstanding before going away and finally finished them this week as well as starting to fill gallery orders.

Yes, had to mention the Olympics. Spent my birthday in London beginning with watching the badminton at Wembley Arena. Very impressed with the venue, the staff, the friendliness and helpfulness – only down-side was price of food and drink, but you could always bring your own.

We watched the badminton the day after the infamous eight were disqualified from the tournament. The courts looked great and our view was brilliant. This is how it was before the event filled up:

Whilst there were no British players left in the tournament, I was lucky enough to be able to see a Sri Lankan player (my mother is Sri Lankan) play on the nearest court to our end of the areana. It meant that I had someone to root for which made watching the matches even more exciting. Whilst Niluka Karunaratne ultimately lost the match, he did put up a valiant fight and won one of the games. I later found out he was the first Sri Lankan to take part in the pre-quarter final stage of badminton at the Olympics.

After our stint at the arena watching the Olympics we made our way over to Olympic Park. It was huge and by the end of the day, hotter than expected, I was tired and my feet were weary, but really glad that we went. Again the staff were all really helpful and smiley and security was a breeze. There were lots of amazing views and distorted images through glass sided buildings such as this below (my husband Matthew is the one in the check shirt taking a photograph with my son in red to his right):

I have to say I wasn’t that impressed by the arenas, nor was I keen on Anish Kapoor’s sculptural viewing platform, Orbit, which I thought would have been much more beautiful if the staircase and viewing platform were painted the same colour as the sculpture, or if it had remained a sculputre alone. However, the ‘Pringle’ velodrome was impressive…..

….and I loved the Basketball arena because it reminded me of papercuts. I thought the arena was deceptively simple but extremely beautiful.

Finally, I should mention the flowers – fantastic!

Whilst on my stand at Art in Action in July I wiled away the time between customers by making papercuts. (I also spent a happy ten minutes buying 15 cutting mats of various sizes that should keep me going for a few months!!!)

Having made one papercut…..

…..I became interested in one of the bits cut out and played with that:

Even though Art in Action at Waterperry Gardens happened over a month ago, I still thought I should write about my experience there. It’s the first time I had taken part and what a year to choose…………rain, mud, thunder all proceeded the weekend and the outlook looked dim. On arrival the rain was pouring down and it was a very muddy site that we were met with.

I arrived early and managed to unpack all my stuff at a steady pace and keep things relatively dry. It also meant that I was able to get my car out before the vans and cars started sticking in the mud which began happening a lot after midday.

I had less to set up than usual having had a new stand made that would fit on a table, but still managed to take the whole day to set up (at a very leisurely speed!)

Due to the weather conditions prior to the opening of Art in Action parking for visitors was changed from on site to a relatively nearby abandoned airfield. This meant that no-one would get stuck in the mud though (particularly on the first day) it did mean that lots of people were stuck in queues up to two hours. However, visitors seemed fairly philosophical about this on the whole and as the weather over the weekend except for a few showers was hot and sunny, they were all just happy the event had taken place when many others had been cancelled.

It was the strangest fair I’d ever taken part in because of the way visitors came to the Market tent where I was situated. Art in Action is primarily about demonstrating and classes and so the Market tent is the last place you get to (unless you go there first) in the natural progression of the site. This means that it is very quiet generally until after lunchtime. I found that though I steadily sold small items all day, 75% of my sales every single day came after 3pm, which I have never experienced before. There was lots of interest though when the visitors were flowing and I was really pleased with my first experience of the fair.

I was next to Geoff Hague who makes the most exquisite knives. It was his thirteenth year at Art in Action (you get rested every three years) and though he felt it was quieter he did get lots of interest. He is a lovely man and made my experience of the fair very enjoyable. It was also lovely being opposite Robert Race and his automata – I particularly loved his chattering birds, though I never got around to taking a photo of one. I’m thinking of doing one of his courses at West Dean College in January if there are any spaces left.

All in all it was a good fair despite the weather and I’m looking forward to attending next year. The great thing about Art in Action being I don’t have to re-apply next year as I will be offered a place again…..hurrah!!

Last week I had to visit my mother in hospital. It was a surreal visit and a difficult one. Floods were forecast for the area where my parents lived and so I decided to travel up by train, and though we did pass through some semi-flooded tracks, we only encountered slight delays and no cancellations so we were lucky.

There was only slight rain when I reached the hospital and only slight rain when I left five hours later, and when I commented to the taxi driver that the weather wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be he pointed to the pools of water and I realised that isolated on the ward I had missed the deluge.

It can be lonely travelling on the train, despite the e-book, the snacks, the phone and when the task at the end is not a pleasant one, then the sign on the window for emergency exit can be a very inviting one. You also get a lot of time to reflect, perhaps too much. At several points in my journey I got out my camera and took photographs out of the window. Here are a couple that I particularly liked.

The first is the reflection of a tree through the opposite window and has an almost double exposure feel to it and doesn’t really seem real to me.

This next image I liked because the raindrops create a random yet regular pattern layered over the blurred moving image beyond.

The images below look like washes of colour as the train rushed through the landscape.

I love going to my space at BV Studios as I usually go in the evening when it’s deserted and very quiet and I just sit and cut. There are no outside influences and so I just go where the mood takes me with no plan and no agenda.

Here’s my latest paper play…

Have spent a couple of hours the last few evenings playing with paper in my new studio space at BV Studios in Bedminster, Bristol.

Here are some pics of my sculptures and layered drawings I took with the aid of a light box….

I made my piece for the Devon Guild of Craftsmen’s summer exhibition ‘Reaching for Gold’ a few weeks ago, but took it to the Contemporary Craft Fair at Bovey Tracey last weekend – it sold!!! So, this week I put aside a day and made a different version of my piece ‘Two For Joy’ about magpies and a golden ring.

However, I got the dates wrong and it arrived a day late – just shows how tired I am. So, it’s already on it’s way back to me, but I’ll put it into the Christmas exhibition instead.

However, thought I’d share what I submitted anyway.