It was my fifth year at Bovey Tracey for the Contemporary Craft Festival and as has been the case in recent years it was a wet show, but…..it wasn’t as bad as it might have been – in fact the sun shone for much of the Friday and on and off the rest of the weekend in between the rain.

The crowds didn’t stay away and it was a really good weekend. There were a great number of new makers, but sadly I didn’t get around to walking round with my camera taking photographs, but highlights for me included mosaics by Cleo Mussi, acrylic jewellery by Stephanie Hamer, ceramics by Suet Yi Yip and wire sculpture and wall drawings by Celia Smith.

My stand showed my new papercuts and clocks and some new panels using a bit more colour.

My flowers from Simply Flowers in Bovey Tracey were commented on by many and are always a favourite part of my building of my stand. This time I got to combine my favourite peonies with the wonderful eringium (sea holly) that I always use.

It was a few weeks ago now, but whilst I rarely seem to manage to visit anything of any cultural interest, I did attend the UWE Drawing and Applied Arts Degree Show (among others). There seemed to be much more skilled drawing on show than in previous years and a lot of interesting pieces.

For the first time in a number of years the show was curated and so some students had more pieces on display than others depending on their perceived achievements, though I was assured that every student did have at least one piece on show.

Highlights for me included Kristian Fletcher’s piece which was a scaffolding construct lit in a dark enclosed space which rotated projecting designs from the scaffolding on the walls – a moving drawing in light.

I also enjoyed Ella Paine’s obscura work. I think both she and Kristian appealed to me because of my growing obsession with layering, of the concealed and the visible.

It’s only a few days until I travel down the M5 to Bovey Tracey in Devon once more for the fantastic Contemporary Craft Festival at Bovey Tracey. Every year I wait to see what the weather will be like, and always it’s different. At the moment I’m holding onto the sunshine in the sunshine and showers forecast for the end of the week. However, even when it’s been very wet it’s been a great event.

As usual, I’m working down to the wire having only really started making things for the fair yesterday (orders kept me busy until then). Today I’ve been finishing off the faces of my clocks including a few new designs. This photo shows the faces before their final sifting and firing.
Whilst they have been sold at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen in recent months, it will be their first appearance at the fair. However, the best laid plans and all that….I had hoped to have more clocks to take, but the cutting of the clock faces has proved a problem and my supplier has had machinery problems. Hopefully, the collection I do take will grab the visitor’s attention alongside with my other work.

There will also be a lot of new shaped brooches, priced at £20, for people to see.

My husband, Matthew, was born and bred in the Isle of Man and he thinks it is one of the most beautiful places in the world. He loves the rugged landscape and a major part of this is the gorse that gilds the landscape when it is in flower.

It was Matthew’s birthday last week, and I wanted to make him something meaningful and useful. Years ago when we were courting and I made him a clock using sand, glue and shells and stones from the Isle of Man. It’s hung in the lounges of all our homes since, but was getting a bit tired. I decided to make a clock (my newest departure with my enamelling) inspired by the gorse that he loves, though using a lot of artistic licence.

And the old clock…. well, I was going to put it in the bin, but Matthew rescued it and it’s up in the attic waiting to be rediscovered one day.

Last weekend I opened my home for the first time for the Southbank Bristol Arts Trail. It was it’s tenth year and though I’d been involved from early on and had even helped to co-ordinate it for several years I hadn’t taken part for a while and had never opened my house.

It was my ten year old daughter, Breesha, who wanted to open our home as she wanted to show her manga drawings and do origami, and she was the star of our weekend. She ran an origami workshop for all ages and had over seventy takers. She was patient with everyone and a natural teacher. It was lovely to see her confidence grow as the weekend went on.

In all we had over 380 visitors and it was a great weekend. Please enjoy the photos below from Breesha’s origami workshop.

On Monday 14 May 2012, my father Enos Lovatt’s latest exhibition opened at the Chancellor’s Building, Keele University, Staffordshire. He doesn’t exhibit very often any more, and this exhibition ‘The Boys’ was a sort of retrospective of his work and was shown alongside two other artists Jack Simcock and Arthur Berry.

Arthur Berry died a number of years ago, but sadly Jack Simcock died unexpectedly on the eve of the opening.

All three local men lived and worked locally in the Potteries. They had previously exhibited together in 1971 at Stoke-on-Trent City Museum and Art Gallery in an exhibition called ‘6 Artists of North Staffordshire’ as part of the Stoke-on-Trent Festival. In the introduction to the programme it describes the exhibition as setting out ‘to present the native artistic strength of the Potteries. The warm humanity of North Staffordshire folk is expressed powerfully in the works of the artists represented here.’

Born in 1937 in Mow Cop on the Cheshire/Staffordshire border, my father attended the Burslem School of Art at 15. Following his national service, spent in Glasgow, he studied at the Royal College of Art between the ages of 22 and 25, a contemporary of Frank Bowling and David Hockney. He was a lecturer at North Staffordshire Polytechnic until his retirement in the late 1980s. A dedicated painter with an innate sense of colour, he lives to paint rather than paints to live and until recently, when ill-health and family circumstances have taken their toll, would almost always be found with a pen or a brush in his hand.

In an interview for an exhibition at Haworth Art Gallery in 1973, Enos stated ‘Even now I remember vividly the strong quiet secret voices of the people I’ve known, for I find built in them a truth that slowly but surely gives rise to the awareness of new orders of life where governing principles help forge new and more desirable concepts, which could be, if only we had the common sense, insight and force of mind, to define and to explore.’ It is this wonder in the world and what it contains that has fuelled his work for more than six decades through realism and abstraction.

Scroll down to see just a few of his thousands of paintings….

Bank Holiday weekend was spent watching my son play football at a tournament, but my daughter Breesha and I managed to get away for a few hours and visited the wonderful National Trust property Arlington Court in North Devon.

The weather was perfect and the surrounding woods, fields and gardens beautiful.

I don’t know whether it was by design or by nature, but in the photo above can you see the water buffalo we found when we arrived at Arlington Court? With the rootball providing the head, nose, eyes and horns and moss covered trunk creating the body, this water buffalo seems to be taking a dip in a lake of bluebells.

All the surrounding land provided wonderful images that I am sure I’ll use as inspiration at some point, from the distant….

….to the close up…

 After a few idyllic hours spent wandering around the grounds and looking at the collections in the house, Breesha and I tootled off for an hour on Woolacombe beach. It was sunny, yet cold and people were wrapped up warm, but it was busy and we took this photo which I think sums up a typical day on a British beach…

Just completed and installed my first ever public art commission. It’s been very exciting and I need to thank James at Arts and Business and Ruth from Fresh Arts at Frenchay Hospital NHS Trust for giving me this opportunity.

The idea for the commission was taken from a desire to create a harmonious and tranquil setting in an exterior internal courtyard overlooked by offices, corridors and acute care rooms. I took inspiration from the leaves blown into the courtyard from the surrounding area and the trees and seedheads in the immediate vicinity of the building.

James, Ruth and I, along with the wonderful contractors Ben and Phil spent a very damp day installing the commission piece by piece (there were over 70 components), and the sun finally came out when the last screw had been fixed!

I’ve been doing some new papercuts, ostensibly to enter for an exhibition at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen in the summer, but not sure yet if I will. I was pleased with this one though.

Look out for new papercuts in the coming months.

Whilst attending the Guild of Enamellers Conference at Reaseheath College nr Crewe I spent a happy hour taking photographs of parts of the grounds – some obvious, some not so obvious.

This will act as an inspiration to me for the overlaying scalpel cut line drawings that I am starting to produce independent of my enamels.

I like the way proportion of sky to treetops in this image. It reminded me of a panel I recently made for the Affordable Art Fair in London. I’m making a similar version for the Affordable Art Fair in Bristol, 18-20 May where I will be exhibiting with the Rostra Gallery.