Enrollment letter!

At long long last I recieved my enrollment letter...I'm off to university, officially! Hooray Hooray!

Portugal!

Mike and I found a brill deal to the Algarve, we had a self-catering apartment in the sleepy fishing village of Alvor. I have been interested in Portuguese tiling and was looking forward to taking lots of photos...here's a look at my finds of the week!

A view from our back balcony, looking out on to the complex

The resort we walked through on the way to the beach...I love the colours of the flowers, especially against the white washed buildings. That turquoise is just delicious too!!

A very pretty pairing

need to take the exposure down on this a bit but that's a lot of pretty patterns!!!

close up of the tiling on the bench...

...it's just gorgeous!

Tiling, tiling...

....EVERYWHERE!

A beautiful roadside palm tree

The light in our apartment - clever design!

Beautiful facade

and interesting composition...

More gorgeous tiling

 

And the Mourish styling of the complex

Jewelery Making Workshop with Tanvi Kant

I went to a Jewelery Making workshop at Nottingham Castle today, run by the artist Tanvi Kant. I had a great day and was introduced to her working process of twisting, binding, knotting and stitching offcuts of unwanted materials. It was just lovely, working with beautiful saris and dress making offcuts. The processes of the day help to develop an understanding of the real content of the cloth. 

The workshop ran alongside the exhibition 'Lost & Found' which was part of 'Critical Cloth' and 'Remainders'. The three exhibitions "examine how artists use garments and materials with a previous life, transforming them into something unique and far removed from their past associations or uses."

 

It was very inspiring set of exhibitions and I went twice to visit it! I really loved the work of Lucy Brown, Shelly Goldsmith, Amy Houghton, Tanvi Kant, Daniel Marcus Clark and Rhiannon Williams.

Here are some images from the workshop:

This piece includes handmade ceramic pieces, which was a process she started when she took Decorative Arts at Nottingham Trent University...the same course I'm about to start!

the material we got to work with

 me working on my binding

 

Tanvi wearing a piece from her collection and showing how she loops her creations to make those beautiful neck pieces

Tanvi showing us how she uses the Bandhani technique in her work

which creates pieces that look like this!

my piece at the end of the workshop

and here are some much more sophisticated pieces...those from Tanvi's collection!

I love the piece on the right - really beautiful forms are created by simple process of looping

I love how delicate this is...

...and that with a piece of similar length, once bound, structural textured pieces like this can be created

starting my blog

I've decided to start this blog to have a holding place for me to post up links and collect thoughts of the things that I like, of things that inspire me to make or things that inspire me just to think about things. I'm starting a degree in 6 months time. It's at Nottingham Trent University and it's called Decorative Arts. It will be a course on 'making' for 3 years solid and I really cannot wait!

making neon

I went along to an amazing workshop today to make some neon! It was up in Wakefield at the neon workshop  ran by the lovely Julia Bickerstaff and Richard Wheater. 

I have plans for a Hawaii/Tiki themed dining room and after working for raphael daden, thinking differently about light as an art-form and seeing some recent neon works he had made, I had started thinking about neon as a potential addition to my decor! I saw the advert in an arts council newsletter and booked myself on it!

One Day Intensive : 25th March 2011 

Participants will be taught by master neon maker Julia Bickerstaff and artist Richard William Wheater, and will learn everything from transcribing ideas into neon drawings to filling their glass forms with gas. The workshop will take place at our new neon studio in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, between 10am and 5pm. At the end of the day each participant will take home a neon sculpture they have designed and helped make or directed in making. 

I took the train at 6.30am and arrived with time to have a wander about Wakefield, bank a cheque and have some breakfast before the workshop started! There were 5 of us on the workshop, coming from all over. I got talking with Katy who had come over from Leeds and has been working in glass since uni. Having never worked with glass myself, I was a bit nervous but Julia and Richard were very supportive, and encouraged having a play! We started the day with an introduction to the history and capabilities of neon and then talked through the design and fabrication process.

After lunch (which I took at the green room cafe...serving me a monster plate of falafel + mezze - yummy!) we worked with Julia on fabricating our designs. Because of the time it takes to make the sculptures it was advised that Julia would actually 'make it' but that we would direct our designs. After never working in glass, having a go and breaking it VERY EASILY, I was happy to advise Julia!   


Here are some pictures of the day

starting out with the 1.5m glass tubing...

Depending on the colour of the design would depend on the type of glass used. It is available as clear or specially coated in a variety of powders to react with the gases inside the tubing and provide a variety of colours. Neon gas in its purest form is a rich and beautiful red. Mix it with other gases, as I did for mine, and you open up a palette of luminous possibilities!

Julia blowing into the glass as she moulds it into shape

annealing the glass

checking against the design on a regular basis!

You have to sculpt the work in reverse so there are potentially a lot of mistakes that can happen!

Leaving it to cool...

...and it's rear!

flushing the glass of impurities...

...with this lovely bit of kit!

filling it with neon, helium and argon gases!

Richard shaking the mercury...

...before adding electricity! 
See how the light changes intensity as it settles and sticks to/reacts with the mercury?

Other designs from the day included this lovely swallow - the blue is amazing!

and this kryptonite green house!

And here is my flamingo! In situ on my wall at home!

I'm so glad I went to this workshop! It was a really inspiring day and opened me up to potential new processes for future work!

I'm very happy with the finished piece and even though I didn't 'make it' myself it was an absolute joy watching Julia make - she is very skillful! I love it when I turn it on at night, when it emits a rich pink, almost purple glow around the room. I am thinking a waterfall blue and warm summer orange for the colour scheme for the rest of the room...but I can't decide which way to put them! I think the orange might look best up on the walls, and make the most of the light from the neon. The blue on all the skirting boards, picture rail, and radiator will help define the room's characteristic assets I think?! More photos up when I complete it though!!

NTU Interview!

Janurary 5th 9.30am

I head to the Bonnington building with plenty of time to spare, in my new coat, new hat and new shoes. It's a blustery day and I'm walking along proud carrying my big A1 art folder close to my side. I'm ready to sell sell sell myself like I've ever done ever in my life!! I REALLY REALLY WANT THIS PLACE!

Beer Diary

January 1st 2011 saw Mike and I in a new pub, The Plough (in Radford). We decided that because this was new to us and we liked trying new beers everytime we found them, we'd start keeping a beer & pub diary. I carry my diary round with me most places and because it's an academic one and I bought it in January, there are 6 months of redundant page space! So, since that January 1st the diary has taken shape as follows:

January 4th: Victoria, Beeston

Brewsters, Hophead 3.6%

Janurary 12th: Dolphin Inn, Derby

Dolphin 1530 4.4% (Nottingham Brewery Co.)

QUAD cinema bar, Derby

Blackhole Bitter 3.8% (smokey)

January 15th: Roebuck Inn

Pot 'O' Gold 4.6% (Magpie Brewery....but much less smokey than their others!!!!)

January 21st: The Lion, Basford

West Mills Derbyshire 'Armadillo' 4.9% (this tastes even BETTER than the faithful Harvest Pale!)

Janurary 28th: Horse & Groom, Basford

'Stirling Pale' 3.9% (Flipside Brewery)

February 10th: Hand & Heart, Derby Road

New Zealand Pale Ale 5%

Slaters 'HAKA' 5%

March 5th: (unknown pub!)

Ape Ale 5% (Blue Monkey Brewery which always gets a thumbs up from Mike!)

Westons IPA 4.6% (Sarrow Brewing Co.)

(unknown date!) that's no good if you're keeping a DIARY?!

Canalhouse, Nottingham

Kiss Me Kate (for the Royal Wedding!) 4.3% (Castle Rock Brewery) a nice Pale Ale

(unknown date!)

The Boat Inn, Lenton

Ginger Tom 4.5% (and as the name suggests...it's a ginger, er, beer!!!)

May saw us taking a month off from drinking! We'd had a few too many heavy nights and were saving up for a trip to Portugal so thought a month off would do us some good... it was a bit harder than we'd perhaps anticipated but we managed and celebrated with a pint in the Castle Pub before we left!