September means new planning.

September and October are my favourite months. I love this time of year when the sun is still shining but there is a crispness in the year, while the colours become vibrant and delicious, I get a new burst of energy as new plans start to take form. 

I've also collected a plethora of inspirational material over the summer, taken visits to the seaside, enjoyed camping trips, late nights and bonfires.  

I've got a lot of source material sat waiting for the kids to embark on their usual routines and an order of new canvas's has just been delivered to explore some Wabi Sabi inspired paintings. 

Finding Stuff.

It has taken a while to settle into this new space, but I think I'm getting there. It's starting to feel like my space to work and explore ideas, it's especially lovely at the weekends, when I have the whole building to myself! No creaking from upstairs or worrying that my music has snuck up to loud and disturbing next door....

The other bonus is that I'm slowly having a good sort and organise of my stuff. I have a LOT of stuff. The textiles have been sorted, mosaic tiles sorted and colour coordinated, canvas's leant up. 

I also found a small stack of Handmade journals which I used to love making. These are made from scratch, I've made the silk paper for the cover, glued and pressed pages, Japanese stitch and bound them together, many hours of lovingly crafting these small tomes. 

So having revisited this making last month at the request of my daughter for a leather bound journal, I've discovered my supply of raw silk to make paper with and started exploring handmade journals again. I also found the notes I'd made at University when I attended the lectures and workshops on bookbinding. I'm not sure how I'd forgotten about attending these workshops! 

Rejuvenating old work

One of the advantages of moving studio space is that I have found lots of old pieces of artwork. Little cards I'd made, small textile experiments and old sketchbooks full of ideas never realised. 

So when a new book arrived on my doorstep, 'Wabi Sabi' by Serena Barton, I embraced my revitalised creativity (thanks to a trip to see Chagall at Tate Liverpool) and used some of Bartons suggestions for experimenting. It's an American based book, so a lot of the products she suggests aren't available here and I'm quite tight so don't want to pay postage from the US! 

So I've embraced the Wabi Sabi philosophy, simple asymmetry using textures to celebrate the small and sublime, adapted my materials and started to rejuvenate & recycle some old pieces of artwork. 

I've come up with three abstract pieces using such a wide range of materials from kitchen towels to latex to acrylic and I'm quite pleased with the results. 

There is a lot more philosophy behind the concept of Wabi Sabi, a Japanese term to describe the aesthetic that is imperfect and impermanent that is subtle. I'm still learning about this term of philosophy but  it may just have become my latest obsession that I need to absorb and read more about. 

Garden fires n children

Last night saw us start clearing out our fire pit. It's been neglected since last summer and become very overgrown, so the big girl set about cutting back the grass. When she'd half finished we started our fire by giving the two smaller girls the job of rolling the paper and digging out the dried bits of kindling. They got to light it and although only one of the girls stayed with feeding the fire, the other two had the very important task of rolling on the floor with a space hopper and climbing the tree. 

The result? A small area ready to dig for our pit kiln on a couple of weeks that we can explore smoke decorating and raku firing in. 

I'm loving having fun planning this project. 

Mosaicing at Belper Goes Green

Last weekend saw the first Belper Goes Green festival organised by Transition Belper. 

It had a great atmosphere and the sun shone for the whole weekend and I spent the weekend working my way around the food stalls, well, it would have felt rude not to try the chocolate brownie from one stall when sampling carrot cake from another! 

Between cake and wild garlic potatoes, I did actually so some work, working with kids from my local community to have a go at making a mosaic heart. The littler ones used safer materials while the older children got to have a go at cutting ceramics (hurray! Got to say 'don't try this at home on mums best crockery!). 

I was quite pleased with the results, and lots of happy children took home a beautifully made piece of art work.  Time to evaluate and see what I can do better next time! 

All ages had a go at making a mosaic heart. 

Some of the results drying in the sun. 

Starting the big move.

It's starting to feel like I'm really truly moving into my new studio as today I dropped some books off at Cromford. There's no furniture as yet, so I carefully placed them on a windowsill. 

It also got me thinking that I have to really make this work. So far my studios have always been rent free, so I've been able to kick my heels back a bit. But now I have to make this space pay for itself which means that I will have to put into reality the workshops and ideas I have been dreaming about. 

The 'if I had the space...' Flights of fancy. 

The 'if I could just do... Momentary ideas. 

I have given myself the space, I know when I have the times, I just need to get on with the doing and that is the really scary bit, but I really believe that once I have done the workshops, events and artwork I've been planning for the last two years, I will be achieving my own personal ideal of success. 

Exciting blog entry...

I feel I should do a blog post to talk about my wonderful weekend at Studio 61, the atmosphere, the cake, the lovely visitors and all the SEO advice, get traffic to your blog blogs says you should make each post exciting and interesting to capture a returning audience.  They also talk about algorithms but I'd got bored by that point...

But to be honest, I'm way too tired and only capable of watching kittens and dogs. Or dogs wanting kittens. 

So this is my favourite clip on You Tube and probably covers the level that my brain is functioning at...