In the frame

Hello!

I’m a little full of autumny goodness at the moment.  We are having some lovely weather and the trees are changing slowly.  Plus, I really like the smell of wet earth. 

I have been taking more photos than usual lately because I have a new love in my life called Matilda.  She’s an electric bike and I’m loving riding along the Trans Pennine Trail to places I would never have seen otherwise.  I just feel full of joy cycling about the place with a flask of tea and the occasional homemade muffin 😊. I would like to take a sketchbook out at some point and it’s a good way to stop and pause which is always beneficial.

And someone has taken a lot of photos of me! 

I had Samantha Boot to visit for a photoshoot recently and she was so lovely – put me at ease very quickly.   Some images will be used for the exhibition next year but more generally, it left me feeling really positive.  I don’t know about you but I’m quite hard on myself, downplaying things a lot and certainly avoiding any camera lens pointing my way.  But here I am.  And it’s ok.  This experience was a gentle, affirming one and I’d certainly recommmed her to anyone wanting (or not wanting but doing it anyway!) to have some photos taken.   

Last month I spent a few days in Southern Ireland, staying with a friend who lives near the Shannon estuary on the Loop Head peninsula.   It’s a very quiet, rural place and just lovely and peaceful.

I walked down the the cliffs and beach each day where a heron stood like a sentinel every morning.  There were so many birds I didn’t recognise but I particularly loved seeing the noisy chuffs along the coastpath with their red beaks and feet.   

Here is a curious thing that ended up having a photoshoot all of its own.  

It’s a little story from the sea that ended full circle.

I was pootling about on a pebbly beach and spotted a rounded object.  It was in fact a root and grass ball from the stone wall along the coast path at the side of the beach. 

The wall is made up of the huge pebbles and stones from the area but it has a lot of soil trapped in it and sea thrift, grasses and other plants quickly grow and take hold.   I think the process of formation and disintegration happens quickly with the wild Atlantic winds and rain.  The roots and vegitation become exposed and clumps fall off.  I passed several on my walks.    

But this little one clearly found its way to the sea and was tumbled with the pebbles until it became the shape of one.  A grass pebble. 

It started life on a pebble wall, grew for some years, fell into the sea and ended up back down with the pebbles, exactly the shape of one. Nice. 😊

I have much finishing of work to get on with over the next few months and the studio is full of various projects.   So because it’s not new work and I don’t want to bore you, the blogs are currently a little further apart than usual.  

However, one extra stitchpot cloth has sneakily snuck into my collection!   I wanted something small and unthinky to take to Ireland and this one recalls the heather on our Peak District moorland.   I’m hoping to do a landscape nest of the same but it’s having to wait at the moment.   

I have actually finished two of the three installation pieces for next May and I’m chugging away at my figures for the Song of the Stone Wall.  I’ve got some pretty big ones now, so much so that I need to asesss if the small ones I started off with look ok or not.   I’m not looking forward to wrestling with these large rigid shapes and a sewing machine!  

The boats are done and their pebbles await them.  They are all safely tucked away for now but finishing these and my other hanging piece feels good. 

In Arts Council project news, I have another couple of days at the pottery studio coming up in November where I can get messy with some plaster and paint.  I’m making samples to see how smooth I can make them for taking paint.   I also have a pile of cardboard tiles that I’m collecting with textures on them. 

Probably my favourite so far was this one with small gravel, plaster and gesso. I tried some specialised watercolour which I liked as it respond to the crazy surface nicely.

There’s a lot of learning, for instance, the gravel wasn’t evenly distributed so it wouldnt balance upright and I realise I need to think about bottoms … 😉

My mentor, Gizella Warburton told me to take lots of notes so I don’t forget the different stages each sample goes through.  She’s right, it’s too easy to try something then put a bit of something else on top, then ‘oh, I’ll just try this as well’…

Some of the pots have been destroyed once I have recorded the different stages through notes and photos and I’ve kept small tiles of their surface texture instead.  My studio isn’t that big and there’s only room for so many pots and people. Thank goodness we can take photographs so easily on our phones.

Well that’s it for now, wishing you good creative moments. I shared this recently on Instagram and thought it would be worth another airing 😊