Motivation

It's hard - motivating myself to get started on new ideas and finishing off half made pieces. Christmas domestics drive everything - poorly pony, poorly cat, freezing weather, excess in most things dull the creative spark. Started again yesterday and wrote a list, this posting is the first thing on it.
I have taken Will's advice and started to make the composit pieces as a unit rather than separate components fixed together. It certainly suits the medium to do this, but I can't get the same movement into the herds. The earthenware pieces break too easily and this is frustrating because that means I have to wait another fortnight to get the animals fired to stoneware - and I loose the colour. I thought I could buy a new kiln this January but my saved up spends have got eaten up with the bloody domestics again! Here's a herd -

I like the idea of a running herd because there is lots of movement especially when the unit tilts. I am looking for some slte or similar to use as a base. Apart from these and the associated drawings I am still on my journey with the unicorns. They now have other creatureas with them as I originally intended and by the beginning of 2011, I hope to have got a big one under way. Watch this space( if there is anyone out there) and here is a unicorn in the snow to be getting on with but it is rather too 'my little pony' for my taste but has now been improved by the amputation of its horn.

Happy New Year! Happy New Diet!

Time Management

Painting got to second round of National Art Competition but that was it. Not to worry, two new competitions coming up in New Year. I have started making pieces for these and hopefully not too late.
I am having trouble getting movement into the ceramic pieces but am currently working on composit pieces of earthenware fired white stoneware painted with stains, underglazes and oxides - bit different to the usual stuff. Watch this space and I'll post a photo when I've got it together.

Sick of Siamese cats so no more of those! I am returning to the idea of 'animal totems' or at least the juxta positions of different creatures and I feel very motivated but what with horse, dog and cooking for 5, I am having a bit of trouble managing my time!

Sharon took some wonderful photos of some of my pieces and gave me ideas for the photographing of others. What a difference a photographers eye brings - the pictures taken in the local park are amazing, the unicorns look just as they are supposed too - just as though they are going to get up and walk away. I am delighted. What do you think?

I can so you can!

I am making cats at the moment - photos to follow, AND I'm drawing! Also I am trying to replicate in clay the movement I got in wax on my last course with Brendan in Holmfirth. Challenging.

The new pieces are much better than the earlier pieces and I will change the photos soon but as I considered this updating I began to wonder why I wanted a web site and blog in the first place. Yes, I would like to attract clients for commissions and have a instant portfolio for any interested gallery and yes, I admit there is a serious element of vanity publishing but I do also want to encourage other ladies of a certain age to have a go at what ever they want to try - a case of 'I can so you can!'

It looks as though I will be able to have an exhibition in the spring at New Barn Farm. Really childishly excited and Sharon has agreed to do some pro photos for me of outdoor pieces as a project for herself and a showcase for her work. She is also kindly taking a painting to Chichester for me along with her own short listed entry for the National Art Competition. I wasn't allowed to enter sculpture so I sent a painting. I found the required blurb and artist statements extremely difficult as I am convinced a load of precocious twaddle is just an excuse for a crappy piece of work. Here's the picture - it's called 'Waiting'.

Thank you Rattrays for adding to my blog, tell my other chums how easy it is to do.

My 'Damascus Moment'

Welcome to my blog!

I decided to start one to share with friends and other people my experience of reinvention in my third age, and encourage others to have a go too. It all started with a postcard a friend gave me – it said “Just bloody do it!’

I told my friends, on my retirement from teaching two years ago, that I wasn’t sure what I as going to be next – I’d been a daughter, a student, a wife, a mother, a teacher etc. but what next? I think I’m becoming a sort of artist. I have a plan.

Flushed with the success of getting a couple of pieces of sculpture accepted at an open exhibition in Trafford, I entered The Society of Women Artist’s 149th Exhibition and got a piece accepted there. The exhibition was held at the Mall Galleries, London – very prestigious! It sold - the shock of that red spot rendered me a speechless grinning fool for at least an hour, much to the amusement of my girl friends who had travelled down to the opening with me. The proof can be seen in the pictures and the red dot can just be seen if you blow up the photo.

Red dot just out of eyesight!

The stupid grin on my face is pure embarrassment at having to stand there while three wildly enthusiastic friends ‘paparazzied’ me with squeals and flashes as hundreds (yes!) of people milled around. The day had started with bucks fizz on the train, the good humour heightened by that red dot and beers in Covent Garden and we were still laughing away the last traces of eye make up as we fell out of the train at Piccadilly Manchester. I love my friends!

A website was next on my embryonic plan, so in came Anna to help me (do it for me). I wanted something a bit different, colourful, professional and not too self conscious - but not too casual either. Next bit of the plan is to keep the pictures updated – my sculptures are, I think, improving, and then approach a couple of galleries re. an exhibition in 2011/12.

That red dot was a ‘Damascus moment’; I was told it was all very well saying I was just making sculpture for pleasure and the rediscovery of skills 40 years on, but when someone pays real money for it, it is a whole new ball game. I can see what he meant.