Work in progress

 This is my desk at the moment. It's covered in circles of wood

 

These are the disks which I sanded and made into necklaces

I have been doing experiments with drying wood after cutting green wood into thin slices and leaving them overnight

 Today Saana, Vivi and I went on a research trip round Kensington and Chelsea to the check out the David Mellor Shop and The Conran shop, the V&A and Skandium, I was mainly looking at their (good and not-so-good) wooden bowls and kitchen/tableware.

So many new ideas I can't wait to get making again...

Necklaces

I have been cutting lots of discs of found wood and made these necklaces last week from the sanded down pieces threaded onto some waxed leather cord...

Creatures

I love how the natural features of wood occasionally form to make something totally unrelated but recognisable to us.. here's a couple of my favourites found from others online...

This is a lion found hiding on a boardwalk here

A polar bear from here

Some of my own discoveries...

A hogs head..?

A couple of crocs

Obviously a pterodactyl

Beetroot Juice

It's fading fast..

Procrastination

I've been slowly learning how to do different weavings with twine but with nothing to do with them, I decided to make something. As my assessment is looming, I thought my time would be well spent on anything but uni work.

Using some willow I stole from the studio, a piece of rusty metal found in the Thames foreshore, a stone with a hole in it from Widemouth Bay and a bird decoration from a nice little shop in Exeter, I made this bird cage thing. The twine I wove using a braiding disc.

After that I hung the bottom of a wine bottle (also found in the Thames) on some twine. It doesn't look finished yet.

Irritable Bowl Syndrome

Oh my. Hilarious.

Anyway. Here is the little collection of bowls I am making. The first is from a silver birch which grew in my mum's garden.. it nearly became a bangle after this photo was taken due to an accident with the band-saw but I was lucky and it was just okay.. I really like the grain.

And up next is some Cherry hardwood which had been artificially dried. I wanted to try turning some non-green wood and I don't recommended, it was terrifying to lathe for my 2nd ever bowl (plate) as it splintered and chipped and generally didn't co-operate.

This one I haven't even finished yet but as I'm hoping to experiment with natural staining, I thought I'd better put a picture up before it changes.. it's possibly lime wood but I'm not certain. I think it's going to be very lightweight which is interesting. Not such a fan of the grain though, has that 'I'm a bit mouldy' look to it. This is possibly because it is.

Christmas Fairs

Here are some pictures from the Arty Party which Zoe and I had a table at and most of the things are Zoe's because she organised the whole thing and is generally 180% more productive than myself.

And here's Zoe manning our stall at Handmade in Peckham which was rather entertaining if not a little chilly..

Vivi's section of yummy things and adorable necklaces which were all immaculately packaged

and of course I made some Brownies!

Thank you very much Zoe for all the lovely photos, I am eternally indebted to you

I am very glad I actually managed to make things, and sell them(!); it definitely has given me a lot more confidence in myself and what I create, and meeting the other designer-makers at these events further encourages me to continue in what I am doing. Hurrah.

It's Christmas fair time again

Hello I will be here selling my wares on Saturday!

Napkin Rings

Here's the result of some practising on the wood and metal lathes...

Arty Christmas Party

So this Saturday I am running a stall on behalf of Zoe and also selling some things myself and there will be lots of lovelies to buy as well as live music, performance art and drinks and christmassy things so do come along!!

Some glasses

I've been seeing if I can make a few things which could be Christmas gifts and I engraved these glasses recently as a trial to get back into hand engraving which I have experimented with a bit before. I'm trying very hard to make the line quality less like that of postcards you receive from people who are "writing this on a bumpy road" in some distant land.

British Museum

So on November 11th we welcomed people to the afterlife from 6 until 8:30pm and it was so fun! After our weeks of preparation and a lot of trips to Whitten Timber and much help from others, we sorted out roles for everyone, Vivi and Henry were at the ticket table inviting people to take part and they flipped a coin to determine whether they went to a nice afterlife or a bad one. we had an offerings table where people drew what they would like to offer to the gods to give them a safe passage; after that, they went their separate ways to get robed and into the coffins for a short while with the lids closed. I was at the end of the performance to take the offerings which people drew for the gods and got to talk to them about the experience.

Here is the coin we used which Vivi is modelling. I made it out of Fimo painted gold from some designs drawn kindly by Brigid

Here we all are on the evening. Apparently the height order was my idea

Everyone in position waiting for the first customers

Anastasia being prepared in robes made by Vivi, also thank you Zoe for being our photographer for the evening

Finally our offerings board by the end of the evening!
Thank you very much to vivi for having a camera and letting me use the pictures.

Playing with orange peel

Welcome To The Afterlife

This is the title of a project which Vivi, Henry and myself have been working on for the past few weeks.

We're making two coffins with guardians of the afterlife on hand to help people climb in and then close the lid for a short while causing the person inside to experience what it is like to lie in a coffin while at the same time contemplate their life so far.

In Korea, a similar experience is offered as a suicide deterrent. We will be taking a more light-hearted approach with a ticket stand and a coin which we will flip to determine whether the afterlife you go to is a nice one or a dark one. We are all making the coffins and then Henry made the offering cards and tickets, I made the coin and Vivi made the gowns which I have no photo of at the moment.

This event is for one night only at the British Museum in Room 4 Living and Dying and is part of the Grayson Perry Late Night opening.

Here are some photos of our work in progress.

Tiny People Earrings

I bought some architecture scale people which came in the tiniest packet ever and each person is about the height of my thumbnail, a sneeze and they're all gone..

I have stuck them onto silver plated blank earrings and they look so cute...

There's over 30 pairs all packaged up and ready to go... and designing the packaging probably took longer than the actual making of them and in the end I went for a slightly boring option with a really imaginative title but at least this way it doesn't detract from the tiny people..

Mudlarking

Twice a day the River Thames levels can change up to 7 metres! At low tides, you can walk down steps and get onto the foreshore in many places and look around on the 'beach' for any interesting objects. It is known as mudlarking and in the 19th century, it was a daily way of life for people trying to make money from what they found. I have been mudlarking on the river 4 times now and have now got quite a collection. To dig you need to buy a permit but there is enough on the surface to mean you don't have to dig to find things. There are so many ceramic pieces, it seems people used to just throw their plates into the river after every meal.

The jewellery was all found together in a hoard just under Blackfriars Bridge and was just sitting on the mud. I think it must have been a quick disposing of evidence from a robber.. it's mainly tacky fake jewels but sitting amongst ceramics, it's quite impressive.

There are also lots of old clay pipes which are generally broken and seem to be the 17th century equivalent of cigarettes.

Spoon carving

At the beginning of the summer, I went to a spoon carving workshop by Nic Webb which was so much fun and I made a spoon out of the branch of a lime tree and then we got to take another piece of wood home with us to practice on; so here are my two creations, the one I made there reminds me of a giant goldilocks spoon.

I spent about a week on the second one trying to remember how I made the first one.

Carving of spoon number 3 began a few weeks ago but it's a bit of a work in progress so I'll post another time about that one..