The Merry Go Round

::goodbye to the summer::

2009-08-31T08:56:00.004+01:00

Oh I can feel Autumn in the air. The other morning as I was walking to work, I had left without a jacket as it looked pleasant enough, but my protruding belly felt the chill in the air. I'm quite looking forward to the change in season. I love the autumnal colours and the way the leaves fall, swoop and glide their way down to huddle with the other leaves on the ground only for someone like me to come along and shuffle through them. Normally I'm quite sad to say goodbye to the summer, but this year I'm embracing the change and looking forward to getting out my winter woolies, the long shadows and comforting food....oh and a little person arriving!

Things on the art front are beginning to wind down. The exhibition in House came down last week and this week the exhibition in Putney will be coming down. I've also been submitting work to various open exhibitions, Jerwood and Salon 09 to name a few, but so far my work hasn't been accepted. Oh well chin up! There are a few other exhibitions I want to apply for before the Babog arrives and it's all change Piccadilly Circus.

Sweet Sounds

2009-08-28T13:05:00.001+01:00

I went to see a lovely lady called Mel Wiggins play in Camden the other night. A friend of ours John Ryan was in town and he plays guitar in the band, so we went along to catch up, eat, drink and sway to the sweet sounds. It was such a beautiful evening in the weather sense, in fact in all senses and we meet some lovely folk. Check her out if you get a chance, hopefully she'll be back in London in the near future sometime.

Private View

2009-08-21T13:26:00.010+01:00

The Private View went really well, there was a good group of people there and a great buzz about the place. I had loads of positive feedback and comments about my work, which is always a good thing to hear. It makes you feel like you're doing something right! I didn't sell anything and often think that the PV night is the mostly likely time to sell. Although, the exhibition is on for 3 weeks and I'm feeling a lot of PMA (positive mental attitude) so who knows. Even if I don't sell anything, I still think showing work is very valuable in itself, it's getting my work out there. Someone may decide to contact me in the future and want a whole series of works done or decide that my work would work perfectly in another major exhibition. Oh I can still dream...It's all about the PMA!

London Through My Eyes

2009-08-13T16:33:00.013+01:00

The next in the series of artistic ventures is looming. Next week on 18th Aug to be exact, I am taking part in a group exhibition, with a few folk from work. The Private View is on Wednesday 19th August, come along if you're free.

The show is titled London Through My Eyes and runs from the 18th August to 3rd September at the Putney Arts Centre. I've completed 2 pieces of work, the aim is 3!! Panic hasn't quite set in just yet, as I do have some kind of idea what I'm going to do and the other two are framed and ready to go. It all needs to be hung and displayed by Monday as the exhibition opens on Tuesday, so it will be a case of coming home straight from work and working late into the evening over the next couple of days.

The pieces that I'm working on is a very loose interpretation of the title of the show. I have been working on some more pinholes using the song 'It's a Long Way To Tipperary' This song is so well known both in Ireland and the UK. I remember singing it as a kid. I started to look into the history behind the song and discovered it was written for a bet of 5 shillings by Jack Judge and Harry Williams. If you're interested in finding out more check it out here Having delved further, I discovered it became popular when troops went out to Belgium to fight during WW1. Messines is the smallest town in Belgium and this was completely destroyed in the war. There still remains a craters in this area, one of which is called Peckham Farm.

Now many of you may not know this little fact I am about to share, but I spent 2 years in Belgium and Peckham is close to where I now live in London. So I began to tie it all into the work I was making for the exhibition. Well I thought it was a genius idea anyway, not sure how it will translate on paper....literally!! Here's a sneak preview.

House

2009-08-11T21:22:00.003+01:00

It took me longer than expected, but it's up! I'm really happy
with how it looks, the space feels like it was made for the the
piece.

Threading Memories
House

::it's all go::

2009-08-08T11:20:00.007+01:00

Tomorrow it's up at the crack of dawn to go and hang my work in House gallery. I've also been working on my artist statement in order to have that ready. To be honest I hate writing about my work, if I could sit down and explain it to someone it would be a lot easier but I find the writing side of things difficult. Words come easier when I'm talking, written words seem so permanent and I get self conscious about what I've written.
I was away home for a few days, trying to make the most of things before life as I know it changes forever! I had such a fantastic time my sister whisked me away to a five star hotel for the weekend and I was treated to the full spa treatment. It was divine, if only all weekends were like that!! But now it's back to work with a bang, as I have this exhibition and also another one coming up in 10 days time, which I'll post about next time. Arghh...think I better get busy creating some work!!!!

Threading Memories

2009-07-27T07:12:00.003+01:00

Just a quickie to let you know that I will be showing a piece which I made last year 'Threading Memories' in House Gallery in Camberwell. I've been meaning to show it for some time and after having a chat to a friend of mine who encouraged me to hang it, I decided to do something proactive. When I approached the gallery they agreed to hang it in their window space for a couple of weeks, which is great as It's a perfect space for the piece to be viewed. They also have a coffee shop and serve a mean cup of coffee. It will be on view from the 10th-24th August, for all to see, if you're passing that way!

::little challenges::

2009-07-12T18:32:00.002+01:00

It was a flying visit back home, but was good to catch up with friends and family. I got loads of hugs...as did the bump! I will be back again at the beginning of August, so I didn't mind so much that it was a short stay. Next time I'm going home for a week, so I'll have much more time to see folk.

But onto things of art and making, I promised I'd let you in on what's new in the studio!!
Well....I constantly have this inner debate with myself about art verses craft. Sometimes the two inter link quite successfully, but there are also times when they are apparently separate in their practice. My need to create is always niggling at me. As I mentioned in previous posts I come from a family of artists, my Mum is very much an artist and craft worker, so the desire to create something is embedded in me. Not only is the debate of art verses craft going on but also the reality of making something that enables me to have an income. Oh the joys of being an artist....a struggling one at that!

So the challenge is to make a thing a week. It can be anything....a painting....a sculpture....a cake...some jewelery. Whatever as long as it's made by my fair hands. Join me if you like, let me know what you've made or better still send me a photo!

I like setting myself these little challenges, in order to inspire and create when I'm not working on anything in particular. Often something unexpected comes out of it, which can grow and lead onto who knows what?! In this instance, that's exactly what has happened. I found myself sewing again, doing applique none the less! For those that are unsure as to what that entails, it is basically sewing fabric onto fabric, normally using some kind of design.

Gosh I suddenly realised that this has turned into a longer post than I intended. So on that note.... the latest creation to come out of the studio is....

Unexpected eh??? Or maybe not considering my current state!
You can check out more here This is where the income part comes in I guess!

::flying visit::

2009-07-06T08:58:00.003+01:00

I'm off home for a flying visit, to spend some time with family and friends. I've been quiet busy over the last week so I'll post some more about what I've been up to when I get back. I intend to have a good few days, hope you do too!

All packed up

2009-07-03T12:41:00.006+01:00

I'm not long back from handing in my work to the Jerwood Drawing Prize. It's been one of those days where I'm feeling very unmotivated, I think it's got something to do with the heat wave that's hit London. Thankfully I had the help of lovely Joanne to give me a lift with my works to the submissions office. Otherwise I was feeling like I could just sleep for the day. Although I know that wouldn't have happened, I had to take a day of annual leave to go today, so it was now or never. But it just would have taken me a lot of strength and power of wills to get there, not to mention about 6 pairs of hands!
I really don't enjoy handing work into such things. I guess who does? Everyone is checking each others work out and I tend to feel so vulnerable showing off work that I have made. It's just such a personal thing, it makes you feel exposed in some ways. It's like you can almost hear peoples opinion forming in their minds of what they think. Paranoia and self doubt sets in and the temptation to perceive what others think can be a little destructive to say the least!!! It's all totally irrational, but my brain often doesn't take this on board. But I'm happy with the work I submitted. As I often have to remind myself...if you don't believe in your own work who will!?! There was a lot of work submitted already today at around lunch time and they still have tomorrow, so I think competition will be very high. Or maybe it's a case of quantity over quality, but I'm hoping at least one of my pieces will be chosen as a quality piece!!! So it's just the waiting game for the next couple of weeks, I'm not sure when I find out if I'm in or not, but I'll let you know how it goes.

Latest from the studio

2009-06-25T13:57:00.008+01:00

The new studio space is paying off already, not financially (yet!!!) but from a creative point of view.....It feels good.
Here's the latest!

The Hair & Heart piece is a pen drawing using thread stitched into the paper. The Heart piece below is using pen and gouache whilst also using the pinhole technique that I have often used in the past.

I'm going to put both of them up in the shop over the next few days.

New Studio Space

2009-06-22T17:25:00.000+01:00

At the moment I have an amazing amount of energy. I can't remember the last time I felt so buzzed up with lots of get up and go. Long may it last, I don't want to peak too soon. So, I'm trying to make the most of it before the beached whale look arrives and my movements look like they are in slow motion!

R & I both had a day off so we decided to rearrange the furniture...oh fun times...what an exciting life we lead! Our living room is open plan & it's quite a big long space. The thing is we tend to use about two thirds of it and the end of the room kinda gets ignored. We had a large bookshelf against the wall and beside it a few boxes and bags of art materials that have remained there since I moved out of my last studio space. I was so sick of looking at them, I like order you see and it used to drive me crazy that they didn't have a proper home. Now the bookshelf has been moved about 4 foot forward which acts like a partial room divider, I have a sneaky little desk in behind it against the window and the boxes are out of sight. It still needs some major organisation, to make it a proper working space, but it's looking and feeling good so far. The great thing is that our living area, even though it's been cut short, now works better. It feels more communal, having friends over no longer means that we are shouting at each other across the room, but it is more intimate with a proper seating area. We still need to do a few other things around the apartment (the nesting has well and truly begun!) but for the moment I'm happy to have somewhere to work that doesn't need to be packed up each time and put back in boxes.

Jerwood

2009-06-19T19:15:00.002+01:00

I've just entered the Jerwood Drawing Prize. One of the aims of this prize is to create debate around the nature, value, status and representation of drawing as a contemporary practice. So whether you view this as more traditional drawing practice with a pen and piece of paper, or endeavour to cross the boundaries of traditional technique and challenge preconceived notions of what drawing is, it is generally up for discussion and open to enter.

I had great intentions of entering this last year also, but I missed the deadline as my work for the degree show was still up. So this is the year...If you're not in you can't win as they say! Who knows, it's a long shot, but if I got accepted it would be a great confidence boost and fantastic to have my work on show. But hey, I'm getting ahead of myself...I won't find out until July, so fingers crossed. But it's just good to get back into the mindset of creating and showing work. The works I have entered are works that I had on show for the 'Seamless' exhibition I was involved in a few months back. So, I haven't actually created any new works for it, but am giving 3 works an airing and a chance to be viewed by a new audience.

R&R

2009-06-12T19:52:00.002+01:00

I just got back from 10 blissful days in Portugal! There wasn't much on the agenda apart from some major R&R (rest & relaxation) I got through 3 books, sat by the pool, that is on the days that the clouds parted and ate delicious seafood. Oh, and I even treated myself to the odd glass of vino, a woman in my condition has to live a little once in a while. But don't worry there were no renditions of 'Down at the Red Rose Cafe' in the wee hours!!
I had planned on bringing my sketchbook and some pens, but alas that didn't materialise. I have been thinking about doing a jewellery making course or getting back into knitting. Not that my knitting skills are in abundance, plain and purl is about the extent of my knitting talents. But I'm thinking it would be good to do something creative and crafty just for the fun of it...for the shits and giggles as they say.
Hope all is well wherever you may be & the sunshine is in abundance!

::roll up, roll up::

2009-05-22T17:37:00.001+01:00

Some of my small canvas drawings are now up for sale on Dwanda for sale. I'm gong to try this out for a while and see if it's a grower and if so, who knows, I may even add to the collection or begin selling various other works.
Get em while you can!!

Excuses, Excuses....

2009-05-19T09:44:00.002+01:00

Here's my excuse and a very valid one at that I think!
After weeks of nausea and fatigue, I finally feel more like me again.

Yep, looks like things are about to change around here!

Humming Birds

2009-05-18T05:21:00.003+01:00

OK, so it's been a while, a long while, there's no excuse, well there is actually but I'll explain next time! I realised that I hadn't posted a photo of my Humming Bird piece from the exhibition, which feels like eons ago. I cut the birds out individually by hand and made a sculptural piece with the birds, I wanted them to be suspended so they looked like the were gathering to make their way back into the book. So here it is....

a few more pics....

2009-04-07T20:46:00.004+01:00

The first two are pieces I have been working on since my degree show which made it into the exhibition. The images below are some of Lora's lovely stitched pieces.

Private View

2009-04-01T07:24:00.004+01:00

Just a few images of the private view on Friday. I've got quite a few so I'll staggered them over the next few days. It's always a little nerve racking putting your work out there for all to see and comment on. Lora and I were both really happy with how the show looked and we got some great feedback, so all our hard work paid off in the end!

Seamless

2009-03-27T08:07:00.000Z

Seamless

An exhibition of works by Lora Haynes and Paula McGurdy

Private View: Friday 27^th of March 2009 - 6 pm to 11 pm

Exhibition runs from: Friday 27^thof March to 2^nd of April 2009

Gallery Opening Hours: Fri, Sat, Mon, Tues, Wed: 2.30 pm - 6.30 pm

Last day of Exhibition: Thurs 2^nd of April: 11.00am to 5.00pm

Paula McGurdy Lora Haynes

Each particular instant in time is tied down, strung together by registering and mark-making; attempting to evoke as well as echo connections between people, places and time with the artists’ intricately crafted pieces.

Recent graduates of Camberwell College of Art, Lora Haynes’ and Paula McGurdy’s work conveys a sense of revisiting personal narratives by capturing fleeting moments in life. Both artists endeavor to render these permanent through the use of stitching and drawing. Utilising materials with feminine connotations such as thread and wool, both employ these materials to generate labour intensive, almost painstaking creations. The new body of work in this show examines a wide range of themes from stringing together connections and memory to the bond people form between one another and their surroundings.

Aiming to reiterate the ephemeral essence of time, Paula McGurdy, within her pieces retraces concepts of presence and absence. The carefully chosen use of delicate materials such as thread, paper and hair attempts to mirror the above notion of all things transient and thus fragile. Repetitiveness and laborious work are a particular area of interest to Paula. By using stitch as a form of drawing she aims to trap the memories of the image before they fade, crumble and disappear; the act of making becoming a memory in itself. Employing recurring imagery, the artist seeks to alter the viewers impression by re-purposing and distilling the image and more recently has been examining childhood memories, confronting the viewer with their own 'lost' childhood, and therefore their own mortality.

Different themes are explored within Lora Haynes’ work, often uniting them with the use of a commonplace medium. She attempts to examine varying forms of bonds, from those of a very personal nature to those between objects and space.

Most recently she has begun to investigate the nature of small communities, and the multi-layered relationships which form to bind individuals to one another in addition to a place. To express the above, she utilises materials made from wool, as well as felt, blankets and thread to convey associations to femininity, softness and comfort, equally hinting at the potentially more sinister undertones connoted by the very same materials.

Nearest Buses from Brixton/Camberwell: 35 (From Clapham Junction), 45 (From Kings X), 345 (From Sth Ken to Peckham), P4 (Brixton to Lewisham) Nearest Train: LoughborougJunction (Thames Link, via King X to Sutton)

Introducing the Humming Bird

2009-03-08T18:03:00.000Z

I've been looking around for the right book to use for my latest project that I'm working on, and eventually came across this beauty....

It's not finished yet...it's a work in progress shall we say & as I'm cutting out by hand, I have to do it a page at a time. Birds have been on my mind for a long time now. Mostly I've been drawing various birds & deciding on which silhouette would suit the book best. The plan is to cut through each page and make a paper sculptural piece with the birds that have been cut out.

The hearts are still mounting, but I've been having problems trying to get the same coloured pen that I had used to do the drawing with. Apparently, they don't make them in that colour anymore, which is a bit of a pain as I wanted them to be uniform and wanted to continue to do as many as possible. Looks like that's no longer possible...hey. Oh well, I've got plenty more ideas to keep me going over the next few weeks in preparation for the exhibition.

::Inspired & Tired::

2009-02-25T10:52:00.001Z

I'm still here...just keeping my head down. It's been a funny couple of months, but life is good!

Lately I've been feeling... Inspired & Tired How does that one work? Mostly the two don't go together, but it strangely seems to be working just fine for me. Well, that is up to the point when sudden sleepiness over comes me & I find my head struggling to keep away from getting nearer to the desk! Oh these dark days, bring on Spring time, I say. Over the next few days I'll post a few photos of what my inspiration has been fueling.

Rise & Shine

2009-01-22T10:41:00.001Z

Being January & all that it is almost obligatory to go on some sort of detox. I've now been detoxing for 3 weeks & yes I'm still on it. Most importantly I'm surviving...actually I'm more than surviving...I'm feeling fantastic! I have so much energy, sleeping much better and am generally feeling radiant with health. Mornings around here can often be a little slow to get started, but I've even had the odd morning of bounding out of bed, raring to go & get stuck into what the day has to offer. I've been off...alcohol, caffeine, wheat, sugar, dairy, meat & fish...I know, I know, it does sound a bit drastic, but it seems to be working a treat. Most people seem to think I'm living off lettuce leaves, but it's amazing what you can do with a tin of chickpeas! The only thing I'm really missing is my freshly brewed cup of coffee in the morning....Oh, OK then if I'm really honest... the odd glass of wine too! For the moment, my cup 'o Rise & Shine is getting me through the morning haze.

Sissors...Paper...Thread

2009-01-14T11:43:00.001Z

Still making
Still enjoying

Matters of the Heart - Part II

2009-01-09T20:24:00.001Z

I had a spurt of creativity over the Christmas holidays, it finally all started to make sense...thank the Lord!!! I've been doing the whole processing thing for so long now. Most days I had it in the back of my mind, every night going to bed thinking about my looming exhibition in March. I've been feeling so pressurized about making something, my poor worn down finger nails have hardly had a moments peace! The thing is often a lot of my back up work is done in my head, somewhere milling about, I haven't been so good at keeping sketchbooks for the last couple of years.
So hearts are back on the agenda, which I'm actually really enjoying making. I've got a little production line going on, which I do whilst watching TV in the evening all wrapped up and snug. I'm enjoying it so much that I can't seem to stop and the pile of hearts is growing by the day!