Drawn to Craft

The Drawn to craft exhibition has now opened at the lovely craft gallery in Bilston.  It is a great space I had never been there before and was really impressed, there are also planned activities for children over the summer holidays http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/bilston/exhibitions/004881.html.

Here are a few pictures Natalie Cole the exhibition officer sent me.

Small Stories

Small Stories at the Urban Alchemist, Brooklyn, NY has now open with the preview evening on Saturday.  I was really pleased when Joetta the curator emailed be the publicity poster to find my art work had been picked along with three others to advertise the exhibition, I always feel its a privilege to have been chosen.  I hope the exhibition is a success I only wish I could go and see it.

Busy week

It has been a busy week, everything seems to have taken me out of my studio: dress shopping for my nieces wedding with three girls involved many hours sat outside a Top Shop changing room, a major mission and looking for bathroom tiles. Both have now been achieved so I can get on with some work. I shipped my picture to America last week for the Small Stories exhibition and I was very relived when I received an email to say they had arrived safely. I always feel like I have sent my children off unattended and just hope they get there alright. Finally Stitching Picture by Sandeep Jandu has now been published and I received my copy in the post this week, it lovely book and it was great to see my work published in a book.

Small Stories

I am very excited I have just found out that my work has been selected for an exhibition in the Urban Alchemist Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. The exhibition runs from the 20th of June until the 23rd of July and is curated by Joetta Maue who is a textile artist and curator. I am thrilled to have been chosen as I know she had lots of entries. I would love to go to the exhibition as America is far more supportive of textile art than we are in this country, but unfortunately money and distance are against me. I went to Collect at the Saatchi Gallery last weekend and as a textile artist I found it very disapointing, lots of beautiful craft but only one textile artist Louise Gardiner who was in the project space. However Louise Gardiners beautiful work made the visit worthwhile for me.

New textile fans

Before the Easter break I visited a class of year five children who were making textile pictures of buildings of the old part of town where they live. They had been on a visit taken some pictures and then drawn some sketches. Afterwards they went back to school to start work on their final pieces. Their teacher asked if I could go into school and talk to the children about my work as a local textile artist. I decided to visit the same part of town and do a picture of my own to show the children. It was a lovely visit, the children had loved using textiles and were really enthusiastic. It was obvious that they had all put allot of thought and time into their pictures. When it came to the end of my talk they all asked the most brilliant questions about my work and inspiration and any tips I could pass on to them. I hadn't quite finished my picture so I went back today to show them the finished piece and to look at theirs, I have taken some picture you may all like to see of their wonderful work. Best of all they all gave me a clap when they saw my finished picture ahhh!! I am easily pleased.

I think they are all great, it's really good to see young children engaging with textiles and enjoying it. Hope you know which is mine!!!

Exhibition News

I have just found out that I have been selected for a new exhibition at the Bilston Craft Gallery, 'Drawn to Craft" in Bilston near Wolverhampton. I am really pleased to have been selected, it is a joint curated exhibition I do not know who the other selected artists are yet so I am looking forward to finding out. The exhibition is on from the 21st of July to the 22 of September 2012 when I have some more information I will put it on my blog.

Where has the old year gone and what have I been up too!

It is a while since I was last on my blog and many life times seem to have passed since then including a very busy Christmas and many hours checking through my daughters degree dissertation. Having three daughters we also like to have our fair share of mimi crises, which has included my eldest daughter realising after many months of hard work she had not sent her electronic copy of dissertation to uni and consequently thought she would get her mark caped and then finding out that my middle daughters school had submitted the wrong predicted A level grades to UCAS. Having finally sorted out all the various problems I though it was finally time to get back to art.

My first activity was a very useful get together meeting with lots of design factory members at the Hub Craft and Design Gallery in Sleaford. It was lovely to meet lots of makers whose work I know but not the artist themselves, it was also good to give each other support, advice and encouragement.

On Saturday my friend and I went to see 'Survivor' the performance collaboration between Antony Gormely and Hofesh Shechter. It was an inspiring thought provoking performance made up of various montages of human isolation and survival. Although in places it was quite complex but the nice man next to us explained the parts we didn't understand afterwards. We both felt we had had an intellectually stimulating afternoon.

After all that tomorrow it's back on with paper work before I can begin my next project.