phew

So, the Caversham Arts Trail is over for another year. Thanks to everyone who made it out and for all the lovely comments. You can see some lovely pics from the weekends over on Lauren's blog: www.laurenceramics.blogspot.com

I have work over at the Runnymede Gallery until the end of this month.

Unrelated to all that, on Saturday I went to the Dollhouse Show in Kensington to go look at loads of miniature things. It was amazing, everything you could imagine in miniature! I have two tiny bears and I thought they needed a chair and now they have their very own park bench. Oh and I saw another mini bear who was just too amazing to be left behind, so now I have three tiny bears. Here's a pic of my grumpy little bears on their little park benches. With a pound coin in front to give an idea of size...

Plenty to do

So, if you're at loose ends about what to do this weekend, there's plenty to choose from:

Runnymede Gallery Exhibition - modern jewellery by me, Jane Tadrist, Dana Kidson and Jo King. The opening reception is on Saturday from 12 - 4pm. Follow the link for the address...

Caversham Arts Trail - open 7 & 8 May and 13 - 15 May. Opening reception at Albert Road Day Centre in Caversham from 10.30 a.m. You can download and print a map of the Arts Trail here: http://tiny.cc/z980n


There is also another fantastic Third Thursday event coming up on May 19th. Please click here for more information.

It's been a busy week already, getting ready for all the shows. I also have a couple of new items added in my case in the foyer at South Hill Park if you happen to be going there.
Classes have started again, so it's all go!
Hope everyone is enjoying the fabulous weather, long may it continue!! :-)

brrrrrrrrrrrr

Happy 2010! It's a new year and after a very lovely holiday it's back to normal. All the snow has melted around here, but it's still pretty darn cold. My fingers are freezing and my toes are numb. Much tea and thicker socks are needed! And back to the bench I go. I have several custom jobs to work on and a batch of items to send off for hallmarking today. It's all systems go and my teaching starts next week as well. I'll be posting more photos of custom jobs soon as well as attempting to put new items on my Etsy and Folksy sites. For anyone around this area, I have a bunch of work available over at Norden Farm now, so if you're over that way have a look :-) For now, here's another photo of all the snow that we had over Christmas!

Slough

So some of you may recall I have several items of my jewellery available at Slough Museum. Alas, alack, the curator at Slough is moving on to bigger and better things. She has an amazing opportunity which sounds fantastic. I think she's going to do great, she has great enthusiasm for art, history and is just a really nice person and easy to work with. In any case, she's moving on and new curator has not yet been appointed. Thus I am collecting my pieces at the end of this week until a new course of action has been decided there.
This weekend we inched a bit closer to finishing the backdrop for my show at Crowthorne. It's nearly finished! hurrah! Just a few more bolts and bit of paint and it should be sorted. Speaking of the fabulous show at Crowthorne (30 Oct-1 Nov) - the normal entry fee for adults is £4 but I have in my possession several discount vouchers for £2 off. So if you'd like to go, please just drop me a line with your address and I'll send you the discount voucher! Also, I have a few FREE entry tickets for the show at the Festival of Crafts at Farnham (17-18 October) - again, simply drop me your address and I'll post one out to you!
(my email is machi at magpienest.co.uk)

Norden Farm Centre for the Arts

Good news - I will have my jewellery on display and for sale in the foyer cases at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts! That will be from 28 December of this year until 1 March of 2010. The building is worth a visit just for itself, it's quite beautiful. There's a gallery with changing shows and films are shown at the centre as well. The address is Altwood Road, Maidenhead SL6 4PF and if you would like directions to get there, see here on their website.
The opening hour details are:

The Box Office is open 10am - 8pm, Tuesday - Saturday; 2pm - 8pm Sunday.

The Gallery is open 2pm - 10pm, Tuesday - Friday and 10am - 10pm Saturday and Sunday.

The Cafe Bar is open 10.30am - 11pm, Tuesday - Saturday and 10.30am - 10.30pm Sunday.

Norden Farm is closed to the public on Mondays.

prjeto gallery and things

Over the weekend I had the chance to visit the Projeto Gallery in Silsden, up in Yorkshire. As you may know, I have some of my pieces there and finally had the opportunity to have a look in person and this lovely gallery. The gallery is on the lovely main street and has a wide variety of jewellery and prints - something to suit most tastes, I'd say! I spoke to Paula, who runs the gallery, and there are many plans afoot. I also dropped off some new items - new for Projeto - the silver bud collection and the star collection. Paula felt they were just right for the gallery - so if you're ever near Silsden, do pop in! It's also down the road from one of the best bridal wear shops in the country and Paula is planning on working with that shop so brides can get not only the best dress but the best matching piece of jewellery. A good match, I think :-)

Monday feelings on a tuesday

So it's Tuesday but I'm feeling like it's Monday - wondering what order to do things in, what I'm supposed to be doing and thinking I'm probably forgetting something important! I have a box of items at the hallmarking office, so I should have those back at the beginning of next week. I have a small pile of half-finished items - this pile is, thankfully, getting a wee bit smaller and more manageable! Last Thursday I did loads and got various things done that had been laying around for ages. Also, we had the private view at Norden Farm which went very well. The show there is still on for another 2 weeks, so there's still a chance to see it!
I hope everyone had a lovely Easter. I put my knitted Easter bunnies and chicks on the table for Easter breakfast and it was very cheerful :-)
Tomorrow hopefully a more interesting post - with me more focused than I am today!

update: hm, two websites seem to have disappeared. One is a bead supplier I have used a lot - Jules Gems. They seem to have gone bust, the website is gone and I managed to find one comment somewhere that they aren't in business anymore. That's a shame because they had a good selection. And now I see that theindiego.com seems to have gone as well - but I can't find any comments about that, so not sure what the deal is there. If anyone knows....please leave a comment!

arty farty-ness

I had a very pleasant evening yesterday at the Slough Museum. The museum is doing an admirable job of showing and promoting local Berkshire area art to the community. Yesterday evening was a talk about Idea Bank 2009 - an art exhibit of paintings (mostly) of artists from the Berkshire area. The artists who were there did a short (about 5 minutes) talk each about their art, how they make it, what it means to them and also what it means to them to be artists in this area. It was, I must say, better than I expected and quite interesting. There's a bit of a blurb up on the Slough Museum website here: http://www.sloughmuseum.co.uk/exhibitions.htm and I believe the talks are going to be transcribed so will also be up on the website at some point.
While I was there, I also dropped off some more jewellery - namely some items which are now on sale. I've put these items for sale because I'm moving on to making different collections and am doing a sort of spring clean of older designs which I probably won't be repeating. So, for your chance to get these items at a very low price, get ye down to Slough Museum (it's on the High Street in Slough, very easy to get to!) These are the items that are on sale there (the bottom ring is available with a green, blue or yellow stone):

first newsletter

Yesterday I sent out MagpieNest's first newsletter! Woo hoo! It was kind of exciting but kind of annoying because I think that the ones sent to hotmail addresses didn't reach their destinations. I'm not sure, but I think they didn't. I'll figure out something around that at some point, though. I think emails to hotmail addresses just need to be sent individually, which can be done. If you didn't get a newsletter but would like one, please sign up here: www.magpienest.co.uk/newsletter.html
Now it's time to get prepared for the exhibit at Norden Farm! I need to get 20 pieces together to display there. That won't be hard, it's just a case of deciding which pieces!
Tonight I'm going to an artist's talk over at the Slough Museum. I'm looking forward to hearing it and seeing some local artwork. I believe it's the last evening of the art exhibit there. I'll let you know all about it tomorrow....

Norden Farm Exhibition

Here's the poster for the exhibition at Norden Farm of the Berkshire Designer Jewellers: (click on it to see it larger!)

Private view at Norden Farm

The Berkshire Designer Jewellers, of which I am a member, are having an exhibition at Norden Farm in Maidenhead. We are having a private view on Thursday, 9 April from 6-8pm. If you are interested in attending, please email me!! It would be great to see you there!!
The show is on from 7 - 15 April, so even if you can't make it for the private view, you can go on a day that's more convenient :-)

In other news, one of the jewellers in the group can fix drill bits. So if you're a jeweller somewhere near here, and need to have your broken drill bits rehabilitated, I have a contact for you :-) Hey, might as well mention it, in case someone out there needs just that!!
It's Friday already! Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Projeto Gallery

The Projeto Gallery has just put up some new photos over on Flickr. On the second page you can see the shelf with my pieces on it - it has MagpieNest written in the caption! You can also see more photos of the inside of the Gallery - it's looking good!

First show as part of the Berkshire Designer Jewellers

I am a member of the Association for Contemporary Jewellery and as part of this, I'm also a member of the sub-group for this area, which is the Berkshire Designer Jewellers. I met most of the members in December at a pre-Christmas get together and now I'm going to my first proper meeting this Friday. The exciting thing is that there's an exhibit planned already in April and I get to participate in that. It will be held at the Norden Farm centre for the arts, which is in Maidenhead. If anyone's interested in the details already, this is the link. I'll post more about it closer to the time.

Projeto Gallery

Here's a photo of the gallery in West Yorkshire where two of my collections are available:

The gallery is now open: Open Mon-Sat 10am-4:30pm

Slough Museum

So it's official! MagpieNest jewellery is now available at the Slough Museum!!!Yes, Slough has a museum! ;-) Slough Museum is at the end of the High Street in Slough and is starting a programme of promoting Berkshire artists....enter me with my jewellery and hopefully lots more artists/crafters to follow! Plus you get to find out all about Slough's history...I bet you don't know much about it...I didn't!! If you're an arts/crafts person in Berkshire, why not give Slough Museum a call? They are looking for more people who want to show off what they can do!

MagpieNest available in West Yorkshire!!

So there was a gallery which was online only, called the Projeto Gallery. It is now also a real, brick & mortar gallery in Silsden, West Yorkshire. The lovely woman there was interested in having some of my jewellery for the gallery opening and it was arranged!! So, if you're ever passing Silsden, West Yorkshire, have a look around the brand new Projeto Gallery!! I have the sphere collection and light pink version of the crystal collection available there now!
Coincidentally, I went to a friend's lovely wedding over the weekend (held at the Bodlean Library in Oxford, not too shabby!!!!) and it turned out that she got her wedding dress in Silsden - as it happens, Silsden has one of the best bridal wear shops in the country!

opportunities

hmmmmm interesting opportunities flying around the magpie nest this week....!! All I'm saying for now is that it's about two galleries and a Canadian magazine!! ooh er!! I'm hoping these will all work out, and am thinking that even if just one does, that would pretty darn exciting!!
So now I'm going to try to get that photo off my phone which I took yesterday of the snow. Ok, got it, this was on my way to my jewellery tutor's house: not bad for a camera phone, even if I do say so myself...