Craftfinder

I'm delighted that my profile is now up on the new Craftfinder website. It's a website that makes it easy to find exciting handmade contemporary craft wherever you happen to be in the UK. Sponsored by the Arts Council and the Lottery, this website is just getting started, so keep an eye on it and be amazed by quite how many beautiful contemporary crafts are being created all over the UK! Here's a screenshot of me on the homepage of Craftfinder, or you can just click here for my profile.

Inhorgenta

I went to the enormous jewellery trade fair, Inhorgenta, in Munich in February. I wrote a review which will be out soon in the latest issue of Findings, which is the magazine of the Association for Contemporary Jewellery. You can read the article to find out more about what jewellery and jewellery-related goodies were at the show, but the main memory I have now is how COLD it was. It was about -17 to -19C, so quite cold. Here are some photos to show the cold...

Craft and jewellery classes at Jam

Jam Gallery in Eton is doing something new - offering craft and jewellery classes. There are three sessions of Children's craft workshops on 14 July. Taught by experienced children's teacher and jeweller/silversmith Jane Tadrist. The children will take home two gifts they've made themselves and in the process learn how to work with metal.

See flyer for details - click on them to get a bigger image:

Then on 22 and 23 September there are adult jewellery classes - the Saturday is a class on metal clay and the Sunday is sterling silver jewellery. Both taught by the lovely Janet Richardson, who has 30+ years experience in the jewellery field.

See flyer for details - click on them to get a bigger image:

benchpeg

Just a comparison....my benchpeg gets a lot of use, so I thought it might be interesting to see how it has changed in a year and a half. The first picture is a year and a half ago, the one below it is now. You can see it's shrinking, the left and right sides keep getting shorter...

Sport for charity challenge

My husband is doing a 3000 mile cycle in 33 days this summer - his longest ever cycle. To put this into perspective, for the famous Land's End to John o' Groats route, the traditional distance by road is 874 miles (1,407 km) and takes most cyclists ten to fourteen days. Dougall will be cycling about 3.5 times the distance in only about double the time.

You can sponsor him in this mad endeavour if you wish! Or you can read about it when it starts on 4th of June on this blog - http://dougal3000miles.blogspot.co.uk/ which I will be updating with notes on his progress. All the sponsorship will go directly to charity! Here he is on a previous cycle:

New Ashgate Gallery

My jewellery is part of the Spring Exhibition at the New Ashgate Gallery in Farnham until 28 April. I went to go have a look yesterday. Lots of interesting work! Had a mooch around Farnham too, which was fun. This is a picture of the gallery and a photo of the main street in Farnham. And one more photo - a steeple in the middle of Farnham.

New Ashgate Gallery exhibit

My work will be shown in the New Ashgate gallery Spring Exhibition! The opening is on Friday 3 February, 6-8pm. The exhibit is on from that evening until Saturday 28 April. If you've never been, this is a great reason to go see this lovely gallery in the charming town of Farnham. The gallery is in a lovely location and is well worth a visit!

New Ashgate Gallery

Waggon Yard, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PS

Open Tues-Sat 10-5

Registered Charitable Trust No. 274326

JaM

I'm Flavour of the Month over at the JaM Gallery in Eton. JaM is located at 81 High Street, Eton, just over the bridge from Windsor. My work is also available on the JaM website (just follow the link to see). I'm also working at JaM part time. I am there pretty much every Thursday, so come by and see this lovely gallery. We have a wide selection of jewellery - including jewellery made by the jeweller who made the Algerian love knot necklace for my favourite James Bond film, Casino Royale with Daniel Craig. That's not all, though, there is also a dazzling array of glasswork and ceramics, along with cards, woodwork, etc. Come and have a look :-) In the meantime, here is a photo of some earrings that are part of my new collection:

Yay!

Yiipppppeeee the opening to my show (and 3 other fab artists!) is finally nearly here! The opening is on Saturday, 4-6pm at South Hill Park in Bracknell. My new collection is there to see and I will have matching cupcakes! The cupcakes have edible gold balls on top! Yes, I am overly excited about the cupcakes! wheeeeeee

one down, two to go.......

Well, the Crowthorne fair is over for another year. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and had a chat! It went well and it seemed busy - more so than last year. Now it's time to get the orders done from the show and get ready for the next fair, which is the Craft & Design Show at South Hill Park.

dates: 19 & 20 November 2011

price: £Weekend tickets £7, Conc £5 (Advance only)

venue: Wilde Theatre

Enjoy and explore handmade crafts from a wide range of UK artists.

Taster session available on the day in silversmithing, ceramics and printmaking.

Sat 19 Nov - 11am-6pm
Sun 20 Nov - 10am-5pm
Tickets on the day: £5, Conc £3, Under 10s FREE. Family £10 (2+2 or 1+3)

Craft in Focus 28-30 October

Next weekend is Craft in Focus at Crowthorne! I'll be there, along with loads of fabulous crafters like Lauren Denney - beautiful ceramics (stand 21). We'll be across from each other, I will be at stand 90.

1pm to 6pm Friday; 10am to 5pm Saturday & Sunday

Adults £4.50, Over 65's £3.50, Accompanied under 14's free!

End of Residency show

Come see my new collection! Opening reception is at South Hill Park on Saturday 3 December from 4 - 6pm. There will be a secret sweet treat related to my new collection for anyone who comes to the reception!

My end of residency show

Just a quick note - details about my end of Residency show over at South Hill Park are on the website - http://www.southhillpark.org.uk/3842/shows/fundamental-modernist-forms.html

More details to follow soon....with photos!

close-up

I've been busy, busy, busy getting ready for my End of Residency show. More details will follow, but for your calendar - the opening reception is 4-6pm on Saturday December 3rd at South Hill Park in Bracknell.
In the meantime, a close-up of a commission I did several months ago (aquamarine stone in 14ct gold with pearls necklace):

just some nice pics of cornwall

silver thimble

I made this silver thimble for my gran, who is 92 today! Oma is the Dutch word for grandmother. Happy Birthday Oma!!!!

Finished ring

White gold with sapphires.

Exhibition and news

There is an exhibition on in Didcot in which you can see the lovely work of one of the Caversham Artists, Julie Simmonds. Details below on the flyer, just click on the image to get a larger, legible version.

Also, the Jelly has acquired a new home - today (10am - 6pm) is the last day to help paint and fix up the new location. If you're free, it's at the Coopers Arms in Reading town centre, across the street from the main post office and NatWest.

And lastly, it's a hard time for arts centres, and several are struggling to hang on in the face of "cost cutting", reduced funding, or relocation. If you are interested in keeping The Fire Station in Henley as an exhibition centre, then move fast - attend the meeting at the Council Chamber of the Town Hall, Henley at 7.30 this Tuesday, 5th July.

South Hill Park in Bracknell has also lost a lot of funding - this is a thriving arts centre that hosts numerous exhibitions of painting, drawing, conceptual art, ceramics, jewellery, to name but a few. Many people attend and enjoy the courses in all manner of artistic fields. Hopefully it will still manage to do all these things, but of course a big chunk of funding gone means cuts have to be made somewhere! To support South Hill Park, please sign the petition here (we have 681 signatures, we need at least 1000): http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save_our_south_hill_park/

thimble

Here's a picture of my copper thimble. It's a small project I demonstrated for my classes. I wanted to do something a bit different. If the thimble was silver, of course the solder joins wouldn't show up as here - since I used copper with silver solder. If you'd like to make a thimble, this project and many other interesting projects are in this book: http://tiny.cc/o17r9

cufflinks

These are 2 of 5 pairs of different custom cufflinks I made last week. Each had a logo from a different company. They are to be presented at a congress today which a representative of each company is attending. I liked the idea behind it a lot - it is showing the links between the companies, between people and cufflinks link the cuffs :-)