Sunday 15 August 2010

Out and About

Took a few more of these to the Platform Gallery this week. The current exhibition there is Precious, all work "produced from objects which have had a previous life" - in a word, recycling. I really loved Pamela Schilderman's 'Punctum' - vast drifts of punched paper circles (the tiny ones from an ordinary paper punch), strung on monofilament. Just my sort of thing, in fact I have tried (of course I have, gg) stitching those little circles myself, but even I haven't got the patience to take it as far as Pamela has. Wonderful.

And yesterday it was Art in the Pen at Skipton, an art and craft fair in a cattle market (yes it does smell, a bit). Strangely there was a panel discussion about the merits of art fairs in the afternoon, featuring Michael Brennand Wood with a London art critic and a Manchester art fair organiser. Interesting stuff, but they were from a different world - Origin, Collect and Frieze haven't much in common with Art in the Pen. For me this fair doesn't quite work - there's no atmosphere (maybe because it's too small for the building?) and no selection, so standards are variable.

In my own studio the experiments continue - mini thread bowls, felted crochet corsages and new ideas for shadow play pieces. I ordered (and received) a batch of custom box frames too, so I've no excuses for not getting on with those pieces now!

Sunday 8 August 2010

Differing Viewpoints


The new Textilia III exhibition opened yesterday in Halifax (details on the website). We had a lovely opening, thanks to Karen Lewis and Joan Tillotson of Calderdale MBC, as well as Rachel, Jane and Margaret of Textilia III who did all the hard work. All I had to do this time was hand over my work - four framed pieces and five little bowls, all on my Antarctic theme. I took a few pics for the group website but they're not great as there were a lot of reflections.

Apart from that I'm still putting together ideas for the christmas shows. Inspired by a custom request on Etsy (thanks Nia!) I made a batch of embossed velvet brooches. And remembered how much I love those - when they work that is, lots don't get past quality control! I think they'll be great for one of the shows.

Still on textile jewellery (something of an obsession), I'm also designing new felted crochet corsages and possibly necklaces too. A lot of trial and error here - I made some real horrors! But maybe some promising ones as well? We'll see.

Sunday 1 August 2010

Happy Yorkshire Day!

I can never remember why it's 1st August, but I'm happy to celebrate Yorkshire any day. And where better than where we live - On Ilkla Moor (b'aht 'at)! Well almost - just below the actual moor.

Today my new website went live - it's now on both annehoneyman.co.uk and annehoneyman.com - I've got the annehoneyman addresses all "sewn up" (groan).

Stitch-wise, I've been experimenting with new shapes and new materials for my "shadow play" (see website!) series. Nothing quite ready to take forward yet - let's just say I'm narrowing down the possibilities :-(

I've also thrown out, yes THROWN OUT, lots of my old embroidered art from pre-City and Guilds days. Well it was never going to see the light of day again, no point having it stuck in a cupboard - and I really really need the space. To make it easier to let them go, I took photos of the pieces I quite liked, and even cut (!) pieces from some of them too. Then I stuck/stitched these onto postcards to add to my shoe-box collection of samples. Nice to have little reminders. Any spare samples that don't belong anywhere else get added to the box (box 3 now, in fact) and it makes a great resource to flick through for inspiration... or just to see how I got here!