chintzy pigeons

2009-02-26T10:23:00.000-08:00

Chris and I have made an installation for the Pigeon Hole in Leominster, a little space owned and curated by artist Anna Falcini. There are 2 windows facing each other. In one will be the castle and in the other will be a mountainous landscape complete with house and bulldozer! See above and below! Officially it is examining tensions between urban and rural environments, however it also looks really cool! There are loads of tiny people on it too. We will be having an opening but not sure when yet, keep an eye out as all are welcome, at the moment we are planning perhaps some sort of cream tea!

sock knitting

2009-02-26T00:50:00.000-08:00

The other day I went to a sock knitting workshop. My knitting skills thus far are almost non existent which did mean it took an hour to get started. Now I have though, I can't stop! I'm so excited that I may end up with a sock (even if it is not the right shape), or even two socks if I haven't got bored! So far I have knitted about 2 cm round the top of the sock, which is purple, blue, red and orange stripy wool.

Also this week Chris and I went for a walk to buy some solder, we decided to buy a smoothie and walk home past the ducks and along the river. We saw some ducks asleep by the Castle Pool but we could only see one of their legs poking out, I was worried that they may only have one leg! So we called at them and quacked until they woke up and poked their other leg out. What a relief! They all did have two legs!

Guinness Cake

2009-01-23T05:58:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I held a tea party for some friends. I made Grantham gingerbread, a Victoria sponge and a Fruit cake with Guinness in it. Unfortunately the recipe only required half a pint which resulted in me having to drink the other half bringing back unpleasant memories of New Years Eve. I heard that if you try food or drink you don't like 12 times then you begin to like it. I'm sure I must be nearing that number with Guinness by now. The cake, however, is delicious. Very dense. We also played Escape from Atlantis, if you have never played it then you should.

Freezing!

2009-01-06T08:01:00.000-08:00

The weather is ridiculously cold at the moment, so much so that part of the river has frozen over, there were ducks waddling around on it this morning. We decided to make an ice sculpture of an arch, made by pouring water into a mould made of bricks and tarpaulins. I'm still not convinced it'll be totally successful... but if it is then it should stand up and look amazing! The aim is for something like andy goldsworthy's but perhaps that's too optimistic..

Yesterday I received a parcel from Canada. I took part in a Craft Swap organised by the free people website so got partnered with someone and sent each other presents. She made me some cool little fabric dangly things which had the letters LOVE on them, I have strung them on a ribbon and clipped them on a wire in my room. I made an apron for her out of pretty pillowcase fabric which hopefully she'll wear!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T07:50:00.000-08:00

Well. It is the New Year. And now I don't know what to do.

Just before Christmas I did some Christmassy workshops and made a fireplace out of cardboard and papier maché..and red and gold paint. On the way to the workshops we took some photos of it in the underpass which I love- the pictures not the underpass- very edgy... I was dressed as an elf and got some excellent funny looks from the townsfolk!

Chris and I also went to a fancy dress Christmas party in Cardiff. I made both our costumes, Chris was a star with battery operated flashing lights and I was a candy cane with a silly headpiece that meant I couldn't hear, walk through doors or stand in low ceilinged areas. Not very well thought out but of course we looked really cool.

As promised...

2008-12-09T09:55:00.000-08:00

As promised here is a lovely picture of me appearing to pinch my car at Raglan Castle after our holiday to Caerleon last year. Sadly the Rover Metro is no longer with us (but lets not think about that, it's still a bit painful) this is just one example of the many happy times we had together, in fact I think only earlier that day a car picnic had been held! ahh the memories..

post number one

2008-12-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

Since mr site's blog is so terribly unpredictable I have decided to begin one elsewhere which will hopefully be less offputting and encourage more frequent posts.

In no particular order, here are some things that I have done lately:

Read a biography of the 80's athlete and Record Breakers presenter Kriss Akabusi. Very interesting and many an amusing anecdote. A good example of which would be: Once, his dog mistook a man with a bicycle pump for Kriss, the dog attacked the man who was unharmed but badly shaken.

Made salt dough Christmas decorations of birds. They are very pretty, a consequence of which was that Poppy ate my favourite one - the white one with gold wings - thinking it was a biscuit. Silly dog.

Had a map I drew put on the Hand Drawn Map Association's website which is here. I was very excited especially when they sent me a badge all the way from America.

Painted the pantomime shop for the Courtyard theatre - it's for Jack and the Beanstalk. My friend Becci and I cut out some paper leaves the day before whilst watching An Officer and a Gentleman starring Richard Gere. A truly terrible film, I urge you not to watch it. The picture is of my favourite photographic technique utilising the power of perspective - specifically here to make it look like the giant is pinching my head- but that can be also used to make your car or other things look very small when you are far away from them. Simple but brilliant. Maybe I'll include a photo of that too..

I'm sure there are other things worth mentioning but now I'm going to join Chris in reading a book (I am reading Supernature and he is reading Supernature 2), very cool.

2008-08-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

Well. It has been a while since the last post... h.art week starts on the 13th of September so we are rather rushing to get everything done in time! One of my drawings will be in the Mousetrap cheese shop on Church Street which is pretty cool, cheese and drawing are two of my favourite things, other than perhaps tea.. this week i have been working on some drawings combined with 3d bits and pieces, like this one here- which actually has a piece of thread coming out of the page- although you can't see it in the photo. This is because i have had it made into some postcards and am going to attach a thread on every single postcard. hopefully.

2008-07-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

On Saturday was the Big Event, Me and Chris made this map with the help of lots of local children which was really fun! It started off raining all morning and we thought everything was going to blow away, but some clever use of tarpaulins, clamps and tent pegs managed to save the day! The mask making people in the gazebo next to us ran away into a marquee somewhere but we soldiered on! My sisters Ginny and Claudia and Ginny's boyfriend Joel helped us out too which was rather handy, I shall have to get them a small token of gratitude, a mars bar or something... Anyway, it was all a great success, above is a photo of me with the piece whilst it was in progress- i.e. there is even more stuff on it now!

2008-07-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

This week I have been preparing for the Big Event which takes place this Saturday. There has been much cutting and painting and sawing and drilling by me and by lovely boyfriend, co-artistic creator and motivator Chris. We are expecting the event to be terribly exciting. I'm already excited, my face has been in both local newspapers this week, and Chris and I were on the front page of one! We have a made a jolly large map of our local area ( The Great Big South Wye Map!!) on which people will come and put their houses hopefully, making them out of bits of card and what have you. We also have some little lions and tigers but I'm not sure I'll be allowed to put them on..

Today we took a trip to Birmingham, well Balsall Heath, which seemed a bit dodgy in my view. Chris had some 'sound art' in an underwater festival. Sounds exciting? Yes, it was. We got to go swimming and listen to all sorts of funny sounds and music..and dolphin noises. The swimming baths are Victorian and are amazing, I think I saw them on Midlands Today as they seem to be in need of some renovation. Still, what an excellent building, the evening sun was streaming through the windows onto us as we floated around with our ears underwater listening to the various musical and artistic offerings.. Which, incidentally, were surprisingly loud and clear and a strangely relaxing and ethereal sensation in comparison to the kids shouting in the shallow end. Anyway, most enjoyable and I would certainly recommend the baths even without the sound art!