Almost there...

The lovely Chip-Fork has made a poster for our show- this is the almost complete version- I was too excited to wait for the finished version before I shared it with you!

I miss my garden

I've been wasting a lot of time on the internet when I should be working on embroidery for my show in three weeks time (eek!), but I think if I still had a garden I would probably be spending all my time there and not getting any work done anyway.

When I lived in Bristol I had a teeny tiny garden that I turned from an overgrown dumping ground into a productive space, complete with vegetables, flowers, herbs, a very small pond and enough space to sit down in. When I moved to my new home I said goodbye to the garden, but I didn't think that i'd still be missing it as much as I do.

Up until the end of July last year I had a tiny outdoor area here- which is where the lupin was grown. It was little more than a balcony with a few pots on, but again I managed to grown flowers, herbs and some tomatoes. At the end of July I became the proud owner of a conservatory, and whilst it's nice to have the extra room, and to know that the people downstairs are no longer getting leaked on, I am missing the outdoors and the time spent with my hands in the soil.

Badges ready to head off to Area Thrifty One

The other week I was delighted to spend some time making these badges up for Nanette at Area Thrifty One. I haven't had so much fun making badges for someone else in a long time, there were bunnies, dinosaurs, patterns and my favourite of all the 'test card' one. Pop in to her blog or so some shopping in her Etsy shop where you can buy kits to make your own bunnies:

Or perhaps you're feeling lazy and want to buy a ready made doll:

click on images to be taken to them direct

hundreds of hankies

Plodding away making new work- sometimes it seems like more of a chore than a pleasure, but today I got on and did some screen printing, some embroidery and had a really nice chat with Bo who had called into Uni today for an interview. I probably should've spent more time making and less time talking, but I feel like I was providing a useful service to the terrified people waiting for their interviews- I hope they ALL get places!

So in less than 4 weeks time our exhibition opens (see Calm Air All Ice for some updates from me and Claire) and coincidentally that's the same time as all my deadlines for Uni, which is a miracle of bad planning on my part. I'm finding it hard to split myself between the two deadlines so i'm hoping that i'm producing a body of work that's cohesive enough, and yet can be split and shown in two places at once. I'm also writing about Sophie Calle at the moment which is leading to me wishing I could buy ALL her books, and looking forward to the fact there's going to be a major show of her work in London in the Autumn.

Wastelands

The students on the Curatorial Practice MA at Falmouth, that I should be starting next year, are putting on an exhibtion at Newlyn Art Gallery that opens on the 24th. One of the artists featured is my tutor Kate Parsons.

Installation detail by Kate Parsons

I wish I could get down to Cornwall to see the show, but I think it's unlikely as i've got a show of my own I should be concentrating on- but if you're in the area take a look.

Mythologies at Haunch of Venison

Hew Locke

Polly Morgan

At the start of the month I took a trip up to London and went to visit Mythologies at Haunch of Venison's new venue in the old Museum of Mankind building. I knew that I was going to enjoy this show before I even got there, but what I wasn't really expecting was the sheer scale of it- rooms and rooms of art, most of which was just the sort of thing I like- ranging from gold and dinosaurs to taxidermied animals via pieces by favourite artists of mine like Sophie Calle and Christian Boltanksi.

The exhibition runs until the 25th and if I wasn't so busy with other things I think i'd be trying to get back up to London to take another look at it.

The more you do the less you write it all down afterwards

Way, way back at the end of January I took a train ride to Southampton with Jason and Simon to view the Paper Rad and Beige exhibition at the Millais Gallery

Whilst there we all indulged in our 'vintage' console game of choice- with me recapturing a mis-spent youth in the arcades playing Tetris. (I think in actuality I only ever went and played Tetris in the arcade once, and I was probably about 19 at the time)

Our visit coincided with an exhibition at the Bargate featuring one of my favourite print makers- Jonny Hannah amongst others.

I did my first degree in Southampton, back in the mid- 90s and this was only the second time i'd been back since I graduated. It was nice to re-visit some of the old haunts, and re-acquaint myself with this little owl on the wall of the police station.

As you might've noticed i've been very bad at updating recently- i've been very busy, which seems to mean I have no time for updates at all. Talking to a friend at the weekend I mentioned how the more exciting and interesting my days are, the less likely I am to get round to blogging about them- hence the 3 month delay in writing up my trip to Southampton! In the last couple of weeks i've been to London, had some visitors and of course been working toward my exhibition- none of which i've blogged about yet, but hopefully it won't be another three months before I catch up with it all.

Sorry i'm keeping a low profile at the moment- I'm busy with work for college, busy with work for my exhibition, busy packing up prints to send to Artstream, busy fighting off chest infections and busy enjoying the fact that spring has arrived.

Tomorrow i'm off to London where I intend to consume as much art as is humanly possible, and perhaps indulge in some home brewed beer too.