Me, me ,me

This is another wonderful picture of me, drawn by a former boyfriend of mine, who now lives the other side of the world. It was given to me as a birthday card back in 2001, and is now on the wall in my hall. Just behind me you can see the dear departed psycho cat Bernard, and some old school daleks.

I'm possibly going to be doing some modeling for a painter sometime soon, so maybe there will be some additions to the gallery of 'me'.

I love being a shoppe keeper!

Chipfork made me this amazing picture- it's me measuring out strawberry bon-bons in the Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe. I totally LOVE this! It makes me think of my Grandma's family for some reason- I think it might be because they all had orange skin and blue hair too...

Oh dear, it seems that it's been a while since I last posted something here. And now it's late and I have to get up bright and early for another day of Shoppe keeping at The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe tomorrow. It feels like my life revolves around a series of points in the week at the moment- Wed/Thurs in school, Sat/Sun in the Shoppe, Mondays are teaching and that leaves Tuesdays and Fridays which always seem to get filled up with one thing or another- today I had a forum meeting to chair, which seemed to take over my entire day whilst only being a couple of hours long!

The weather looks set to be lovely again tomorrow- just what we need at the moment as the Shoppe can only open if The Friends of the Old Pier open up their shop, and they only open up if the weather is good and they have enough people volunteering- just keeping my fingers crossed that this good weather lasts until the end of the arts festival.

I've had some lovely visitors over the last few weekends, and some people who are promising to visit before the Shoppe shuts up it's doors. These two are David and Jodie, also known as Peskimo, and they came to visit last Sunday. We went and ate ice cream after the shoppe shut, took a walk around the marine lake and then back to my house for a jam jar pick up.

They gave me this lovely little cup for a birthday present!

I've also had visits from Bo, Karen, Bonny, Becky, Lucy and numerous other friends who called in to buy sweets. It's been hectic at times and i've wanted to stop and just sit down and drink a cup of tea and chat with everyone, but selling sweets is almost as much fun.

The online shoppe is selling well- you've got 24 hours to order things this weekend if you want them shipped to you on Monday, otherwise you'll be in for a week long wait- just listed some of Simon's lovely postcards.

How do mermaids see things?

For the answer you'll have to pop over to the Sweet Shoppe and check out the amazing photos that Katy took today.

Also I forgot to mention that we are starting to set up an online version of the shoppe using Big Cartel, at the moment it's just in it's early (ie free version) stages with only 5 items on display, but I think we're going to try and get it up and running properly so that people who can't make it along to Weston-super-Mare to visit it in real life can still visit it virtually.

Ballooooooons!

Another lovely sunny day for The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe, it's almost as if some beastie is keeping an eye on us and keeping the rain away (famous last words no doubt). Today started off super slow, with no-one even popping their heads in for the first hour or so, but then after lunch it all picked up and at times we had up to 8 people in the (very small) Shoppe at one time! Had some lovely visitors today, including Chipfork's parents, his sister Katy was the guest Shoppe Keeper and Bonny brought a collection of people with her for a day at the seaside.

New postcards from Simon Daly (aka Chipfork) which were flying out of the Shoppe- we sold half of them on the first day of getting them in. Wish i'd made some now...

Also heard that the show at Frou Frou is going really well- lots of people are going in each day to look at the art, and to buy clothes too- I heard that Johanna was the first person to buy some work, a pair of buttons made by Karen Ruane- let's hope lots more work gets sold over the next month.

Back to work

Back to work tomorrow- but only at the Sweet Shoppe! I'm really looking forward to being back in the Shoppe again- I picked up some more sweets from Tizzy Treatz yesterday (including a tub of 300 flying saucers) and have so far managed to avoid eating any of them...well me and Alys did treat ourselves to one flying saucer each last night.

This morning I met up with my friend Jane, we swooned over cheap version's of Moleskin journals in Asda and the went and had beans on toast at the Farm Cafe. I used to work at the City Farm and it was nice to be back there as a visitor, not as a member of staff. We saw lots of pigs, ducks, chickens and I think I saw a giant rabbit, but Jane said it was a fluffy blanket.

Is it over yet?

Oh i'm pooped! I've spent the last few weeks/months working towards events that all happened over the last weekend, and now i'm just about recovering. I slept for 24 hours mind you...

Saturday was a lovely day, spent in the sunshine in Uphill Quarry with artists and friends (most of whom are artists, some of whom are rollergirls)

Not a very brilliant photo, but you can see the lovely high-vis jackets we had to wear (we being the official Arts Festival bods, not everyone who attended)

A big pile of cucumber sandwiches from cantfindamatch.com's performance

Sunday was spent in The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe. I had so much fun working as a Sweet Shoppe keeper- I think the highlight of the day for me was selling sweets to a real live lifeboat man (I have a fascination with the RNLI that's inexplicable).

We had lots of lovely visitors, including fellow Westonian Karen, who I 'met' last year when the Grand Pier burnt down, and now have had the pleasure of meeting in real life too- I hope we get to spend some time drinking cups of tea and talking about art in the near future.

couldn't have asked for nicer weather- in fact it was so sunny over the weekend I caught the sun a bit and ended up with heat stroke...

World Suicide Prevention Day

In a change from all things Mythical Beast related I wanted to just draw your attention to the fact that today is World Suicide Prevention Day, and encourage you to visit the website and learn more about warning signs and ways to help prevent suicide. I'm a little conflicted on this as I believe that some people are so determined to end their life that you will never be able to prevent it, but I also know that it is a horribly painful thing to lose someone to suicide and anything that might help prevent that loss must be a good thing.

I've been thinking more recently about which 'bits' of me I show on this blog and I think this is as good a place as any to start to show some other pieces of me. Next week I shall start to teach an 8 week course that I have co-developed specially for people leaving Secondary Mental Health Care, and supported housing. It's something that is really important to me as for two years I received support from a 'floating support worker' from an organisation called Second Step. It's amazing how far you can come with the right support. Who would've thought that the person that once upon a time needed so much help could end up being the person that was (hopefully) helping others.

I still have the same illness I had when I first needed support, but look at the list of things I have achieved since then:

gone back to University
been offered a place on an MA
joined the committee for Weston Arts Festival and organised a bunch of events
had my own shows
shown work in America
been published in 3 books
taken part in a Bust Craftacular

and that's just the things I can think of off the top of my head! My message is simple: look after your mental health, and look out for others. We mad people can do amazing things, we can be a pain to live with, we can waste days staring at the wall, but we're full of potential so you better watch out for us...

Ian Shipton- Weston Arts Festival

Many years ago (er...maybe four or five) when I decided to go back to art school and start all over again, Ian Shipton was one of my tutors. Now he is one of the people showing work as part of the Weston Arts Festival on Saturday and I just popped round his house for a mini preview of the show.

all these pieces were created using bits and pieces picked up off the beach whilst walking his two (cute) dogs.

Some of the pieces include poems by Ian (I liked this one a lot because of the creepy little doll)

As well as these assemblages you will be able to see his beautiful garden (he's also a garden designer), some lovely sculpture (and a sculptor) and his jewellery will be available to view on request.

It's all on display in 'The Long Gallery' at 42 Clevedon Rd, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. From 10am-6pm Saturday 12th September, and by appointment during the festival. Ian can be contacted on 0794 1648774.

Clevedon Road is about a ten minute walk from the train station, or can be reached from the seafront- turn inland when you are opposite the empty building that once housed the Tropicana open air pool (land of giant pineapples and fondly remembered).

Getting to the Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe by foot

My partner in Sweet Shoppe crime Simon Daly has made a video showing you how to get to the Shoppe by foot from the train station. It's pretty awesome, even if you never intend to come to the show you should watch it!

My mail box has been very happy this week

Let me show you some of the lovely things that have dropped onto my door mat this week shall I? Here's a small sampling of the treats i've been unwrapping for The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe that opens next Saturday.

Brooches from Anna at Custom Made UK

Artist Books from Emily at Lost in the Forest

Unicorns from my some time partner in crime Claire Elizabeth Platt

and lovely colourful flyers designed by Chipfork.

I would stay longer to talk to you, but right now bed is calling me- the last few weeks have been a cycle of art/bed/art/bed/art/bed and I think my cats are starting to hate me!

So much to do, so little time

I have SO much to update you about, but so little time to do it in. Instead can I direct you over to The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe, where you will find some of the strange creatures i've been spending the last few weeks with; and to Frou Frou, where you will see some of the beautiful work that will be on show during Weston Arts Festival.

I've got 8 days to pull together all the loose threads for three exhibitions opening on 12th September- and somewhere in those 8 days my nephew turns 2, and I turn 36! Please send calming thoughts and big bars of chocolate my way via any method possible, including Unicorn mail.