...for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.

Well it's up and running! And how beautiful it all looks.

Had a marvellous time at the Bees & Weeds private view at the Old Fire Station on Friday night with everyone. Such a great atmosphere, and a lovely way to be able to take a step back and actually see our work away from the hectic rush of trying to get everything done and looking fab! 

The bike-seat covers in the window are brilliant fun and I noticed they are really getting the attention they deserve from passers by.

It's great to know how much has already been sold (although that means more hard work on our end!), and lovely to hear the positive comments and interest from everyone so far.

I want to say a big well done to everyone who's managed to put work in. I've seen how hard everyone has been working in the recent weeks to get to this point, and how much pressure everyone's been under, and trying to juggle everything, but it's definitely paid off! I genuinely cannot wait to see what you produce and do with yourselves in the coming years! And a big thank you Pale Blue Dot (Jane and Neil) for making this all possible, doing the footwork and being a great support (and of course taking lovely photo's! Haha).

If you get the chance, do pop along to the Old Fire Station shop in Oxford. It's a gorgeous little shop full of handmade treasures, contemporary pieces and unique gifts. Something for everyone.

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.

So today I spent my day in Oxford at the ginormous John Radcliffe Hospital in their Brain Bank for part of the Brain Awareness Week.

It was a fab day, really interesting and full of information. Getting to see human brains and the differences between healthy and diseased brains, getting to see what happens to donated brains - I can't rave about it enough!

I should probably say my Final Major Project has taken me down the route of the brain and that is why I've accumulated this new interest. But even without my project being about the brain, everything I'm learning is of huge interest to me - and things I think everyone should learn about.

There is so much going on over the next week, I'm gutted I just don't have the time or funds to go to them all! But do check them out, something for all ages! UK events Oxford events

I'm looking forward to stretching my brain over the research to come, and hope the Brain Bank gets more donated brains to continue their thoroughly fascinating research! (I just have to mention) Who are especially hoping for autistic brains to further their knowledge of the disorder as has been the case with parkinsons and alzheimers in the past.

There is history within us all.

Ready and waiting! Having been so overwhelmed with the amount of work I'm doing for my final year recently, I've finally found the time to post my finished banner! Now I'm just trying to find the time to take it down to Milton Kenes! 

I can't believe how much I enjoyed this project. On paper, no one would have put the two of us together, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the process and making! I feel like that is what this year is all about for me, exploring new ideas and stepping out my comfort zone to really push myself.

I just can't wait to see it up now!!

History is trapped within everyone

Since the Christmas pop up shop, I have been thinking about and working on a piece for the Westbury Arts Centre's upcoming exhibit in Milton Keynes on the First World War, a lot more.

I have chosen to use WW1 song lyrics, images of my Great-Grandfather and images of boots and puttees as part of a banner. I've slowly been learning more and more about my family's history through this project, and am now thoroughly intrigued, wanting to know so much more.

So I thought I'd give you a little sneak peek at what I've been up to today, after learning a lot more about my sewing machine through necessity, after 3 days of frustration, I finally got through the barriers and am back on track!

We're here now Xmas pop up shop

Today's the day! 

We're here now Xmas pop up shop (open till 8). 

Come and see us at Banbury and Bicester College, Broughton Road. 

Join us at 6 for my mince pies and mulled wine.

Either I will find a way, or I will make one.

I've been so busy lately, I thought I'd give myself a little break and write a new blog post!

With my head stuck in books and the internet, researching psychology, the unconscious and artists who make work based on it for my dissertation, I haven't felt like I've had any time to think. But of course, being my final year, I have another 6 projects on the go, and it's feeling like an avalanche right now. It's hard enough thinking about 1 project, never mind 7! I think I'm at that point now where I'm forgetting the basics of how to live like a normal human being!

But anyway, I thought I'd show you a couple of stitch pieces I did a little while ago for screen printing which is going towards 1 of my other projects.

I originally sewed the owl onto cotton, but scanned it in and edited the curves and levels in photoshop to make it thicker for putting on a screen (seeing as I'm being taught how to use adobe now, might as well use it to my advantage!).

I quite like that you can't really tell it's stitch, and it looks a bit jaunty - but as usual I just love that it's black and white!

And I'm getting so many compliments on my bee! Originally I made him for yet another project, but feeling under so much stress recently, I decided to drop it, but felt I couldn't just let him come to nothing, so decided to transfer him to my card project - which thankfully I can forget about in 3 weeks time!

Anyone else thinking Christmas is approaching waaaaaay too fast?

Our most beautiful and complex art work we can make are our identities - Grayson Perry

So if you haven't been watching Grayson Perry: Who Are You? on channel 4 on Wednesdays, I don't know where you've been! You've really missed out! But don't worry - that's what 4OD is for.

I've seen Perry's work before, seen interviews and exhibitions, and grew a fondness for him as an artist and a human being. I think it's the way he puts pieces together, and how much he looks into his subject, and the way he has of making his journey through the subject to what interests him about it that inspires me most, and I think this new series really shows that well.

I enjoy the fact that he's been given the honour of presenting his works in the National Portrait Gallery, and one of the first thing he mentions or notices is what it's lacking, and so effectively what he could change with his pieces.

I know Perry has a routed interest in personalities and identities, and now what with me going back to finish my BA degree and getting to get into the subject matter of my own choice for my FMP (and heading down a psychological route), I think Perry has an even bigger influence on me.

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

So I started this beautifully grotty half term by being asked to help run a free roller printing workshop in Castle Quay in Banbury with my old drawing, book binding and stamp making teacher Stephen Fowler.

Having not done nearly as much art since graduating as I would have liked, I jumped at the chance, and now knowing I've been accepted onto the top-up BA starting in September, I was desperate to get back into as much creative being as possible.

The day was a blast (and I didn't even mind getting up nice and early on my day off), so many people turned up and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

I'd not done roller printing before, but had done many fairly similar things to it in my time so I got into it really quickly. By using scaffolding padding, a craft knife (or stick on strip padding for the younger ones) and a painting roller, every age and ability managed to leave their mark all over the shop walls!

Although loving getting messy and having such a fun-filled, silly day, I have to admit my favourite part was seeing Dad's desperately trying to get their children to 'try somewhere different now' or asking 'why don't we leave that bit for someone else?' when of course they were having none of it, and had no plan to stop. As well as the wife and children going off to do what they'd come to town to do and leaving dad making rollers and drawing designs for people.

I just thought it was magical, having to glide across ice.

So I've been inspired lately by the Winter Olympics, which I have well and truly become adicted to. I don't know wether it's that the sports are more interesting to me, or the fact there's so much white (and I love simplicity). Anyway I've found so many inspirational lines - especially when it comes to figure skating - that I've just had to do something about it, have an outlet. So here is my outlet...they're only first trials, and of course I can find so many faults in them but I'm so inspired, I think I'll just keep going until I feel they're right.

Every artist was first an amateur.

 

So as I've been having plenty of spare time recently, I decided to try and teach myself something new.

I've always really wanted to be able to crochet as it looked fun (and more modern than knitting), and my mom had tried once to no avail, so I thought out of the hundreds of crochet videos on youtube, one of them had to work for me!

So after watching a few videos, and reading a couple of intro's to 'beginners crochet' books, I just couldn't tell if I was doing it right or not. I mean something was happening...I just didn't know if it was crochet!?

Then I found the one! It was an American guy (without the patronizing/overly excited voice that the others seemed to have) who seems to do videos for a couple of channels ('GoodKnitKisses' and 'The Crochet Crowd'), that were sooooooooooo simple to understand, I got hooked on just watching them all, and started to practice, and finally got it!

So I attempted to do the octagonal motif in one of the books, although it looked a tad different in the pictures in the book, so something wasn't quite right.

So I thought I'd try something a little more difficult, and I noticed it had a stitch in it that I hadn't learnt, so I tried to find the same guy on youtube doing it, but couldn't, so I went to the next best looking video (videojugartscrafts), who right at the beginning mentioned this was the UK stitch, and said what to look up if you wanted the US version.

So I ended up re-learning the names of each stitch (which wasn't so bad as I hardly knew to start), but thankfully all the stitches were the same, just called different things. So I crocheted this rose :)

FINALLY! I think I got it. Now, just got to practice till it's perfect.