Mixed Media Workshops in Rye

Blast from the past!

Hello and welcome to my revised Blog.
Its been quite some time now since Ive blogged and quite a lot has changed for me during that time.
I'm still a practising Artist, and I live in lovely Rye on the South coast of England with my son Indigo.
I paint mainly and run workshops from my home studio.

Heres my latest commission.

Tinker Tailor - recycled design

Fresh from their debut in Selfridges “Bright Young Things' exhibition, where they re-created their studio space in the window, is design duo Tinker Tailor AKA Katy Gray Rosewarne and Adam Towner.

Now here is a couple after my own heart, as they too specialize in recyling and the re-working of old materials. From a discarded camera to a derelict building, these two can create exciting new products and spaces from virtually anything.

Here are two of their latest designs, The Handi light, and Vinyl Cake Stand.

Finally someone who can make good use of those old records.

Also take a look at their latest Interior project '£500 house.' They set themselves a budget of just £500 to create a stylish interior for this building...now thats creative recycling. More pictures on their site.

Tinker Tailors range of products lights and soft furnishings are available at The Dead dolls club London, which also houses creative studios, or via their website at www.thedeaddollsclub.com

Brigthon Art Fair

Finally getting back to a normal routine after my move to the UK. After 5 months, have found suitable child care at a Steiner school for my son Indigo, so should have a little more time now to do more regular updates.

Last week was Brighton Art Fair and I went along to check it out as a possible venue to exhibit my own painting next year. I was really impressed with the standard of the exhibitors and a few stood out from the crowd.

One of those was Steve McPherson, a multi talented Artist who was exhibiting his Artworks ‘Marine Plastic”

Steve has collected objects from beaches around the Kent coast for 15yrs, which he collates by type and colour. Some of these then make their way into his unique and very attractive assemblages.

Some are grouped by type such as these tags. Others, a mixture of interesting beach finds.

This was one of my favourites, small pieces of Dymo labels with intriguing messages in crinkled sea washed plastic, probably washed up from many vessels

I was blown away by Steve’s work, of course there are other Artists working with toys and plastics but not in the same way, or with such attention to detail, his work really stands out.

See more Marine Plastics and Steve’s other work here, including photography, 2D and 3D Artworks and Book works. He also has a great blog, which includes a feature in the Brighton and Hove magazine, Latest7.

Great Design Items

I wanted to share with you, a great gift I had at Christmas and those I bought for others. My husband likes to make my present a complete surprise so I usually have absolutely no idea whatsoever, which could be a bit worrying, like some random, on a whim present. He always pulls it off though! And it’s never what I think I might get! But I always really love it.

This was the gift of 2009, designed by Ramin Razani. Isn’t it great? Couldn’t have chosen better myself! You can see the site at:

www.officinacrea.it This one is part of the Zoo animals, wall collection.

Great Tins
I decided to shop more on-line this year as I’ve discovered so many gorgeous and talented designs out there and thought it would be interesting to get some things from other parts of the world.

Bought some great tins for my friend Carrey from an on-line shop called Blafre Design, in Norway. They also have a great blog here: http://blafre.blogspot.com/ for those of you who aren’t familiar with them.

The range has some wonderful stylised and colourful designs on tins, paper, cards and canvas, by the owners Ingrid and Remi, Perfect for children and for those of us who can never get enough tins, to fill with haberdashery items! The tins I ordered were very well made and the owners very thoughtfully gave me a booklet about their range and some free stickers, which are really nice. A fabric range is coming soon.

Recycled Card Toys
My other great finds were thanks to my Flickr friend Kay in Holland, whom I regularly swap style magazines with. She had sent a couple for me just before Christmas and there were some gifts featured which I liked, in Holland at www.kidsonroof.nl I bought this wonderful Totem Tree for Indigo, my son and the City collection. Made from recycled card and printed with colourful and intriguing designs, fun to make, fun to play with and they look great displayed.

The Kidsonroof ‘Totem’ was chosen as one of TIME Style and Design’s Green Design100, it was also nominated as speciality Toy 2009 by the American Toy association. Check them out; they also have some large play houses and insects.

In case you’re all wondering why my blog updates have become less frequent, I’m in the process of moving house and to another country, so very stressful! not enough hours in the day! Bear with me over the next 4 weeks as I may not have complete access to the internet and will be busy looking for a home and unpacking!

New Feature on Boboho
Welcome to new followers and thanks to all readers for continuing to show interest in my blog. I will soon have 200 followers so my next post will give details of a celebratory ‘giveaway’. In the meantime, for those of you who are not yet familiar with my interiors site, we have a new house on there, which is kitsch delicious! See http://www.boboho.com/

Re-told Tales and Free Giveaway

This post I thought I’d share with you, a couple of pictures from the exhibition in our Gallery here in Denmark. Nice to see some familiar faces from our mailing list and some new customers. I was pleased that so many showed keen interest in my lamps :-)

Now the exhibitions coming to an end and I’m looking forward to turning the Gallery space back into a photography studio during the winter, have lots of new ideas for my existing project about ‘re-telling tales’, which involves photographic illustrations of childhood themes or memories and also well loved stories.

Here are some of my pictures from the first part of the exhibition:

If you would like, you can purchase prints here

Win a Print
As I now have over one hundred followers on blogger now I would like to offer an unframed print approx. A3 size for free to celebrate.

All new followers signed up by August 28th plus all existing followers will have their names drawn out of a hat and 2 winners will each receive a print of their choice.

It is a high quality limited edition giclee print with a lifetime guarantee on the ink against fade and are printed on 240g/m Arches Fine art paper.

Some of My Favourites from Vintage, Art and Design

Feeling more inspired than I have for a while, right now! Which is good. Probably because I’m looking for a holiday apartment to rent on the South coast of England, anyone know of a good one? It’s been a hard choice this year as there are many places I would like to visit but because I live in Denmark for now and am missing my home country more than ever, my choice is to be there. We’ll probably do a Brighton trip with a bit of surrounding areas thrown in as Brighton is one of my favourite cities in Europe and certainly the best in the UK in my mind.

It’s been a tough one though, with many of you taunting me with your recent pics of Cornwall and the lake district! That’s what I love about the UK, it’s very diverse, you can have lakes and mountains one minute, and a few hours later palm trees and white sand beaches!

Casper James
This post I’d like to share some of my favourite art, design and all things vintage.Kicking off with Brighton of course!! Those of you familiar with it will know that in the ‘North Laines’ area [shoppers paradise] there is an antique emporium, which is like a load of vintage and retro stalls under one roof. In there is a guy with great style called Casper James.

My lovely interior designer friend Ben, went along to meet him and photograph the stall for me, thanks Benji!

Look at the great range of stuff he sells! He customizes some of the pieces too, to give them a great new look. Casper, if you’re reading this, thank you and I’ll be visiting and no doubt purchasing when I’m in Brighton.

See Caspers flickr site here which also features some of his fantastic colourful artwork, very retro in style.

Zoe Rubens
Another favourite is Sculptor Zoe Rubens, who exhibited at our Gallery a couple of years ago. Zoe’s work is incredible, I think. She uses recycled pieces of metal to create the most gorgeous sculptures using techniques such as welding and soldering.

She exhibits regularly at a couple of London galleries as well as throughout the UK and can also work to commission.

Many pieces incorporate ceramic details, also made by Zoe and some are narrative based, using references to past stories or historical/ mythical beings.

She has a flikr site and a web site where you can view more of her work and see that she is also an accomplished print maker. Look at these lovely paper works. ‘I’m feeling really humble now Zoe, you are so talented’!

Nanna Ask
Last but not least, one of my favourite Artists, Nanna Ask from Denmark. I have this painting of hers, which we purchased the last time she exhibited here, a few years on, I still love its child like simplicity and humorous depiction. Its called ‘Repair Me’ directly translated, but I guess ‘make me better’?

She has a website, where you can read all about her and see many more paintings including an archive section where everything, including sold works are listed.

Denmark has a history of naïve painters and I think Nanna is one of the best contemporary naïve painters here in DK. The titles of her works touch a chord in you as they have a familiarity for all of us, especially those with children.

I like how she incorporates vintage wallpapers into her paintings and how she creates textures using acrylic, oil bars, crayons and pens.

Well, that’s all for now, hope you’re feeling inspired, I’ll be back next week to show you some pictures from the exhibition. Have a great and sunny week!

Large Luscious Woolly Pom-poms

Calling all crafters and skilled creative people everywhere, please be part of my flickr friend Elvis Robertson’s pom-pom project.

For those of you who haven’t seen it on-line, this is a wonderful collaborative project which aims to bring together the International craft community and show what they can do by creating ‘blossom’ in the Autumn. Elvis will hang the pom-poms in the trees in Lower Gardens park area in Bournemouth, once the leaves have fell from the trees.

Having been part of various collaborative ‘art happenings’ or events myself, when I lived in the UK, it feels great to once again be part of a wonderfully worth while project.

It gives you a great feeling to be involved with the community and contribute towards something as visual and fun as this, and the pom-poms are not difficult to make. Here are some pictures from people already part of the group.

Elvis has set up a pom pom blog and flickr site specially for this purpose where you can see more images and find out more about the project, including a short tutorial on how to make the pom-poms. They are easy to make and very satisfying to ‘play with’ once finished as they are so soft and woolly! Even if you can only find the time to make one, that’s fine.

For me, an added bonus of this project is that you can recycle your left over wool or wool found in charity shops, boot sales etc…

Elvis herself, is an active and enthusiastic recycler. As an establishes Textile Artist, she only uses vintage materials in her work and has exhibited at liberty London, and Browns. Pom-poms are very much part of her own work where she uses them to finish and embellish her beautiful memory quilts. See below

She has a great personal blog which features not only her work and her memories but also the art and design of other great Artists.

Her flickr site shows more great pictures including some of her stunning home. Elvis’s work has a wonderful nostalgia about it and her choice of colours and fabrics are so well put together. She works under her label ‘Lovely’ and in addition to her memory quilts; she makes beautiful wall and window pieces, to commission.

Her work is concerned with memory, gaps in memory, intimacy, community and humility. Lets all work together to make Elvis’s Pom-pom event as spectacular as possible.

Before I end this post, I just wanted to say apologies for the wait, I am 3-4 weeks behind with my blog my website and my artwork, due to a severe eye infection!!!

I am now up and running again and will endeavour to finish my two new lamps so I can document them on here next week.
I would also like to thank and welcome any newcomers for joining my blog, and those that continue to support it :-)

Birds and Flowers

The sun is shining today, a welcome change from the dark Danish winter, and I’ve been thinking about flowers and birds.

In fact, I made some as brooches, from vintage newspaper and magazines, then decorated them with ephemera and vintage haberdashery.

There is also a couple of bowls.