Engleby by Sebastian Faulks

"My name is Mike Engleby, and I'm in my second year at an ancient university."

Ace Mail

This parcel arrived today; the message written in a familiar hand. Thank you to the other Miss C in my old teaching department for sending me some sea glass from her travels to Cornwall! You are fabulous and I miss your face!

Hope all you teachers out there are having fabulous summer holidays!

Bookshelves

2 x ex English teachers + a house move = many, many boxes of books

We have been busy over the last few days; my main role has been holding things and passing whatsits. However, I was finally useful with a good bit of sanding and painting!
The new 'library' is nearly completed and soon we can finally unpack the last of the boxes, hooray!

The Sisters Antipodes by Jane Alison

"In 1965, when I was four, my parents met another couple, got along well, and within a few months traded partners."

Happy Birthday To Me . . .

. . . from the depths of the sea!

Yesterday was my birthday and we went to the beach, even having a picnic in the car because it was raining, just like when I was a child! It did brighten up though and we had a marvellous time foraging for sea glass. For the first time I found a full bottle neck and excitedly wore it all afternoon as a ring!

Thank you to everyone who sent me greetings and gifts; I have been thoroughly spoilt and thoroughly enjoyed it!

Sea Glass Pendant

Last week I had a go at setting a piece of sea glass using bezel wire around the outside but no back plate to allow the light to shine through the whole piece. There was a great deal of experimentation with this one but I was pleased with how it turned out. Due to the imperfections this piece remains a sample, which I'm happily wearing, but I had already selected a few flat pieces of sea glass I thought would work well to have another go with.
Over the weekend I started making the bezel for an unusual and deeply beautiful green triangular piece of sea glass. It was going well until I tried soldered the loop on the top; it jumped in the heat and hardened at a wonky angle. So I had to heat it up again to melt the solder and remove the loop before trying again this morning. It went so much more smoothly this morning and I was able to set the piece in a nice smooth bezel. I worked on pushing the bezel wire with the bezel rocker for a good wee while and the glass looked good against the silver. It looked just about ready for starting the final sanding process and with just a few final tweaks with the burnisher and I cracked the glass. Arses.

Properly broken. Not like the ever growing pile of wonky, not perfect, not suitable for public scrutiny pieces which make up my jewellery box but so broken it's destroyed. That pretty much set the tone for today's work and it was a bad idea to work with the gorgeous piece of white glass which looks like a dog howling at the moon. I'd been saving it for ages and, even with a heap of insulating paste, the glass cracked a little. On the positive side it is now in my private collection!

Ah well, moving away from my work table to prevent further calamaties did force me to update my accounts. Cos that's always fun. Hmph.

Bring on tomorrow!

Sea Glass Earrings

Pretty aqua sea glass on hand forged sterling silver earwires are now available at lauracameron.co.uk.

Londonderry - City of Culture

Exciting news!

Londonderry has been named the UK's inaugural City of Culture! Congratulations to everyone involved!

Could you Cope Without Art?

A few months ago an Arts Council project caught my eye. Today, after reading this article about budget cuts in the arts and the usual cliched 'art is a waste of time and money' style comments, the project came into my mind again and I thought I'd share it with you.

So what do you think - could you cope without art?

The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

cover artwork by David Cutter

New Postcards

I've just finished designing and ordering a set of these postcards to accompany my work in galleries and to give out at fairs. More information and not as eye catching as little image laden business cards but allows for a little bit of background to my work when I'm not there to waffle on!

Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks

Knowing nothing about this book apart from the fact that I have really enjoyed other writing from Faulks I found myself increasingly irritated with the opening quarter of this book which whooshed through a rather unbelievable series of relationship formations. I stuck with it to see where he was taking them and finally found myself more engaged with the characters and Faulk's central study of the historical development of psychiatry. Interesting, even if the determination from the author to use every last scrap of his research was at the expense of plot and character development.

Laura Cameron Jewellery at The Smokehouse Gallery

picture courtesy of www.thesmokehousegallery.co.uk

I am pleased to announce that a selection of my sea glass and sea pottery jewellery is now available at The Smokehouse Gallery in Eyemouth. Included in the collection is this pretty bezel set aqua sea glass pendant which was in the window of the gallery before I left! Yay!


I will be adding new pieces to www.lauracameron.co.uk over the next few weeks including bezel set pendants on a made to order basis to start with. I really love this piece especially the way the light comes through the glass and hope to find more sea glass suitable for setting like this. Mum and Dad seem to be enjoying their trip and it's ace to have them around! We're going on a jaunt to the beach today so I'll see what I can find!

Sea Pottery Dog Necklace

This week I've been working serious amounts of over time so I can have a few days off next week when my parents are here so I have lots of new pieces finished including a set to be delivered to a gallery tomorrow. If all goes well I'll be telling you more on that during the week!
Over the week this piece has stood out as one of my favourites mainly because of the perfect framing of the little pup chasing after his master's legs! Such an unusual find and I'll be sorry to see this one go but can't keep all the beach treasure to myself now can I?! Not a great photo sorry I didn't have much time to tart it up and now I've got to go and tidy up for the arrival of the parents! Can't wait to see them now!

Banish Negative Thoughts

Pagan Wanderer Lu - Banish Negative Thoughts from Brainlove on Vimeo.

New video and single from Pagan Wanderer Lu, like this? Find more on his blog!

I love, love, love the shadows under floating P.W.L, great work!