Work in progress for the upcoming Art Trail! Lots more on the go! These photos all resulted from having to take a thumb break before carrying on making, shaping, filing, sanding... Always seems to be my poor left thumb gets a battering, although I did stab my middle finger with my new, very shap file the other day, right under the nail, ouch.
The Crossing Borders annual open studio event, the Art Trail, is nearly upon us!
Split over two weekends to allow visitors to explore a large area, artists across the borders will fling open their doors for you to come and see their work, chat, get involved and have a good day out!
If you haven't picked up your guide yet you can download a digital copy and pick up a paper copy at your first venue.
Dates for the Art Trail for 2013 are:-
- West - FRIDAY 30th August to SUNDAY 1st September
- East - FRIDAY 6th to SUNDAY 8th September
Rich and I will both be at Allanbank Arts with Gill Walton, Hannah Longmuir and Richard Oldale on the 6th, 7th and 8th of September. The venue will be open 10am to 5pm each day and I am running a morning 10am-12pm and afternoon 2pm-4pm drop in workshop each day. For just £5, to cover the cost of materials, you can try your hand at wire wrapping your beach finds to create a necklace or earrings. It takes about half an hour to create a piece of jewellery and you are welcome to drop in for a workshop between 10am and 2pm or 2pm to 4pm. I have arranged it into two sessions after finding that I didn't get much chance to talk to other visitors when I ran workshops all day, not to mention failing to eat lunch or go for a wee!
Having gone on the trail as a visitor and participated as an artist last year I can highly recommend an arty jaunt around the borders! Do take a few minutes to plan your route, look out for the artists you are particularly interested in meeting or find out where you can do workshops. All the information is in the guide, including contact details for each artist if you need to ask anything beforehand.
I hope to see you on the trail!
Well oh well, it is all very exciting over here as we prepare for the Art Trail. We have visited exhibitions...
Photographed and celebrated a joyous wedding...
We had a visit from a lovely friend, celebrated Rich's birthday and in a delightful turn of events I will now be working at both number four gallery in St Abbs and Coldstream Gallery. Splendid! I have been thoroughly enjoying the galleries and will be bringing you a selection of my favourite pieces at the moment, I warn you, it may be a long list!
Hello, hello!
How are you all?
Things are rolling along well here working away on new pieces for the Crossing Borders Art Trail including a host of bezel set pendants like these ones which are in various stages of completion:
The blue on the top left is going to be oxidized so the texture on the copper stands out. I did a repair on a bracelet last week and forgot how much I love the blackened, textured look when you oxidize silver so there will be more.
The bracelet to be repaired was a very pretty Macintosh inspired piece and the roses were originally oxidized, however, after soldering and pickling as part of the repair the whole surface was back to silver. With a bit of liver of sulphur (pongs!) followed by polishing the bracelet was returned to its owner. I dotted the liver of sulphur onto the roses directly(that's what you can see in the picture above) and then put the whole piece in warm water. This meant the whole bracelet became patinated, however it was more concentrated within the lines of the rose and then easy to buff off where the patina wasn't wanted.
So, yes, more textured, patinated work is on the way.
In other news I have a summer job! I will be working at the beautiful Number Four Gallery in St Abbs on Wednesdays so do come and say hello! If you are longing for the sea and are on fb, following the gallery page might help with some beautiful pictures of St Abbs and the fabulous Art work too!
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