Thrift Shop Treasure

I went along to visit an Art on the Map exhibition today - Anne Rabbitts and Bryan Foote - Anne's drawings are so fine and delicate - gorgeous.
Afterwards, I treated myself to some thrift shop time and found some snuggly jumpers to feed my current hankering for them -
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So what if I've got a fixation with red these days?

Pretty detailing on the front of this one -

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I also received a floral skirt that I bought from ebay the other day - it's slightly wooly-felty and high waisted - a comfort-day skirt!

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All items modelled by my favourite chair!

-sb



New Skirt

What did I do today? I made myself a skirt.
Remember the fabric I bought yesterday from Ursina?
Add a sewing machine - it's now a little more like this -
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A pretty little A-line skirt - I also used some of the peacock feather fabric for a bit of a contrast at the waist band.

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I also found a lovely big button to do up the waist but sadly no blue zips, so I've settled for a black one.

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For the hems on the ends of the waistband and the bottom hem of the skirt, I persuaded the sewing machine to do this pretty stitch for a decorative hem - sadly I didn't have any blue thread for the bottom hem to match the waistband.

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Now I'm wearing my new skirt!

(Tee shirt by Primark, Necklace by Mum, Bracelet by Whistles, Watch by Lorus)

Next project: A shift dress made from the peacock printed fabric (fingers crossed!)

(Note: skirt improvised from the A line skirt in this book)

-sb

Ursina's House Contents Sale

My friend's mother Ursina is moving to Martinique next month, so she had a sale of all her beautiful things - she's a potter and all her handmade crockery had to go -
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I treated myself to two mugs, a jug and a stunning bowl!

Now I'll always have them to whisk me back to Ursina and Ana Maia's house -

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I also had a rummage through the fabric box! Some new aprons for me...

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Paisley pockets - I'll start the trend.

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There's enough of this Liberty print fabric for a little shift dress - let's hope my sewing skills are up to it!

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And finally, a fresh A-line skirt to be, with a peacock feather waistband.

Overall, a jolly good haul of treasure - thank you Ursina!

-sb

Kiln Fired Glass: The Results

My butter dish from yesterday's post has now been fired and my soap dish is finished too -
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I drew on some scratchy black outlines to mimic the pen I used in the original doodled design.

The red glass also got darker after the 2nd and 3rd firings.

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I love how from different angles, the dark lines and red shapes stop matching up properly.

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As promised - with finest butter! I did have to cut it in half as my dish couldn't be made big enough to hold a whole half pound of butter.

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For the soap dish, we used a layer of Vanilla for the background colour as a test run with white was too blue and cold. The blue speckles you see are made from light turquoise frit (heat up some glass really hot and drop it into cold water - it crumbles to make frit) which has had a layer of colourless reactive glass laid over the top - this is what gives the darker browny purple edges to the melted frit droplets.

I think it's just gorgeous the way it transforms!

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Here we have a bar of Dove soap modelling the dish - this is my favourite soap and also the reason the frit was arranged in an oval.

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Project completed.

I now have two beautiful and fully functional glass dishes to customise my room in unniversity halls!

-sb

Kiln Fired Glass

During my very early preparations-for-uni and general life planning fest, I decided to make my own soap dish and butter dish using my mother's glass kiln and help.
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Scratching out a few flower shapes as planning

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I've got such a fixation with red these days - not sure why but I just can't get enough - sitting here in my bright red tee! Also, I think it looks great with pale creamy yellow - the colour of butter - so perfect for my butter dish!
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The dish, post firing, pre slumping

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Then I laid out my bright red flower based shapes between two plates of clear glass.
To get the thin shapes, we used glass which is made by blowing a huge bubble of glass and breaking it.
The result - beautifully thin and delicate shards of glass.
Once it's been slumped, I'll test run it with a pack of finest butter and post the final result.
Next project: the soap dish -
I think I'll match it to my favourite shampoo bottles -
-sb 

You Just Made My Day

I mentioned yesterday The Jealous Curator who describes that feeling you get of mixed admiration and jealousy when you see some amazing art.
Imagine your favourite artist; the artist you wish you were; the artist who inspires you the most and always, always gives you the jealous-admiring feeling.
For me, that artist is Ilana Halperin.
Now imagine that someone is in your slightly-hobbly-shed-gallery (this is mine) and says this -
"You know who you remind me of - maybe you haven't heard of her - Ilana Halperin?"
They just made my day.
Here are a few of my favourite Halperin things -
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Ilana Halperin
Physical Geology (Plate 3), 2009

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Ilana Halperin
An Entangled Bank, Installation View, 2009

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Ilana Halperin
Installation View at Projects Spaces, 2009

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-sb

I'm Jealous of Gavin Weber

"There is one moment, in the first few seconds, when you look at a piece of art and know that you love it. It’s the moment when, if you’re an artist yourself, you look at it and feel a rush of uplifting inspiration… and total soul-crushing jealousy all at the same time. It’s when you walk away thinking, “Damn, I wish I thought of that.”"
I'm quoting The Jealous Curator here - I think we all know that jealous feeling where you think "that's what I want my artwork to look like!"
To tell the truth, I get that feeling just about your blog, TJC!
I thought I'd mention TJC because it just exactly describes why I want to post about Gavin Weber today. Now let's see why -
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Gavin Weber
2-3, 2008
Graphite on Paper

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Gavin Weber
Circulate II, 2008
Steel, Vinyl Tape

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Gavin Weber
Circulate II, 2008
Steel, Vinyl Tape

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It's so futuristic/industrial - reminds me of Tsutomu Nihei's artwork for Manga comic Blame! -
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Tsutomu Nihei

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-sb

Piano Hangers + Paper Lights

Following on from yesterday's preparing-for-leaving fest involving ebay searching le creuset cookware, I've been looking around at all sorts of things for my future home - forward planning, moi?
Patrick Seha's Piano Hanger is, well, a hanger.
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Is this not just stunning? I want, nay, need this in my life. I can hang all my coats and scarves (living in Scotland is just great sometimes) - even soggy shoes from being out in the rain (gotta love Scotland) can hang on the low ones until dry!
Now, how to figure out making one...
I think my life would be complete if I could just have this and a Polia Wall Sconce -
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I've always loved flicking paper out like this and now here is that shape, so graceful and simple, preserved as a light. Some people are just genii. Manuel Vivian is one of them.
-sb

Fossilized Seabed Ripples

This evening, my mother and I watched Andy Goldsworthy's film Rivers and Tides -
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307385/
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- lots of very truly beautiful images - I especially like the lines of the walls and leaf chains, but then I am a line obsessive!
There is a part where he says he is capturing the movement of a pool of fresh water meeting sea water really struck me.
I thought about movements and the idea of freezing a moment in a sculpture or drawing.
One movement I love is the surface of the sea as it washes over itself on the shore and out at sea.
It's something I've tried to capture before but could never quite get - I mused aloud over this and my mother pointed out that fossilized seabeds are the closest thing to capturing that movement -
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/31003535@N07/3040479166
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I'd love to own a piece of that, or to cast it in silver, like Maya Lin's Yangtze River -
I can't actually find a photo online - it's truly beautiful - the shape of the Yangtze River cast in silver.
-sb

Puppaidean ("pupp-a-jen")

At work today the younger children were decorating and naming felt puppets -
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Making puppets

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Such chaos! The tables are perpetually sticky, but the kids are engrossed in the process of perfecting "na puppaidean" - it's very uplifting stuff to watch, apart from when I had stay behind and hoover up millions of discarded bits of sticky backing!
They do get so attached to their puppets though -
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"Too many bellies!"

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The little boy on the right decided that the squares were stomachs - "He's going to have a stomach on his EYES!"
The puppet ended up with eleven bellies - "Too many bellies!"
I'll be sad to finish on Friday.
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-sb

Starting out

Welcome to my new blog-
Today, I'm celebrating the first official sale of a piece of my work!
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Response - 3. A reaction, as that of an organism or a mechanism, to a specific stimulus
Etched Perspex, Tissue Paper, PVA, Printed Etched Text
Copyright Susannah Bolton 2011

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As I put on my jumper before leaving to walk to work - I am tutoring art lessons at a Gaelic summer school this week - a Belgian camper van pulled up and a couple began taking photographs of my exhibition.

They bought Response on the spot - I was late for work but did not care and just skipped down the corridor to class!

There is a gap now though -

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The empty patch of wall

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Happy days-
May there be many more.
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-sb