Teacups and Tiaras

Long time, no blog. I'll try to do some recapping this week, as there have been all sorts of events to relate.
On Saturday, we went to the wedding of our very good friends Katy and Mark. It was a lovely day, and so wonderful to see the two of them so happy together. I came over all soppy, I have to admit.

Katy had added some beautiful touches to the tables, including small vintage glass vases for the flowers, and gorgeous candles she'd made in vintage teacups. I'd contributed a few teacups, and I had fun spotting the ones I recognised. Katy loves buttons, and I had made her tiara (to her specifications) from old mother-of-pearl buttons. I'd never made a tiara before, so I was quite pleased that I'd made something wearable, not to say extremely proud to make something for her to wear on such a special day.

I also made a fascinator for her bridesmaid, and it was only when her dad thanked me in his speech that I was reminded that I'd also designed the invitations too! (To be fair, it was a long time ago, and I'd only done a bit of design to copy some typography that Katy had seen and liked.) It was so great to be able to contribute to the wedding.

One of the things I never got around to blogging about was Katy's hen weekend. If a hen weekend conjures up tequila slammers and male strippers, then think again. We spent the weekend in a thatched cottage in the Cotswolds, and our activities included cake decorating and country walks. No outrageous costumes, either, although we did all get matching aprons, courtesy of the bride's mum! That's far more my sort of thing!

However, in case you think it was all civilised, I should confess that I was slightly undone by a lethal pre-dinner cocktail. At that point, I was supposed to be keeping everyone busy with a craft activity. I'd laid out an assortment of fabric, buttons, beads etc. for everyone to play with, and hopefully make something fun to wear at dinner. As everyone got stuck in with glue and thread, I downed my cocktail and started to relax. Suddenly I wasn't feeling all that creative.

As the other hens created jewelled bracelets, gorgeous ribbon brooches and pretty flower hair clips, I stabbed a needle tipsily at a misshapen bit of felt, plonked a 'jewel' on with a massive glue dot, and attached it to a hair clip along with a wonky feather. Classy. As the evening wore on and more wine was drunk, my feather drooped at all angles, and fell out completely at one point. In the face of that, it seems to defy all reason that Katy still asked me to make her tiara.
But hey, that's real friendship.

Creative Wednesday - Grid Collage

Just a brief show-and-tell today. This is a collage I did a few months ago, but never got round to showing in this blog. (Although it was on Flickr, so apologies to those of  you who have seen it already.)

I like the idea of things in boxes, so keeping to a square grid for a collage seemed like a good idea. I also like the idea of random collections of things, so it's a way of providing an orderly framework for otherwise unrelated images and objects. I embroidered and machine stitched between the pictures & drawn squares. (During the course of this endeavour, I discovered that doing chain stitch on a thick piece of paper is a laborious task that any sensible person should avoid.) Thinking about the stitching has just made me realise that it's a bit like a patchwork quilt, too.

I have also been experimenting with photo collages, also in a grid pattern. Maybe I'm being unimaginative, but I think I like this rigid framework.

The Happy House - Lucie Smailes

Wow! I went to see the house and art of Lucie Smailes yesterday. Her house was open as part of the St Werburghs Art Trail in Bristol. (Bristol has several art trails, where artists in a particular area open their houses to the public, and display their art.) I have met Lucie a few times now, and I knew she has wonderful taste in vintage kitsch, and colourful 1950s clothes, but I hadn't seen her art in real life, only in photos.

I knew I was going to like it, (assemblages with dolls and vintage stuff - Hellooo!) but I had no idea quite how wonderful it would be. Mr Kitsch and I walked into her front room, converted into an art gallery for the occasion, and just stood there with our mouths open. Then, 'Look at that!', 'Did you see this?', 'Look at this amazing thing!'

 



The amazing thing above was a cabinet from an amusement arcade, with the mannequin head going round and round on a turntable, brushing noisily against the opticians lenses suspended around it.

Many of the pieces had lights incorporated into them, like these two. I wish my photos could do them justice, but I only had a phone to take pictures with, and I think I was shaking with excitement!

It wasn't just the art that was wonderful - Lucie's house is a shrine to colourful and kitsch ornaments of the 1950s, and I loved every inch of it. 

 

One final and rather wonderful discovery was that Lucie had featured in and help to style photos for one of my favourite kitsch books - 'Kitsch Deluxe'

 No longer available new it appears, but well worth seeking out if you like kitsch interiors.
Do take a look at Lucie's website for much better photos of her wonderful art.

Creative Wednesday - Crazy Dolls

As you've seen rather a lot of my crazy dolls recently, I thought I'd show you someone else's crazy dolls. These pictures are from a splendid book I bought a few weeks ago, called 'How to Make Soft Toys and Dolls'. It was published in 1977, as you can probably guess from these pictures.

I love the happy gals in the picture above, and the worried look of this unlikely trio of pets. A cat, a rabbit and ... a beaver? That mealtime is not going to end well, I'd say.

These big cushions based on children's drawings are delightful.

This gingerbread man might want to consider cosmetic dentistry...

OK, this one is a bit weird - a fried egg and vegetable mobile....

But not as weird as the naked beardy man in the bath.....

Last word

Our exhibition ended on Saturday, with another day full of lovely visitors and kind comments. Big thanks to everyone who came and wished us well. You can see a video tour of the gallery on the Smith & Jones blog

We had to take everything down and pack up on Saturday evening, so as to leave the gallery ready for the next exhibitors, so we were absolutely shattered. It's taken a few days to even start to get back to normal. Hopefully I will get up to date with blogs, etsy, flickr and everything else very soon.

Creative Wednesday - Pictures at an exhibition

No prizes for guessing what I'm going to show this week - a few photos from The Smith and Jones Museum of Folk Art, our exhibition at Room 212 in Bristol.

Mr Kitsch's side of the room looks fantastic, and he is already having a very successful week, having sold several paintings. It's amazing that he has only been painting for a year and this is his first exhibition. I'm so proud and pleased for him. You can read more on his blog.

One of my ideas for the show was to put together my own version of 'Field for the British Isles',the Antony Gormley sculpture installation. My version is made of scores of British costume dolls, all decked out in their Welsh hats, kilts, busbies, and beefeater costumes. I love seeing them all together with their crazy eyes!

We've had some great feedback, and it certainly seems to be eye-catching!

Creative Wednesday - Only 4 days to go!!!

There are only four days to go until our exhibition. Our preview evening is on Sunday between 6.30-8.30pm. If you're in the Bristol area, please do come along and say hello.

Today we went and had another look at the gallery space. It's slightly bigger than both of us remembered, which is good, as in our minds we had started to visualise something smaller than a phone box. Now I have to worry about having enough stuff.

My business cards and postcards arrived today, which makes me feel a little bit more professional. However, there are a lot of things I don't have sorted yet. Like how to display some of my work which won't go on the wall. In an ideal world, I might have a plinth ot two, but sadly, I am not a plinth owner. Hmm... I will have to improvise.

I do have some pictures to go on the wall, like my slightly barmy Barbie collage. It's about A2 size and covered in girly stickers, jewels and sequins.

I'm sorry I haven't had time to do much blogging lately. It's an inevitable irony that when you're busy, and have lots to report, you have the least time for blogging. Hopefully I'll get back to it in a week or two, when I'll have nothing interesting to say!