Showing posts with label artist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artist. Show all posts

Saturday 10 May 2014

Blast From The Past!

Hi everyone!

I've had an interesting and motivational time since my last blog! I'll tell you a little of the background.  I was lucky enough to go to a Steiner School from the age of 3 and I stayed at the same school until after my exams.  One of my friends from the early days was Lucy Walker (now Mhoma), who subsequently emigrated to New Zealand at 14.  A couple of years ago we 'met' again on Facebook and have chatted many times since.  I found out that Lucy has been working as an artist in Christchurch, NZ in the area devastated by earthquakes.

Lucy decided to go on a family/artist trip to various places around the world, some places just to show her children where she'd lived and others to forge new artistic links. I was thrilled when she said that she was coming to Plymouth to see us!  We spent the evening exploring each other's work and talking about school and her adventures.  The next morning, before she set off for Istanbul I took her to Royal William Yard to show her the building which is set to become artist's studios and for coffee, of course! As we entered the Bakery we bumped into a artist friend of mine and after introducing Lucy, Connor McIntyre very kindly offered to show us his studio and to tell us about his latest work which was fabulous.  Lucy is in New York now I believe, and when her travels are finished I hope to feature her here on this blog and to ask her more about her journey.  All in all, I found the whole visit very inspiring.

Since then I've been working on new shapes in my aluminium and I've started to cut out a new design.



So, what do you think of these new shapes?
 
I look forward to hearing what you think of the new pieces! I always appreciate your feedback. I hope to have some of this work on my website in the next few days so please do check SlickSilver Jewellery.
 

Sunday 24 February 2013

Three Beautiful Things No.1

Hello world!

Well this week seems to have gone by in a blur of working on the brand new upcycled jewellery range but more on that later!

In my last couple of blogs I mentioned that I wanted to start a new feature entitled Three Beautiful Things.  This will take place every few weeks and this is my first one.  To start us off I thought I'd feature artist and composer David Muddyman (yes, I know he's my husband, but he's a pretty cool guy!!).
Dave is an artist, composer and member of the group Loop Guru. As an artist he is interested in the landscape around him and his work can be figurative or go towards abstraction as he looks at the shapes and lines within a landscape. As a composer he often creates sound pieces that echo his painting interests, trying to capture the musical essence of a place or take you on a sonic journey.
 
I asked Dave to tell me about his 3 things and this is what he said.
 
“This is going be so hard as sometimes beauty is intrinsic to a piece of art itself and sometimes it is the associated memories that add to its beauty.
 
My first piece is a painting by Cornish artist Saul Cathcart. It is an acrylic on canvas painting of Brown Willy on Bodmin Moor painted from a dell called King Arthur’s Hall. I was introduced to Saul’s work by Val soon after we met. I loved the vibrancy of his colour and method of applying the paint. Soon after we moved in together Val and I visited Saul and were treated to a mini exhibition in a local church opposite his house near the Moors. We had been determined to treat ourselves to one of his paintings for our new house but ended coming away with two – even then it was a hard choice. This painting has added significance to me I was lucky to go out painting with Saul one freezing, November day and he took me to the spot where this was painted. Saul’s paintings have continued to blossom and every exhibition of his we attend has several that I love but we live in a small house already covered in paintings and I am still so happy with the one’s we have.
 
 
My second piece (or pieces) are a small collection of pots. I have always love pots – sometimes it is the shape, sometimes it is the over-glazing. I knew I would have to include one in my list of favourite things but the choice was difficult. In the end I chose a small selection that we bought in the Lake District. I feel bad that I cannot remember the potter’s name and, in fact, I can’t remember exactly where they were bought, but with these it is partly the pots themselves that I love but it also the memories of one the most wonderful holidays I have had there that made me choose these. I think they may have been bought at the Percy Gallery in Cockermouth – a wonderful old building full of treasures. We frequent a lot of galleries and have found that some we walk into hold no interest at all and some are like a lost cave of delights. It is obviously down to taste and some gallery owners have similar taste to us. Cockermouth itself was a beautiful town and it was so sad to see it flooded the following year and realising that the ground floor of the Percy Gallery was under water….. The ceramic pieces themselves are quite small with abstract design which, to me has a Japanese feel to it (I have always loved contemporary and historic Japanese ceramics). They were not expensive, but value is relative and I can get just much pleasure from looking at a pot that cost me £15 as I could from a Bernard Leach (possibly even more pleasure as I would worry much more about the cat breaking a Bernard Leach pot). So, memories and motif combined to make these pots some of my favourite things.
 
 
My third piece is my Appalachian dulcimer. While not really a work of art, being a new and relatively unadorned dulcimer, its beautiful is in its form and in its sound. For one thing it is an instrument that is very difficult to sound horrible. Its three courses of strings for drone, usually based on a root note of D, and the scale of the frets either form a Mixolydian scale or an Ionian (or major) scale. It was used to accompany folk songs in America. It just makes me think of sitting of veranda of a shack in hilly glade as the sun is going down. The only problem is that we don’t live in a hilly glade or have a veranda in Plymouth, but maybe when my talented wife becomes famous for her wonderful jewellery and we have our house in St.Ives…. ah…..everyone needs a dream.”
 
 
 
Thank you Dave for kick starting my Three Beautiful Things blog feature.  If you would like to take part do let me know.
 
So, does anyone want to know details of the upcycled book jewellery? I took some previously loved hardback books and laminated them with retro prints, sealed them and then they were laser cut.  So far I have a selection of necklaces which will be on my website in the next couple of days SlickSilver Jewellery and I'm also working on a series of pins too. The great thing is that they're only £15.00!!! I will also be selling these at craft events.
 
 
 
 
Make sure you get yours - there's loads of shapes to choose from!!
 

See you next week!

Monday 14 May 2012

SlickSilver Jewellery - The Return!

Well hello all - I'm back from my travels yet again!

We had a wonderful week in London, housesitting for friends in West Hampstead and getting out each day to visit galleries and exhibitions and new places.  My husband, artist and composer David Muddyman, spent most of his life living in the capital, indeed until 5 years ago when he moved to Plymouth and met me, so he truly knows his way around.

As we both love contemporary art, we're perfectly happy to wander around looking at new work and great jewellery and we both found things to inspire us especially in Tate Modern and Electrum Gallery, such exquisite innovative jewellery.  One moment that was really lovely was going into Studio Fusion Gallery in Oxo Towers http://www.studiofusiongallery.co.uk, where we met Louise O'Neill. She took time to tell us about all of the artists involved in Studio Fusion and even showed me her kiln - in all, a really nice lady to have met.

Last monday saw us visiting Brighton (a first for me) which was great but very wet.  It literally poured with rain so we dashed into a shop, bought 2 umbrellas and came back out to glorious sunshine and blue sky and no more rain - oh well!

Since I came back I've been producing new sheets of aluminium pattern ready for cutting.  Very soon you will be able to buy Cherry Blossom and Coral Reef from my website.


Coral Reef

Cherry Blossom


I plan to turn these two gorgeous sheets into a limited number of cuffs, pendants and earrings and perhaps a necklace. The sheets are approximately 10 x 7 inches.

I'm always inspired by nature and I've also been making moulds this week of tree bark, woodgrain, lavarock and all sorts of things in anticipation of my kiln arriving.......one day my kiln will come..........

Ok folks off to wait for the kiln delivery man! I think he may be walking......


Thursday 16 February 2012

Rings and Things

Hello everyone!  Last Thursday night we went down to Royal William Yard to have a social get together with some of the members of Flameworks and ended up having a really enjoyable evening meeting a hot-metal worker, an artist, a photographer, a metal sculptor and a potential new member who's interested in printing as well as my husband, also an artist.  It does increase your motivation to meet up with like-minded creative people!

In my last blog I mentioned that I'd had a request for aluminium rings and that I'd tell you more about what I'd been working on this week.  The customer in question treated herself to two rings so here's a glimpse of my aluminium and silver rings.
Andromeda Wraparound Ring
Andromeda Ring




All of these rings are made entirely from aluminium which has been dyed and forged into shape to produce a unique piece of jewellery.




Starry Nights Ring

















I also wanted to work on a ring which combined sterling silver and aluminium.

I hand pierced two flower shapes, filed and polished the edges and then made the sterling silver ring band to which I soldered a small silver wire.  I domed the flower shapes, drilled the centres and stacked them onto the silver wire and cold connected them with the wire acting a rivet.  Hope you like the outcome!

Flower Ring I
So, what else has been happening this week? Well my family have come back to their homes from working in all corners of the globe so that's something!

I've found Pinterest which is great fun and has lost me many hours of my life this week!!! It's so addictive looking for and adding the items that I personally find beautiful, inspirational, funny, cute and plain weird to my boards (like the dog that looks exactly like a loaf of bread!!). If you are also on Pinterest, come and look for me!

In other news my husband is just in the process of redesigning and relaunching his website so if you'd like to see his paintings then pay him a visit on http://www.davidmuddyman.co.uk

See you all next week!

Thursday 8 September 2011

The Colour Buzz!

Anyone who knows my jewellery will know that colour is hugely important to me as is texture, but I thought I'd share with you some of my favourite colour sources for inspiration.

I really love looking at things that are very simply laid out with beautiful colours that harmonise and I really do have a great choice of material as my artist husband http://www.davidmuddyman.co.uk collects art books and catalogues with a passion and our house size is decreasing accordingly!

Yesterday I travelled from Plymouth to Bristol by train to see my son and purchased what turned out to be a revelation - Oh comely magazine.  I can hear some of you saying 'where have you been, we already knew about that!' - well it was a true find for me.  Beautifully simplistic in layout, not crowded with ads, lovely colours and graphics and great reading matter - do look out for it. Several pictures made me want to immediately dye some aluminium! http://www.ohcomely.co.uk

I'm also a sucker for pads of colourful paper designs and whilst I don't reproduce the design I often feel inspired by an element of what I see.  I also flick through Colour Index by Jim Krause for colour combination types.  Another source I use frequently for it's sheer mouth-wateringness (?) is http://www.design-seeds.com.  The photographs never fail to inspire me and are often a breath of fresh air and I love the way that the colour palette for each picture sits alongside.

My trip to Bristol was another riot of colour with some fabulous street art freely available for all to see and share in and I saw plenty of people appreciating it. The pendant below is my own take on graffiti style mark making and was made using digital imaging, alcohol inks and aluminium dyes.
I hope you'll take a little time to check out the sources I've mentioned in this blog - they might inspire you too!

Purple Rain

Thursday 25 August 2011

Challenges, Changes and Cherry Cheesecake!

Phew - well last week's blog was an exciting time! I had some lovely comments from people entering the competition, a few new followers and you seemed to enjoy the challenge of searching through for the name of the collection that features on my background and you all got it right!

So challenges and changes are my theme for this week's blog.

My greatest challenge at the moment is that I still can't make my jewellery although my shoulder is finally beginning to improve, so hopefully the day won't be too far away! Luckily I was aware that I wouldn't be able to make anything for some time so I stockpiled before I had surgery and I can confirm that I will be launching my new website with a new aluminium collection or two. Just wait until you see mouthwatering Cherry Cheesecake and Surf's Up!



Cherry Cheesecake - but what is it?

That was a neat little link there to the changes ahead on the new website and the challenges it's bought me (and my husband!).  It was supposed to be so simple, but inevitably, it wasn't!  You can, however, expect on the new site to see a shop for each of my collections, Waves, Impressions, Colour & Texture and Aluminium. I'm also hoping to get a forum going with a different subject for discussion each week if possible but we'll wait and see how good the take up is on that.

The other challenge I've had this week is finding another artist to collaborate with.  I'm looking for designers who produce something out of the ordinary and I have emailed a couple of people whose designs are stunning and totally different from anything else I've ever seen.  I really hope I hear back from them soon, however, I shall carry on looking anyway and if anyone has a suggestion I will gladly take a look and see if it fits in with my own work.

So, hopefully before my next blog we shall be up and running on the new site and may be able to celebrate the launch in some way - another competition do you think?