• comission,  General,  Glass,  New In the Studio

    I Love Seahorses!

    … so I was very pleased when I was commissioned to make a seahorse design for someone.

    I was contacted a few months back by someone who’d seen my stained glass seahorse panel which I made years ago as part of an evening class.  He is an underwater photographer and diving journalist and asked if I could make one for him.

    No, I said, sorry.  What? I hear you cry, are you mad?  Well, no, I am not (well I might be slightly) but I don’t have the tools and equipment to make stained glass – although I expect my cutting skills would be up to it (you’d think so after 11 years of fusing) – so I showed him some of my more current work, told him how much I loved seahorses and I’d happily make one with no pressure to buy, it was just something I’d wanted to do for a while.

    So, here’s Mr Seahorse.  I was very pleased with him.

    IMG_4549 (Edited)

     

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  • Community Art,  Workshops

    Art at the Heart….

    As well as making glass art work, and teaching and helping others to learn about and create fabulous glass goodies, I also do a fair amount of workshops in schools, community events, day centres and recently, nursing homes.

    Some days I’ve been visiting a local care home; a few times I was working one-to-one with a resident living with dementia, others I’ve been working with a group with varying physical abilities, eyesight, hearing, communication difficulties and so on.

    I’ve also been working with a local friendship group that runs with the aim to reach out to isolated over 50s.

    It’s can be quite a challenge, as the sessions are quite short, so we’re quite limited with what we can do.

    But with a bit (a lot!) of careful preparation and forethought, all of the participants have been making some fun and lovely art.  So it’s dreary, wet Friday evening right now, so I am going to just post a few images of the lovely work they’ve been creating.IMG_4498Mosaic birds for the nursing home garden, still to be grouted.

    IMG_4476It wouldn’t be one of my workshops without the odd glass lantern!

    IMG_4484  IMG_4552 IMG_4554 IMG_4598 IMG_4614Playing with the laser cutter to create this funky felt flowers!

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  • General

    Some Eye Candy

    Mocha coloured glass dish

    I’ve not posted much lately – because I’ve been rather busy!

    I went straight from the residency project to some work with Arts at The Heart, Kirk Hallam, and have been working with community groups and a nursing home.  Got lots of project photos to show you for those.

    At the same time, I’ve been involved in a project up at Creswell Village, working with a lovely group of ladies that I’ve got to know well over the last few months.  I’ve been teaching them some glass skills whilst building up ideas for a piece of community art.  That project is all done now, well my part has anyway, and it culminated in a glass tapestry made by the group members which will be on permanent display in the Big Local office.

    But I am not going to show you that!

    I finally got a chance to get back to making a bit of my own work in the kiln, and I was so pleased that the kiln fairies were kind to me, even though I’ve been working them very hard.

    This beauty came out the other day, it’ll be destined for one of the galleries I stock, but I thought you might like to see it.  I was so pleased with everything about it – the subtle sheen, the gentle variations in the glass, as well as the shadows that the clear strip cast.

    IMG_4618 IMG_4619

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