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I Can Show You These Now!
A few months ago, I welcomed three lovely ladies to my studio for a short workshop. As always (not being the tidiest of people) I had some samples and test pieces lying around which caught their eyes. I’d only recently developed the braille postcard idea, but discussion led to commission and I was asked to make two Morse code postcard/panels for my visitors.
The gifts have been given, so now I can show you what I made.
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New Gallery News
Late last year, I took some work to a new – to me, anyway – exhibition space/shop in the historic town of Lichfield.
Emporium Gallery were having a Christmas Wonderland exhibition and they displayed some of my decorations. I also cheekily took along a couple of the new pieces I’ve been working on. I bit of a move change for me, but a direction I wanted to go in.
The delightful ladies in this elegant gallery took those samples, and were very complimentary and enthusiastic about these new pieces. I went back this week with a selection, and I can now announce that I am officially stocked and amongst great company in this gallery of contemporary British original art and designer craft.
Here’s some of the pieces that are now on display:
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Restoration Project
Through the local arts/networking group that I am a part of, a call was put out for someone to help with a stained glass window restoration. The requirement was for a painted roundel, three of the same design to match a fourth original as part of a building restoration project.
I contacted the architect, Doug, to say that whilst I couldn’t do painted windows, there might be something we could do, so we met, he brought me one of the original broken windows, took some clear photographs of another, and off we went.
It took some time and was a steep learning curve, but as well learning a lot about this particular project and the processes involved, it’s given me some ideas to work with in the future.
I believe the original windows are silver stained, which is something I would like to learn how to do, but for now, I did this with some technical wizardry and lots of experimentation!
Here’s the original now in-situ 
A slightly blurry snap of one of the restored windows. A stained glass artist did a lot of this work, I only did the beehive image by the way! 
Two of the beehives I did. 
And an overview of the room -
The Glass Forth Bridge!
Well, that’s what it’s felt like I was doing!
This weekend, I am running one of my glass decorating workshops over at Burton-upon-Trent, so I have spent the last few days, collecting, scraping, washing and drying what seemed like a never ending supply of jam/coffee/sauce jars
There’s potentially a LOT of visitors to this event, and it’s a drop-in workshop so I have no idea how many people might want to have a go, so I have to be prepared in case everybody does! I am loathe to risk running out like I did one year within the first hour….
Next week, I will be doing it all over again with Sun-catchers, so between washing and drying glass jars galore, I have been bending wire hangers and cutting endless rectangles of glass for fusing in the kiln this week.
I do love offering these workshops though – it’s lovely to see the children who always enjoy having ago, some get so absorbed and are wonderfully creative in their designs. Best of all, it’s popular with all ages – a few weeks ago, I stood in at Haywood House, a respite care centre in Nottingham for their craft sessions, and almost everybody had a go, including the patients who don’t usually get involved. Then again, who can beat a bit of stickering and colouring in?
