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The Royal Suite is opening very soon!
If you follow me on any of my social media, you may have seen that there has been lots of work going on down at Shed 2 Studios for a while.
Last year, I took over extra space at the communal studios, which has undergone somewhat of transformation. For the last few months, my wonderful brother and sister-in-law, Ian & Allyson, have been working really hard turning this:
Into this:
Yes, the carpet still needs cleaning! But we’re very, very, nearly there. And I am very, VERY, excited!
What will the new space be?
It’s going to be multi-purpose. If ever you’ve been down to Shed 2 Studios, you will know that it’s wonderful, open space that I share with three other maker-businesses. It’s a wonderful space and atmosphere, but I share with woodworkers, which means lots of dust. It also has a high open apex roof, and single glazed skylights. This means the light can be fabulous, but the space can be really cold, especially in winter. It can be very hard to keep warm. Also, as it’s open, I don’t have a lot of wall space, and what I do have is covered with glass, tools and equipment. It is very much a working artist’s studio, and not a gallery space.
The ‘Royal Suite’ has walls, a ceiling and a door. This means it will be easier to keep clean, to keep warm and to have work out on display.
Workshops can be held in the new space, at any time of year, not affected by the winter chill. There will be art work out on display to inspire students.
Or larger groups, for example hen parties, could have their session in the main space, and we can take a break for a drink and snack in the suite.
I struggle with the physicality of selling events; I am going to also open up as a sort of ‘pop-up shop’ sometimes. I will leave out on display in the new room. If nobody comes to visit, I can be getting on with work in my main space, which will be unaffected.
Last year, I talked about doing memorial glass ; pieces with ashes in from dearly departed loved ones, or pets that have passed over the rainbow bridge. I want a quiet, calm, respectful space to do this when I am making. I also want to offer people the chance to make their own piece, or sit with me whilst I create some special, memorial artwork for them. Again, this needs to be quiet; but also a little more private than my main studio, as it may be an emotional journey.
It’s quieter, and kind of tucked out the way. It will also be an ideal teaching space for people with sensory issues, who might not appreciate the hustle and bustle of the main studio.
And of course, it will be an office space for me. I do most of my admin at home, and will continue to do some of that; but I can do a lot more at the studio going forward, as I have a desk that won’t be covered in bits of glass!
Why ‘The Royal Suite’?
A few birthdays ago, a wonderful friend got me this for a birthday gift:
When talking to my brother about various options we kept saying ‘the new space’. Ian said it needed a proper name. This was going to be installed, and so he dubbed the new space ‘The Royal Suite’ – and it stuck.
Exciting times ahead!
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Festive Etsy Treasury
One of my Christmas decorations has been featured in the fabulous treasury by the lovely Purple Orchid Crafts:
Festive Treats handmade in Britain by Purple Orchid on Etsy. -
Metal Ages…. and it has been ages!!
If there’s an award for bad blogger of the year, I think I would certainly be in the running!There’s been so much going off. In March, Gavin and myself did some workshops in schools – this produced some fantastic work, including glass, metal embossing and casting – hopefully I can show you some of the work at a later point. Who cares about chronological order?I managed to get a few more sessions in at university doing photograms, and I was very sad when this came to an end – I feel like I’ve still got so much more to explore, but I need access to the darkrooms to be able to develop (hahaha) this further. Do you think they’d notice if I just wandered in…. we’ve got the AA2A exhibition soon, I have to be ready by the end of next week.We held the spring Open Studios at Shed 2 as part of Derbyshire Open Arts. I managed to squeeze in a visit to Chelsea 100th Flower Show to help Rachel Carter – unfortunately, I didn’t get a lot of chance to look round as it rained. And rained again. And rained some more. You get the idea.However, I was very excited last week that we were able to install the first Metal Ages sculpture at the King George Gallery. That’s the Royal “we” – as in Gavin and his builder dug holes, heaved the thing around, and poured in post-crete, whilst I stood on the side-lines saying left a bit, right a bit and taking photographs.I think it looks amazing. I love the combination of new glass and old metal. I love what Gavin has done with the found objects from the Stanton site, combined with donated tools from our walks and meets we did way back in February and March.Anyway, here it is – the second sculpture should be installed fairly soon, more on that later!An overview – slightly over exposed, but had to show you the beautiful settings:
The beautiful King George Gallery building 
My glass element 
Found metal objects from Stanton Ironworks 
Donated tools from former workers 
The glass set into the Stanton Arrow 
“OLD MEN & PIPES” -
A New Way of Looking at Glass
Last autumn, I got accepted on to the AA2A Scheme at the University of Derby. It’s a residency programme, offered to several practising artists/makers over a range of educational establishments. It’s intended to help take time develop ideas and to offer the opportunity to use facilities we might not usually get access to.I became eligible to apply last year and got accepted for a place on the scheme. Unfortunately, a few things happened in my personal life which meant I struggled to find the time to spend on the project (involvement means spending a certain amount of time on-site and being visible to and accessible for students), but finally about a month ago, I was able to spend a bit of time on it at last.I’d wanted to explore new ways of ‘seeing’ glass, which fascinates me in all forms – not just because of it’s beauty, and it’s odd combination of fragility and strength but in other ways too; technically, it’s an incrediblly versatile material which can be used for an amazing array of applications, and it can look so different – of course, quite often, with glass, it’s about what we can see through it and what can or can’t get through it – heat, light.I used to do a lot of photography and used to enjoy developing my own films and printing from my negatives. Of course with the digital age, I don’t go in the dark room any longer, so having the opportunity to use the facilities at the university was too good to pass up.Glass does funny things to light – you can’t always ‘see’ what it’s doing, but expose traditional photo paper and it reveals where some of that light is actually going (this again appeals to the scientific side of me).Take this image:
Copper wire and glass photogram Remembering that this is photographic paper usually used with a negative – so the dark bits are where all light has got through, the lighter bits are where less has got through (still with me??). Nothing unusual really, this is a round of glass with copper wire wrapped through the middle. Of course, copper wire is solid, opaque, won’t let light through. But those dots? They’re air bubbles. The solid white line around the edge – that’s the curve of the glass. These bubbles and curves are distorting (well, refracting) the light in such a way that it’s not hitting the development paper. I think it’s fascinating.Here’s another one -you’ll probably recognise the style/design, people say it’s very ‘me’ – my textured glass.
Photogram There’s absolutely loads more I’ve done – I spent a couple of sessions simply working out which glass works best, out of the different techniques I use for making – just working in black and white paper is fascinating and has endless options.Just wait until you see what happens in colour…
