Sentimental? Me? Never!

Everyone has at least one of those objects, you know the one, the thing that is pretty useless but for some reason you just can’t get rid of it. Every time you clean out your house somehow it survives the cull. 

I have many, many objects like this. Things I just can’t bring myself to throw away. Like many girls, given the opportunity I would have a wardrobe full of shoes! Except mine might look a little different to what you might imagine a shoe wonderland to look like, there are no pristine boxes or glossy high heels. No, mine are old, a bit grotty and unusable unless you like cold, wet feet. 

My Bertie’s. I actually have an older, grottier pair of shoes, but I have a particular soft spot for these. They have survived even the strictest of spring cleans. I would have even more old pairs of unusable shoes if I had more space, and my mum hadn’t thrown several pairs away when I was living with her. My poor nine west school shoes *sob*. 

Who knows why I have a strange attachment to these? Perhaps they have too much character for me to say goodbye. Maybe they have too many stories to tell? Either way I’m glad I hung on to them, because I am going to use them as a starting point for a new project. For this project I need people like you!

Do YOU have such an object or objects? I want to know about them. I am looking for people who are willing to show me their ‘I just can’t get rid of them’ objects, have themselves and these objects photographed (preferably in the place they are generally kept) and have a conversation about these objects. 

This information will then be used as a starting point or directly as part of an installation that will take place later on this year. 

If you are interested in being a part of this project, or know someone who is please contact me HERE with the Subject 'My Object'

For practical reasons I am mainly looking for people within the UK but if you are outside the UK and are interested please contact me and we can discuss options for getting involved.

An Alternative view of the Horniman

Last Saturday I dragged the other half out, in the pouring rain to go to the Horniman Museum. He is pretty used to being taken around exhibitions and museums by now; hearing me waffle on about new idea's in the process. Luckily for him he is not embarrassed to stand there while I take pictures of things that I'm quite sure the museum never intended to be photographed (mostly because he grew up with his dad doing the same thing!)

Firstly I would like to apologise for the poor photographs, I remembered to take my camera with me but unfortunately managed to leave the memory card in my laptop and so I had to take all the following images on my phone. 

I was mainly interested in the old part of the Horniman and apparently took no photos anywhere else! 

Here are few normal views of the museum for those that have never been before... 

The Birds...

A view from above

These are pretty creepy!

Half and Half

What we're not meant to focus on...

                                  Nothingness....                                         The case of the invisible crab

The missing 'A'

Threat of theft?

Bad Sun.

Misfit

In and Out - where do these doors go??

I would really love to do a whole project based on this. Hmmm... now how to convince the museum to let me loose?

Telling Tales

A long time ago (only about 2 and half years actually, but it feels like forever) I made some glasses for a project for uni, they were pretty well received so I decided to turn them into jewellery and see if they would sell. As much as I originally liked them, and did sell a few I was never that of proud of them.

I already had a few idea's on how to improve them to something I could be proud of and when Shire Hall Gallery contacted me about being part of an exhibition I decided it was time to actually do it!

Introducing the 'Telescope Brooch' and the 'Monocle necklace'...

I'm not planning on making more of these for the time being as I want to concentrate on my installation work and getting my practice up and running so get them while you can! They are available from my Etsy or Folksy stores (as they are one offs there are different ones listed on the different sites).

Final Major Project

It's a bit overdue but here is an overview of my final major project from university. I can't quite believe that I started this project exactly a year ago and I'm only just posting about it, but if i don't post now I probably never will!

I decided that I wanted research to be a big part of my project, so I was looking for a collection of objects that had an interesting history, and I came across The Foundling Museum Tokens

* as a side note there is currently an exhibition of these tokens at the Foundling Museum, worth a look (I haven't managed to get there yet but am hoping to go this week) follow the link above to read about these tokens.

What was most interesting about these tokens was not the objects themselves or even the stories behind them, although that was the lure of them to start with, it was people's reaction to them that most excited me.

I decided to explore this in my own pieces, so I chose an object, a child's chair and decided to recreate this object over and over, using different materials and processes, and then exhibit them as a group to see what people's reaction would be to each object.

Mary J (Spineless), 2012, digitally printed fabric, foam, cotton filler

Richard Lawrence (Bruised and Broken) 2012, Porcelain, Steel mesh, beeswax, sealing wax

Elizebeth Slipton (Make do and Mend), 2012, Stoneware, gold resin.

Susanna Bickerton (No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk), 2012, Porcelain, Beeswax

Broken Chair, 2012, Porcelain, Beeswax

My installation at New Designers with 6 of my chairs, including 4 of those shown above plus one made with brown paper (back left) and wax (back middle)

Some people reacted very strongly to certain chairs, the fabric chair probably had the funniest reactions when people realised it wasn't made of burnt wood, one guy even had a go at me for 'tricking' him!

Wow, I guess leaving this post this long has it's benefits. If I had written this just after doing the project this description would have been much, much longer!

2nd Minor - Final Pieces

The Photographs shown in the previous post were used as a starting point for my second Minor project. The quotes below were from my research interviews with people giving their own interpretation or background to the photographs. 

The Missing Collection 

“This is a little girl, who, who lives in this big house, in the English countryside and she’s not allowed to go outside the gate and she keeps her days collecting small things she finds in the garden, and she makes them into little collages in her wheel barrow. So she has very particular ordered things in her barrow that she drives around with, its little clusters of things and she doesn’t speak to anyone. ever. when people ask her questions she just creates a little collection of objects from her garden and that will be her answer to peoples questions.” 

Digital collage

Shadow Box - Oak box, laser engraving, Hand Embroidery.

Shadow Box (detail) - Brass fixtures, leather handle 

The Souvenir 

“I find this one really odd, Maybe it’s because this one is darker than the other ones, and the hat stands out it is because her hat is so black, because the rest of the photo shows that is in really bright sunlight. It’s really odd because it looks like a blisteringly hot day, and she’s wearing this thick wool coat and a black hat and she’s got like black clothing underneath a black dress and black shoes and she’s obviously in her sunday best and a little boy who must probably be about 2 or 3, on his little bicycle, and he’s in his best clothes as well all polished up nicely and so I find that really bizarre. Like it’s some sort of formal occasion, I think it’s that they have gone, or are going to a funeral. And the little boy is happy because he doesn’t know what’s going on really, but the mum looks a bit, her eyes look a bit sad and really heavy and her earrings are just massive Pat Butcher size earrings. And they go with the coat and I can’t work out wether she’s really sad or she celebrating. So I think what has happened to her is this, I think her husband has died, and she’s actually quite happy about it, she’s like a trodden woman, she had a terrible time with him. She looks really like she’s glad that he’s gone but she looks knackered she’s had a hard life because her eyes look really sad and heavy. And the little boy doesn’t really know, he doesn’t really care because he didn’t see his dad much, and he’s quite happy that he has got his bike to keep him happy and he’s in his best clothes and he is going out for the day with his mum. So she’s going to a funeral, or they have been to a funeral, and I think that she will see this now as a new life, and she’s going to have a great time, and she is going to leave her little boy. She’s going to go off and have the life of riley and go meet some other fellas and have another life and have independence and she is going to leave her son behind. I think that this photograph is the only photograph her son is going to have of him and his mum. And I think that he gets given this photograph in a box from his mum after she’s died, and he also gets the earrings, the really big white Pat Butcher earrings, with some photographs but this is the only one that he has got with the both of them together. Maybe he goes to live with his nan, not a children’s home. I think there’s sad and happy, real contrast going on there just like the sunshine and the shade.”

The original photograph

Brooch Earrings - Wax, gold plated gilding metal, silk.

2nd Minor - The Photo's

My second minor project was based on a series on found photographs.

Interviewing people, I asked them to describe the photos in question, what is happening in the photo? who are they? what happened just before the photo? where are they going after? 

What do you think is happening?

The answers given in these interviews were then used to inspire an installation.

1st Minor - Photogram Plates

Along with my chair I also created a series of plates, the imagery on these plates is not created with a glaze but by a photographic process, using liquid emulsion. 

The concept behind these plates is a continuation of my extruded chair, referencing the way in which a hoard can overtake even the mundane, simple tasks in life. 

These pieces are slip cast in semi-porcelain and high fired. At this point they are painted with liquid emulsion and various food products are placed on the surface of the plate, which is then exposed with light, and is then developed. 

1st Minor - Extruded Chair

From my original drawings I created a series of repeat patterns and had them digitally printed. 

With my favourite of the patterns (the slides) I decided to create an installation piece referencing the way in which hoarding can overtake a persons life, to the extent that even the most simple everyday tasks become impossible. 

After much striping of paint, sanding, re-staining, diamond tufting, and upholstering I finished part one of my first Minor Project, my Extruded Chair. 

Home is where the hoard is...

After all the research into collecting that I had done for my dissertation I decided to take a different angle for my practical work, but still very much connected to it, so for my first ‘Minor’ project (I hate that it’s called that, it didn't feel ‘minor’ when I was doing all that work!!) I looked into hoarding...

I knew that I wanted to do a bit more drawing this year as I hadn’t done an awful lot of drawing for a while and so to jump start my idea’s I went around listening to peoples conversations and finding photographs. From hints within these conversations and pictures I drew up imaginary collections that these people could own (although I had no idea what I was going to do with them!). The items within these ‘collections’ are everyday objects and are more often associated with hoarding than collecting (other than the postcards...they just slipped in somehow!). Can an everyday commodity be part of a collection?

So for now here are a few of my drawings...

A series of old batteries

Sugar Packets

Postcards of architecture 

Slides

...next time I'll show you what I ended up doing with them.