Come As You Really Are
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself”, according to George Bernard Shaw. But how many selves do we create? How is the self that office colleagues see related to the one out dancing tango on a Saturday night? In the Artangel exhibition Come As You Really Are, housed in a former department […]
Unfinished objects
Unfinished objects are a way of life for all makers (or maybe it’s just the makers I know). As far as I’m concerned, there are various reasons for this. Usually it’s feeling dissatisfied about how something is turning out and not having the time or headspace to work out why or how to improve it. […]
Product development for Lalo The Shop
While I enjoy creating and making my own work, I also really like collaborating with others to produce something new. So when Honey Simmonds of Lalo The Shop contacted me to ask if I’d be interested in helping out with developing a new bag I was very happy to talk to her. Lalo The Bag […]
Playing with passementerie
Passementerie is the art of making braids, fringes, tassels and edgings for cloth or furnishings: think of those heavily fringed lampshades and swanky tasselled tie-backs around curtains in stately homes. On Heritage Craft’s Red List it’s an endangered craft, which means there are serious concerns about its ongoing viability. It’s not really my style interiors-wise, […]
Elements 4: Earth
It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally finished the final element of the four: Earth. To be honest, I found this the trickiest one to conceptualise. My first idea was of a snow-capped volcano (think Mount Fuji), but that didn’t seem very challenging in terms of coiling structure, though I could have added folds and […]
Off-loom weaving
Back in 2018 Tate Modern put on a wonderful exhibition about Anni Albers (you can see a write-up on my previous blog here). It stirred in me a vague interest in weaving, though I was still more interested in exploring 3D form. Also I was a bit put off by the apparent complexity of warping […]
Wanaga tukutuku
A tukutuku is a latticework panel used to decorate Maori meeting houses, and on Sunday I spent a fascinating day at a wanaga (workshop) learning how to make one at the UCL Department of Anthropology. The workshop was organised by Te Maru o Hinemihi and sponsored by the British Council. The tutors, Jim and Cathy […]
Brush making workshop with Rosa Harradine
I have to admit that I am not the most houseproud person in the world (Ever Supportive Partner can provide plenty of evidence for this). It may therefore seem ironic to profess admiration for the handmade brushes of Rosa Harradine. I guess it’s possible to lust after something as an object while completely ignoring its […]
Elements 3: Fire
Of the elements I’ve made so far, Fire has had the most conventional start – a circular bowl starting from the centre. When I felt that the base was big enough I started creating protrusions that would become the flames. I wanted there to be further spaces in each flame on each round, so the […]
Polish coiled straw basket workshop
A couple of weeks ago I went on a one-day workshop with Anna Niedzielska, a visiting Polish basketmaker. The workshop was organised by Halina Ward, a current student on the two-year City Lit basketry course who is half Polish and also acted as (excellent) interpreter for the day. Anna teaches both willow and straw basketry […]
