gallery – Page 8 – Bridget Macklin

Playing Catch-up

sold1 I seem to have had the best of all problems recently – I do not have very much to put on the shelves at Klay and almost nothing at all for the Open Studios which starts on 10th November because I have sold so much work over the past few weeks. This is a wonderful feeling in some ways but it does leave me with a problem!

I should be in the studio every day at the moment frantically making so that I can put something on the shelves. Somehow that seems to miss the point of what I am trying to do though. I want, more than anything, to enjoy my making. I want to have time to experiment, to hone my skills and to learn new things. So it really does not suit me to be having to work hard. I am sure that it would suit my bank balance, mind you!

Actually it is worse than that because if I feel that I should be making it puts me off and I don’t want to do it at all. So here I sit finding all kinds of excuses for not getting anything done and just letting the clock tick quietly on.

img_20161017_122709 — Nothing looking very ready at the moment!

img_20161012_124204 — Experimenting with monoprinting

That said, I have been getting a bit of experimenting done and here is lots of stuff wrapped in plastic which is half made and I do have a bisque firing on at the moment which will hopefully yield a few good pieces but finished work, ready to sell off the shelf is going to be in short supply in November!

So I have decided that I am going to do something completely different this autumn. I have been making a number of pieces for Tregony recently and I know that they have sold at least one so this time I am going to make no bones about my activities over the four days that the studio doors are open. I shall have my hands in the clay and, in tune with Poldark Series 2, I will be continuing to create more of my Cornish Mining pieces. I am looking forward to showing people how I work and I can always give my hands a quick rub if anyone wants to take a closer look at the work that I do have ready to sell or to make notes for anyone who is after that very personal piece which reminds them of a time or place which is special to them.

If . . . .

I love the poem ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling. I believe that it has a really great list of attributes for a true human being. Yet Kipling missed something. Earlier this week life became a little hectic. On day one of the exhibition in Kew Gardens people were crowding into the aisles to look at all the wonderful things to buy but not many ready to part with much money. They were, on the other hand, very happy to talk. One lovely chap was asking about the cost of exhibiting, the time it takes to make each piece and the disconnect between the value and the cost of high quality craft. Same old, same old. We agreed that making this kind of work is a lifestyle choice as much as anything and that one cannot expect to be rich on the back of one’s creativity and he came up with a great extra line for Kipling’s poem. I think it is going to be the way forward for me:

If you can keep yourself amused and still have enough for beer and cheese,

Seems like a plan to me!

On the other hand, Kew has been good for me and I am quite hopeful of being able to afford some reasonably exotic cheese as a result. 20161005_110254 I began with my stand showing almost exclusively new work. I wanted to promote my most recent ideas. I filled my stall with my fragile, thin porcelain vessels which have inclusions of found clay. It looked good and I was really pleased with it. The trouble was, and don’t get me wrong, this is a good problem to have, so did the customers. By the end of Friday it was looking decidedly bare! So late on Friday evening I made a panic dash to my studio to get some work to fill up the gaps.

img_20161008_132444 — Old work sitting along side the new to plug the gaps.

This meant that I ended up on Saturday with works which would not normally be anywhere close to each other and that fact alone has led to some interesting thoughts and comments.

I think the time has come for a bit of a rethink – the contrast is great when I sit one of my really rugged, sculptural pieces beside a fragile one. How good would it be if I made pairs using the same material?

img_20161008_165346 — Contrasting pieces look so good next to each other.

I need to get beyond the Open Studios first but, after that, it will be time for some serious research!

If you can keep yourself amused and still have enough for beer and cheese,