Tag Archives: Kew Gardens

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_110254I 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.

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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?

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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!

 

Did you miss me?

It seems that you did – I have had the most activity on my website this week that I have had for many months.  Were you all hanging on to know what has been going on?

The truth is that I have been hard at it all week trying to get work ready for Kew Gardens.  I want to have a really good body of work and, whilst it was all under construction before my trip to Canada, the finishing is a lengthy process.  I have no images of work yet because I didn’t want to do snap shots and it has been more important to get the work ready.

I am particularly looking forward to responses to my ‘piece de resistance’ though: the Beverly Brook vessel.  Beverley Brook runs through Richmond Park, one of my favorite places on earth.  My Dad calls it his third lung!   Poets Corner, within the gardens of Pembroke Lodge was restored partly with money collected in memory of my mum.  I grew up ‘in the park’: on long walks in the company of a procession of family dogs; horse riding; pond dipping; making dens; climbing trees; yes, OK, I was always a bit of a tom-boy.

So I gives me a huge sense of excitement to be able to make with material from the park which was give to me, by permission of the management, when they were restoring the brook.  It is my plan to have one large piece for sale at Kew and I have agreed with the Park that 50% of the proceeds of the sale will go to the  Friends of Richmond Park for use on a project of their choosing.

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Beverley Brook in Winter. 

http://www.richmondparklondon.co.uk/walks/beverleybrookwalk.html