Long Time... No See

   Okay, so it's been a while. I had brilliant intentions when I started out on this! Oh well. I think I may change it a bit and not so much use it as a journal for uni, but use it for pieces of work that I've created/in the process of doing so... whether they relate to university or not! I think that is a pretty decent idea? No?
   Well... I'll give it a bit of a go! Probably starting with uploading images of things I've been doing, granted, not really over the summer holidays, but I do intend on starting to make things out of university... just a few bits and bobs... Ideally with the intention to sell them... but I'm not really sure where to even start on that one! So I'll keep you posted :P
   Anyhoo, that's all for now!

Origin - 15th October

Went to Origin again, but at least this time I had company. :) Yey. Becky Fraser got the same trains as me so I spent all day with her. I looked what was on other than Origin the night before as I figured whilst we were there we may as well make the most of it. Anyway, the second set of artists were as brilliant as the first but there was a hell of a lot of jewellers and ceramicists this week.

These are the artists I particularly liked:

Adele Brereton

Daniele Geargeoura

Anna Lewis

Michelle McKinney

Sabrina Meyns

Moon

Will Odell

Grant McCaig (http://www.grantmccaig.co.uk/index.php)

After Origin, and randomly bumping into an old friend, me and Becky decided to go to a gallery I'd managed to find online. As Becky decided on doing teapots for her competition brief, I found a little gallery with an interesting exhibition on.

http://www.sdcgallery.org/ This exhibition was quite interesting and we had a chat with the gallery owner and, even though she blabbed on for a very long time she said some helpful stuff.

First competition Tutorial

I had my first tutorial today and I'd only just managed to pick my theme from the trend pack by the time I had to see her. I only had the summer one and needed the winter one, which I couldn't find ANYWHERE. Luckily I got my hands on one just before my tutorial. I chose "Craft Classic".

I was given some quite good advice, and some useful websites and cutlery companies. I had never thought of looking up the history of cutlery, but it may be helpful, or will at least give me a better understanding of the product in question.

I had a look at the WMF website (http://www.wmf.com/wmf-for-at-home/cutlery_82510986.html?sid={A59E51E4-B0B2-4FB5-A5A3-FE3005C85703}) and there is some quite interesting stuff on there and I also printed off the "Style eras of cutlery" as part of my research. Plus there is some quite interesting work on there.

I also had a gander at the Villeroy and Boch website, (http://www.villeroy-boch.com/en/us/home/products/tischkultur/cutlery.html) and there was also some interesting stuff on there, including several designers names. I looked them up and unfortunately, the only stuff they seem to design was already on the website... But hey ho. At least I can get all the pics and info off the website.

I also looked up some mass production processes as I figured if I need to know how to produce cost effective pieces of cutlery so looked up the different processes. Also looked up powder coating as this is the only cost effective way of applying colour to metals.

Origin - 10th October

Last year when we went to Origin we only went for the one week and didn't get to see both sets of craftspeople/artists, so me, Anna, Hannah and Jenny decided to go both weeks this year so we can see both sets. Even though it did cost me £60 just in train fares for both weeks!

We decided to go on the Saturday and then go with the rest of uni on Thursday the 15th. Annoyingly, Anna and Hannah stayed at hers in Bucks and Jenny went home for the weekend to go from hers. Leaving me to go on my own... very nice.

Anyway I got there WAY before everyone else so I look around. There was some amazing stuff...and I will list below all the artists who I particularly liked. There was a big basketry section which I was quite impressed by. Would love to learn how to do it, not that it would help me much with my course, but would be a nice skill to have! M

aybe something to learn over summer :P

Abigail Brown

Will Evans Jeweller (http://www.willevansjeweller.com)

Rikke Lunnemann

Heather O'Connor

Simone Brewster (http://www.simonebrewster.com)

Competition Briefing, 6th October

After the worst CCS lecture EVER, as I was feeling quite horrendously ill, I had to go straight to our competition briefing. If I hadn't have been feeling VERY ill, it would have been really interesting.

Daisy gave us all our briefs and explained about them. I was quite impressed at getting a direct brief from Sainsburys when they've never took on a student project before. Nice to know we're the first! I chose the second brief as the site specific one wasn't really giving me much inspiration and I'd have much rather done something to do with crafts more so than a one-off piece of work. Plus, I thought it was a really good opportunity to make some tableware or home accessory to the standard required for the real industry. Quite excited to be doing a live brief with a real life company. It all of a sudden becomes very real. Not so protected and not so molly coddled in university.

After reading through the brief through thoroughly, I decided on doing the tableware section and to produce cutlery. I thought it would be good, if I want to specialise in metal, to do something that is specifically in that field and you don't see much cutlery not made of metal!

Just not sure where to start!!

Moving Back to Leicester, 1st Semptember

Not really much to state here apart from coming to Leicester for second year. Scary prospect but hey ho! At least I get to see everyone again and Rich is coming back the same day so I get to see him WHENEVER I want :D <3 YEY!

Llandudno, 23rd August 2009

Me, mum and dad went to Llandudno just for the day. We originally went to go for a walk and to this craft shop that mum is OBSESSED with! (Something to do with boxes being 10 for a £1 or something... god knows!). Anyhoo, by the time we'd got there and by the looks of the rain clouds it wasn't worth going for a walk so we just had an explore of Llandudno. I forgot how pretty it was. I forgot my camera, because I'm stupid so annoyingly I couldn't take any photos, but I took some rubbish ones on my phone. I may upload them at a later date, I dunno.

But yes, we went to this craft shop for mum which was actually quite amazing... got loads of papers, and craft knives and double sided tape, all paid for by the parents which is even better! Then afterwards we went for a walk round town.

We also went down to the waterfront. I forgot that Llandudno had a pebble beach instead of sand. Brought back so many memories from my childhood. When I was little, me and dad would go onto these kinds of pebble beaches and find nice stones and rocks and bring them home. Not that anything would ever happen to them but you know, we brought them home anyway. That's possibly where my passion for geology came about... hey ho. Anyway, we had a dig around and found some lovely stones which me and mum are thinking of polishing up. Granted, I only have like 5 days to do that in so doubtful I'll do it at home. I'll do it at uni if anywhere!!

But it was a really lovely day. We had lunch/early tea in this lovely restaurant/bar and as we left we saw a little art gallery on in the building opposite. so we went across to have a bit of a gander. It wasn't much but there was some lovely work in there. There was some amazing drawings and paintings that looked almost like photos, and then there were some watercolour/acrylic paintings that had been sewed over the top of using a sewing machine and they were really nice. I wanted to take a photo but lack of camera didn't really help me in that situation. But they were being sold for like £100!!

Anyway, a lovely day on the whole!