rockpool candy

Hold your breath!

I waved my art goodbye this morning, with more than a few butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I've spent so long getting it all ready for the IFF Chicago show, that it felt weird to let go and put it into unknown hands. Here's hoping that DHL are gentle with their packages.
The pink reef

And green reef

Were wrapped in 'cling film' hoaked from a sofa shop's skip. The hollow in the ball they created was stuffed with three football jellies.

And then any other space was crammed with plastic sea dwellers.

And fan coral.

It should all give customs a giggle, as I had to state EXACTLY what was in the box. How are you meant to explain that you're shipping stuff no one wants to the States without sounding just a bit unstable?
Oh well. Let's just hope it gets there safely......

The Sunday Life Article

I was lucky enough to have a full-page feature done on me and my work in the Sunday Life and already it's throwing up some interesting consequences.

You can read the article here

It's all very strange seeing pics of myself in print.

Weirdy weird!

Hello Sunday Life Readers!

If you've logged on because you read about me in the Sunday Life, well Good Morning!
Please do also hit the IFF coral reef to see why the message about what I'm doing really is important.

And then the cheeky bit. This is where I need the help of the people of Northern Ireland. I've created a piece of coral from corrugated computer foam.

This is it as a finished piece in pink.

Now, have any of you got a bit of this knocking around in your loft/garage/office, or heading for the bin?
Because I would love it. My plan is to create an enormous piece of coral, all in different colours from this foam.
If you have some, no matter how big or small, and you'd be kind enough to donate it to my reef, then please email me. I'l happily pay postage or we can work out collection. Let's keep that foam out of landfill.
Thanks

Catalyst draw in

What do you get if you lock a bunch of artists in a room with a pile of brown bags? No, it's not a joke, at least not a funny one. Catalyst had a draw in. Artists got together to make their marks on brown bags that would then be used by the shop, Copper Moon.

There was a real mix of stuff, from pink and groovy
to dark and brooding

I tucked myself in a corner and crocheted up a few strips of plastic and a length of pink angora yarn.

The resulting hyperbolic corals were tiny and I was nowhere as prolific as other attending....

But then, a coral reef takes a lifetime to grow.

What do Stormtroopers do in down time?

They knit, of course!

The secret guild

Now I don't know about you lot, but my image of a guild is either one of a bunch of blue-rinsed old biddies munching on custard creams and knitting nasty acrylic layettes or a deadly assasin's group meeting under cover of darkness, all sporting one rolled trouser leg.

How wrong could I be?

Last Tuesday I sought out The Ulster Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers for their monthly meeting at the Ulster Folk Museum.
I was met with warmth and smiles by about 25 women of various ages and nationalities. Some had their spinning wheels with them, others brought split braid work, felting or current projects.
Not a custard-cream crumb-encrusted layette, or a rolled trouser was in sight!

I found myself surrounded with a wealth of knowledge covering several generations; a cupboard filled with the guild's small but invaluable library (available to borrow at £1- a month); and enough fibre inspiration to feed my yarn obssession for many years to come.

As young (ehem, I mean late thirties) women, we seem to have cast off the guilds and all that they can offer us and I reckon it's time we did something about this.
A week ago I would never had thought of making a circular loom from a hulahoop and a few screws.

But the guild had been donated one that evening and they lent it to me along with a book explaining how to use it.
So now I can add circular weaving to my long list of fibre-related addictions. I was up until 3am with it that night and have a long list of ideas to try on it.

My first attempts might be a bit ropey, but the resulting anemone form isn't that bad.
And can't help thinking it's a brilliant way to introduce kids to weaving, too. It's cheap, easy and very hard to mess up.

So grab your hula hoops and find your guild. You never know what's waiting for you. Just don't roll your trouser legs up.

Foam Fun

I adore using packing foam as a material. I never understand how people can just throw it away. (By the way, there is no place called 'Away'. Our planet is a sealed ecosystem. By putting things in the bin, we're effectively just lobbing stuff over our neighbours' fences; it's just that those neighbours happen to be out of our sight, smell and hearing ranges.)

The white plastic foam used here

sparkles when it catches the light and holds its form beautifully. It was just crying out to be rescued from my local bike shop's skip.

And this old upholstery foam waste seemed to jump into these shell forms.

Folding it and cutting with pinking shears creates an exquistite pattern across its surface. I'm creating a cluster of them, hanging vertically. It may be a man-made material, but it instantly mutates into organic shapes of its own accord.

Strange, I know, but when I'm working with oil-based plastics and materials, I often wonder if, as energy cannot be destroyed, they retain a deep imprint of their original organic incarnation's energy. They just don't seem to want to be flat and square and ugly.
Who knows?