On fire again

So Arts Week is over. I am shattered. We went out with a bang and the last day brought two great sales. The first was my hearts:-

I am quite relieved to see it go, as it wasn't really my style and I was beginning to feel a little awkward about the sentiment in it. But for another person, the French "Je t'aime depuis le moment ou mes yeux ont rencontre les tiens" meant something altogether better and lovelier and more appropriate. I'm not sure I can tell the beautiful story yet as it could spoil a special anniversary surprise if a certain wife reads this, but suffice it to say that I have told the story to 3 people who proceeded to well up in tears.

Then I sold my original flowery picture, the one with the amazing purple mount that my brother had done:-

Weirdly this one was bought by someone I know from school. She said that her daughter told her one of the teachers had said someone's mum was doing Arts Week. She had looked through the brochure but couldn't find a name she recognised. So she flicked through again and out of nearly 100 picked just one she fancied that she would visit - she saw the picture and then saw my name and recognised it. She loved the picture and said she'd just lost her mum and had been left some money and had thought of buying some art, keeping at the back of her mind that her mum had loved flowers and loved purple. She kept looking at it and giggling! It was also odd that some of the flowers were ones I'd seen and photographed at school back in September - she knew the ones I meant. It was meant to be.

So that's it. I have lost count whether I have sold 9 or 10 out of the 21 I took along, which I gather is pretty good going for Arts Week. But more than everything I am greatly encouraged by everything that happened. New leads, new ideas, a better idea of what sells and what people like, but more than anything a big bucket full of encouragement that I can hopefully carry around with me for a while without spilling too much over the sides.

Now on to my next felting challenge. I was worried it would feel really empty this week without Arts Week but I haven't had time to think about that yet. The Great Fire of London is beckoning again and I had promised I would go into the children's school and show them some felting. So yesterday I had around 20 5, 6 and 7 year olds making felted flames. They loved it! I wouldn't say the quality is the best and some of them might disintegrate before they get them home, but for now they look great and they had good fun getting covered in soap suds. I have set aside every afternoon this week so should get through all 85 Key Stage One children by the end of the week. I will try to take some photos to show you if I get a chance (and a moment when the camera won't get covered in soap).





Extinguished

Hmm it is not going terribly well today. I have spent a day and a half (and thirty pounds) on a disaster otherwise known as Pudding Lane. The fantastic vision I had in my head of a felted street scene in which to stage the Great Fire of London, with 85 children's felted flames, looked kind of alright with only a small but nevertheless embarrassing dose of amateurism. It was (and at the moment still is) about eight feet long and two feet tall. Quite an effort. I had worked on it in three separate stages and had to keep rolling it up to work on it as it was too huge for my kitchen table. If truth be told, the novelty had worn off after half-timbered house number three. I took some photos to show you as I was making it. Then I thought I had finished felting it and took it over to the kitchen sink to give it a rinse and that's when it happened: under its own weight (and the weight of the pints and pints of soapy water it contained) it started developing several holes and coming apart where I had been a bit mean with the wool layers (lesson: never try to cut costs by using too little wool). I tried to salvage it with a bit more rubbing and then I was pondering whether I could machine stitch it to sharpen it up and in so doing, patch up the holes. But by this point exhaustion and despair from manhandling such an unwieldy thing set in. Who was this for anyway? Would anyone at school appreciate a cobbled-together woolly oddity they had never asked for in the first place? Was it just a sad attention-seeking exercise? It had literally and metaphorically worn a bit thin. I went for a drive to try and forget it; the car radio was spouting a lot of misery about suicide and chemical weapons and after some tears I have come to the conclusion that what I have made is some interesting pieces of pre-felt that can be chopped up and used in other pictures. The sky had been a (bad) sunset but the colour blends will be handy for something in the future. Just not today. And no, before you ask, I'm not showing you the photos.

Still there has been some positivity in a way too busy week. I have had 4 of my better pieces back from the framers, the lovely Picture Framers Chelvey. Almost everything is ready to go for Arts Week now. Here is another taster or two:-

I am really chuffed with this as I always knew my roses needed a frame to make them complete. The purple frame seems to bring out both the roses and the vase even though it matches neither. 

My dear old familiar friend here is back and looking a bit smarter. For those who suspect it might be a self-portrait, I made it just before I started doing the 5:2 diet (have you heard of it? 5 days eating normally and 2 non-consecutive days of eating just 500 calories, every week) and so far I have lost a stone. Maybe one day I will felt a slightly more svelte version if I ever feel like admitting that it could be me...and if I ever feel like felting again after today's catastrophe.

On fire...

More pieces framed in readiness for North Somerset Arts Week and things are hotting up. I made a facebook page for our venue and we are getting plenty of "likes" from the people we know (we need plenty more though to really spread the word). The room itself has had a good tidy and clean this week too and we are starting to get a vision of how things will look. I have had my September picture back from my brother yesterday and I had forgotten how pleased with it I was:-

In its tiny version in the Arts Week brochure it looks a bit less than impressive but in person I think it packs a punch, especially with the purple mount and amazing frame my brother picked for it. At the other end of the scale I am also pleased with my latest sea pictures in their box frames. Here is a little glimpse of one (again excuse the photography, I think I will need to get some training in this if this blog is to ever get off the ground):-

In the meantime I seem to have landed myself a new and enormous project. I was helping out at school on Wednesday as usual and suddenly heard some words coming out of my own mouth before the brain had kicked in to shut them up. Why does that keep happening to me more than ever before? My offspring have started a topic on the Great Fire of London and I found myself suggesting that we could get three classes of children making felted flames that we could put together into a big felted scene of the fire. Originally I had a vision of a simple night scene of a street (black silhouettes of houses with a sunset sky) but as time goes on I am starting to veer towards half-timbered houses. I thought it would be useful to see what the children might be capable of, so after school last night the three of us had a practice at flames. They loved the process and the results look pretty good (of course flames are great to make because they can be any shape and if colours move about while they are being rubbed, so much the better):- 

It turns out that mine was not at all the best one, maybe you need to be seven to be extra good at felting! The only issue with the whole thing is the size it will have to be to fit 85 children's flames on; it could well need to be about 6 feet long and my biggest felting project to date was about half that. Oh and I am happy showing my two what to do but the thought of showing another 83 (under the beady eyes of trained professionals) is pretty daunting if I think about it for more than a couple of seconds at a time. Still, everyone needs a challenge sometimes and my friend Laura has been urging me to do something like this for well over a year. These things are all meant to be...