New blog home

Just letting you all know my blog is now linked to my new website and can be found at www.mercuryarts.co.uk/blog I hope to see you there.
Helen x

Christmas in a logo

Well, Woolly the sheep has been safely delivered to Skipton and on Friday night I'm off to the preview evening at Skipton Mart where apparently there is also going to be jewellery and crafts. That's my commission wage spent then!

Now that Woolly is gone I've been working on some designs for a commission in Leeds that is centred around a new sign posting system. I used to work in tourism so this is something that is quite close to my heart which is one of the reasons I've decided to give it a go. No idea whether I will get anywhere but I'm having a fantastic time researching Leeds' wonderful architecture and places to visit and I'm finding that applying for commissions is helping me to focus on creative ideas and my artistic work when I can otherwise become quite easily distracted by the washing up. (That's a lie, what I'm really distracted by is books, twiddly things). I am a legend in our household for my ability to faff around so much that I'm invariably up half the night without having anything to show for it.

This week something very exciting happened, my new Mercury Arts logo arrive! For me this was like Christmas in a jpg, fantastic - I now feel like a real creative entity. This has been designed by the lovely people at Source Creative in Blackburn and has been developed around my ceramics work(I've posted a picture so you can see the link). I'll chunner more about this but for tonight I'm all excited out. Sweet dreams!

P.S one of my best friends did a charity run tonight after recently having a baby, in the wind and rain (what commitment) if she's still upright I take my hat off to her - what a girl!

Woolly is finished!

Woolly the sheep is finished! On Monday afternoon I'm off to Skipton to deliver him to the lovely Brett, Town Centre Manager and Shepherd for all the Flock to Skipton sheep. Now, the journey to my workshop was interesting the first time and that was when woolly didn't have his technicolour coat on and was a modest and rather reserved shadow of what he's become. I can only imagine the looks that my poor dad is going to get on the way back with a rainbow of colours bleeping out of the back windscreen. Once again, sorry dad!

With the finishing coat of varnish came jubilation at what I and the other artists have achieved, but also a little bit of sadness that this fantastic project is coming to an end (creatively speaking). It also means that I've reached the point where I'm really going to have to get stuck into sorting the workshop out for future work. All those cobwebs, yuck! and get my kiln serviced and.....lots to do.

So the launch of Flock to Skipton will take place on Friday 13 August (who on earth chose that date! Not that I'm superstitious but it might put others off!) and hopefully that will give me and the other artists chance to meet each other. When I find the invite which has been put in a safe place!!! I'll add the venue in case anyone wants to join us in the dales.

Last week (think it was last week, seems a life time ago) I went to the Arts Marketing Association annual conference which was all about social marketing. Not just new social media tools like Twitter, facebook and Flickr but the reasons that these tools are proving so successful - which is basically that we are social creatures and even when we think we are being unique there is probably a clique we fit into. I'm not sure I believe that, surely no ones elses view of the world is of pink candyfloss and all things fluffy? God help the UK and wider world if there are too many of us out there, the economy will never recover.

Today I've been to Potfest at Hutton-Le-Forest near Penrith. This is an amazing event that showcases some of the best ceramic artists from around Europe. As usual the work was of a breathtaking standard but all my little boy and mum were interested in were the hot dogs and cups of tea respectively (see what I have to work with!) Thanks to them both as usual for happily traipsing round a muddy field with me oooing and arghing every step. Managed to reign myself in this year and didn't buy anything. With my new found freelance and designer maker status I have lost (for the short future) the luxury of being able to indulge in impulse purchases of things that I know will make me very happy just by looking at them everyday. (Anyone worried about this shopping tactic should try it, it's liberating and you can always pass of the purchase as a future antique and therefore an investment!) The lack of buying though did leave me feeling guilty. I like to support other artists and makers (this is why I went into arts marketing) but I just have to tell myself that when I'm a self made millionaire from my own creative endeavours I can have ten of everything.

Woolly nearly ready to join the flock

The last two weeks have been hectic. As well as painting Woolly the sheep I've also been coordinating marketing activity for an organisation called Mid Pennine Arts who are based in Pennine Lancashire. They're in the middle of the build up to a potentially huge visual arts project called Contemporary Heritage which will launch at Towneley Hall and Park in Burnley on Saturday 11 September. The artist commissioned to launch the project is non other than Geraldine Pilgrim who has also done commissions for English Heritage and National Trust - what an accolade for Burnley and MPA!

This week I've been getting stuck into Woolly the Sheep for Flock to Skipton and I'm really pleased with him. From a blank white canvas (well blank fibreglass shape) he's become a multi coloured, Skipton inspired sheep God who I like to think rivals the likes of Shaun the Sheep! He's inspired by Skipton's famous sheep street and the surrounding Yorkshire landscape, which got me thinking about where I live and how lucky I am to have so much greenery around me. If only the clouds would lift once in a while so I could enjoy the views! I guess that's the price you pay for living on the beautiful Pennines.

Today's Woolly task is to finish his back righthand foot and then give him a coat of varnish. Choosing the varnish itself was a task! If I went for gloss would the sunlight dazzle visitors, if I went matt would it dampen the colours.....argh. I finally sat on the fence and went for a satin finish, will be interesting to see how it works. When this has been done all that's left is to use copious amounts of outliner pan and then deliver the sheep back to Skipton to join his sheep brothers and sisters. I'm sure that will be an adventure in itself!

On top of all this my little boy had his first taster of preschool this week, which he loved (mainly because they had a train track so they're OK in his book). Not quite sure how I feel about it all yet (not the nursery, that's great but the grown up boy bit) so I got the baking kit out and we bonded over vanilla cupcakes and all spice nutella cake - well they do say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach!

Skipton Sheep Day

Today I took my family to Skipton for the Sheep Day celebrations and I wasn't disappointed. The town was buzzing and there were a whole host of weird and wonderful sheep related activities (no jokes here please)! After listening to Accrington bagpipe band who had my little boy dancing and clapping we ventured into the activity tent where he merrily splattered paint on one of the Flock to Skipton community sheep which are being created alongside the fibreglass sheep that the artists are working on. This was great, he shared the table with other children (and adults) to create a sheep that definitely demonstrated a wide range of artistic techniques - dots, splats, swooshes and swirls.

After this he was keen to make a mop sheep at a workshop that some artists were leading on the other side of the tent. Sadly there wasn't room at the table and the activity had been so popular they had run out of materials. My little friend wasn't really that worried but I was heartbroken, I'd set my sights on a mop sheep for my kitchen. Oh well, maybe next time.

At the bucking sheep (like a bucking bronco but obviously sheep shaped) we had a job persuading my two year old that he really was too little to have a go and only managed to pacify him with the offer of a brew. (This activity led us to miss the first sheep race).

After the brew we looked round some of the stalls, attempted a Shaun the Sheep mask (not very successful) and had a French crepe (not very Yorkshire but very delicious). While we were munching we missed the second sheep race, bother. We took this as a sign that we really should be getting home and headed for the car.

It was a fantastic day and I got to meet some people that I hope to see again in August when Flock to Skipton launches. I'm trying to keep up to date with where the other artists are up to, there's some great work going on and I can't wait to see all the sheep in their rightful positions.

Before I go to rest my quite weary feet - not sure how that affects my ability to type but it does seem to be doing - I have a sheep fact for you. Sheep only sleep for 8 minutes everyday. Imagine how many Woolly's you'd get done then.

Something new

On Friday 4 June 2010 me, my dad, my mum and my little boy trundled to Skipton in two cars to pick up a five foot fibreglass sheep that I had been commissioned to paint for Flock to Skipton. Only a few weeks earlier I had resigned from my job to go back to my roots as a designer maker so winning this first commission was really important to me and I was very excited (as was everyone else in the family). It wasn't until I heard confirmation that my design had been selected that I started to wonder where exactly a fibreglass sheep was going to go, I had also neglected to find out what size the sheep was so the five foot dimensions came as a little bit of a shock! After a frantic week with my dad clearing out the garage (thank you dad) 'Woolly' finally had a home and I was ready to collect him. This brings us up to the point where the two cars were travelling across the Lancashire border to Yorkshire......Once at Skipton Woolly was loaded into the car and was safely transported back to his new home, how happy he looked.

Now the fun has really started! Woolly is in the middle of as technicolour makeover inspired by the Austrian artist Hundertwasser. Whilst getting cramp kneeling down to paint woolly's feet the very random thought about what sheep count to get to sleep kept popping into my head. I wondered if we count them to doze off, what do they think about? Then I read a fact on a sheeppoopaper bookmark, (these are made by a company in Wales and I had got one as a present when I won the commission) that sheep only sleep for 8 minutes a day - they probably don't have time to think about anything at all in that time!

The other random thing that I started to notice while I was merrily painting away was that Fern Cotton on Radio 1 seems to play the same set of music everyday (well the two days that I listened anyway). I like Fern but if this is the case I have to say I'm disappointed, isn't it a bit lazy to play the same music in the same order if you have such a big archive at your finger tips? Next time I'm in the garage, I mean studio, I'm going to keep an ear of this and see whether my worries are well founded.

My conclusion from all this is that for the first time in years my brain seems to be managing to think about other things than what my next job is.......not bad for the first week in the shed!