Derbyshire Open Arts this bank holiday weekend

Once again it is suddenly the end of May, and tomorrow several of us at Long Eaton Art Room will open our studios to the public. We are open from 10.00 - 17.00 on Saturday, Sunday and Monday 24th - 26th May.

The image above is the one I submitted to go in the brochure back in January.
It was just hastily snapped with my fairly basic digital camera, and then cropped.
The small porcelain pieces wee posed on a sheet of slightly faded black paper, which provided the perfect foil for them.

I was pleasantly surprised towards the end off March to be told that my image was one of six chosen to go in a listing in Craft & Design Mag.

This afternoon when I left my studio I had these pieces set up, but the rest of my display may get changed in the morning.

Sadly, the weather forecast is for more showers so we cannot predict how many people will turn out.

Long Eaton has a strong presence this year, with the Art Room hosting artists 163 - 169.
Just up the road Helen Hallows and David Hallows are also participating, hosting some exciting artists.

More details can be found in the Derbyshire Open Arts brochure.

I am looking forward to seeing some of you over the weekend!

What a weekend!

Way back at the beginning of the year I put in my entry as an individual artist in Derbyshire Open Arts. 

Knowing that I would be showing both knitted wire and porcelain, I combined the two in an image. 

This was fun, as it is hard to tell the scale of the work from the image.

Towards the end of March the brochures were delivered to the studio, and I could start handing them out.

The entries for Long Eaton Art Room looked good together.

In the meantime, at the Art Room much organising was going on to showcase the various activities we provide.

Then came an unexpected bonus. 

I was mentioned in the Artsbeat May issue article about Derbyshire Open Arts. 

During the weekend I know that at least two people not from our area were prompted to visit as a result of seeing this mention.

I tweaked my studio to show off my latest work, and added a vase full of flowers from our garden. 

Knitted wire was shown at the window so that it glistened in the sunshine from around three in the afternoon.

 Porcelain was laid out rather in the manner of archaeological finds elsewhere in the studio.
Several people mentioned this. Maybe the couple of summers I spent in Cyprus on a dig are showing their influence.

Over the course of the three days I didn't venture far from my studio, mainly popping in to see the other studio spaces upstairs.

On Sunday the Henna Fairy was plying her art, and I was quick to take advantage.

Here is how it looked four days later, but today you'd have to use a lot of imagination to trace the remains of the design.

Open Studios preview ....

New fun pieces knitted with 0.20 mm coloured wire and 0.20 fishing line which I then overdyed.

 These are hanging in the studio window showing off their sparkling colour in the early evening sunshine.

It had rained off and on all afternoon, and I was beginning to think that I wouldn't have the chance to take these snaps.

This time tomorrow we will be open to all as part of Derbyshire Open Arts 2013.

If you are anywhere nearby, do drop in to see me and the other artists at Long Eaton Art Room, 29 - 31 Lime Grove, Long Eaton, NG10 4LD.

We will all be there from 10.00 to 17.00 Saturday, Sunday and Monday 25th - 27th May

Spring: Ravelry swap, travelling and Derbyshire Open Arts

I'm  a bit of a sucker for the occasional swap.
This was a fun exchange with a theme reflecting the excitement of springtime.
My swap partner got it just right for me.
There was plenty of purple, including seeds for me to plant and gardening gloves.
I now have the most deluxe lemon squeezer I've ever seen.
Note to self: time to make lemonade rather than teas.

I hope to get back into blogging now I seem to have conquered the photo programme on our computer.
It had been refusing to download my images for a while.

April was a busy month, starting with a trip to Morecambe and ending up over Easter in New York.

May has dashed past again with much to do in the garden, much of which is still to be done.

This weekend it is time for Derbyshire Open Arts, and I will be amongst the artists exhibiting at Long Eaton Art Room.
Just a few days more to make frantic preparations for it!
My last minute ceramics will be fired tomorrow, so much to anticipate.

d(erbyshire) o(pen) a(rts)

We opened up on a miserable drizzly morning, so it wasn't much fun sitting near an open door all day. (Note to self - wear warmer clothing tomorrow!)

We had a steady trickle of visitors all day, the first having come at 11 as we opened the doors.

People who had been to our previous studio last year found us again, and we also had newcomers.

For the 4 of us, it was a chance to relax and enjoy showing off some of our creations.

With two more days to go, we should get many more visitors.

Garden delights and our weekend exhibition

No time to take pictures today.

Last night, as I was cycling home from the "Woolly Wednesday" knitting session at the Art Room it was raining.

So naturally the traffic lights near the library failed to detect a single cyclist wishing to turn right onto the more major road. After two failed sequences I just went at the time the traffic opposite got to go.

Then there were the drivers who suddenly did u-turns in front of me and came to a dead stop, twice in one 10 minute ride!

But best of all, the garden got some rain, and the temperature dropped further.

Last night it dropped back to not much above freezing, quite a contrast with the 25C in the shade at the weekend.

This is the week of the Chelsea Flower Show, which is getting lots of coverage on TV.

This year Rachel Carter, a local artist, has a stand. She involved some local people to help out with willow weaving at the Art Room over the past couple of months.

Tomorrow, we transform the Art Room for the Bank Holiday weekend as four of us take part in Derbyshire Open Arts.

More on that later....

1129767 ... a very important number!

Yesterday we heard from the Charity Commission that Long Eaton Art Room has been registered as a charity.
This will make it easier to apply for funding.

Lots more work to do, but we are on our way.

This weekend some of our artists are taking part in derbyshire open arts putting Long Eaton on the artistic map.
Do drop in to see their work!