Craft and Art Residency, Kilbowie 2010

I'm just home after a great week with some fantastic students from around North Lanarkshire, who all took part in a week of intensive art and design training. I was focussed on the screen-printing and what an amazing selection of work we had by the end of it, everyone really got stuck in and got their hands dirty (quite literally)! Check out the heat changing t-shirts we managed to squish in between some more serious work.

The beautiful sunset on the longest day of the year.

Managed to get the students painting onto the screen, as well as the opportunity to draw down by the harbour and collect objects on the first couple of days. Everyone worked from the early hours till late at night and really got a lot of the experience, teacher and student alike I reckon.

I really liked going exploring when I had a couple of minutes to spare, I just love the sea!

There wasn't just screen-printing either, other opportunities included jewellery with Suilven Plazalska which looked absolutely amazing in the next room as well as Music, Digital Imagery, Fine Art and Film/Documentery Making.

Concrete Wardrobe

GraceInk hand screen-printed purses and greetings cards have been dropped off this morning at the Concrete Wardrobe in Edinburgh for the masses to enjoy...check out the shop at www.concretewardrobe.co.uk. They stock amazing art and design by a whole host of wonderful British based artisans which now includes me!

Kilbowie 2010

I've just been asked to run a series of workshops over on the west coast of Scotland towards the end of this month at an event for school-leavers wanting to head into the art and design field at College or Uni. Very excited about taking part and in a part of Scotland I haven't had a chance to visit yet, so double excitement!

T-shirt to your left is one I whipped up yesterday while organising what I would need for such an adventure with the fantastic Tony. I had a great time showing it off to all and sundry yesterday afternoon and now it's even been fixed so I can wear it out in the rain...whooo! (lets hope for none of that while I'm on the west coast)

Hopefully I'll have some more exciting photos to show from the actual event in a couple of weeks time.

Contemporary Threads Update

The show might be over at The Wee Gallery, but I thought I'd just pop in a mention received in the Southern Reporter (with names!!) from last week.

And remember theres still plenty going on throughout June too, including what should be an amazing exhibition and catwalk show taking place at the Dovecot Studio in Edinburgh featuring work by Heriot-Watt Textile and Fashion Students and curated by Mark Eley (Eley Kishimoto). Check out www.tex.hw.ac.uk or www.dundee.ac.uk/djcad/cfs/ for more info on what other exciting events are planned throughout Scotland.

India Collection: New Designers 2010

Last week I was at a meeting about an exhibition I'm doing in July New Designers One Year On 2010. Well following the meeting I suddenly realised better get on with some work for it! I've had two new repeats all worked out for a couple of months now and finally I printed them during the week (I love printing and it was so much fun to spend time with great people). The picture is of the first piece in progress, my screens were pretty large but peeling back every layer made me really happy as it's been a while since I did my last one (probably about 3 years). The new designs are from my India Collection and will be appearing for the first time at ND Part Two from the 7th-11th July...would be great to see you there if you can make it.

While down in London last week I caught an amazing exhibition on Maps at the British Library, which has filled my head with lots of exciting new directions to follow...if only I could find the time now!

CraftScotland Feature

So I was just checking out Julia Douglas' blog (a fellow textile fanatic who does some amazing work) as you do on a Friday evening and she mentioned that she had been featured on this months makers on the CraftScotland website which is all to do with Textiles...very exciting I thought and clicked on the link...well it turns out I've been featured too along with two other makers I know as well (small world this textile malarky)! So I am sending you all to go check it out at www.craftscotland.org/Explore%20Craft/printed-textiles.htm hopefully that will get you to the right place otherwise head to the normal website and search it from there!

Contemporary Threads Update

The exhibition Contemporary Threads has opened in Kelso at the Wee Gallery and here's a sneaky peek inside of what's on show (to admire and to buy). The show includes work by myself including table runners, napkins, placemats and cushions, along with a larger piece of work 'Chinese Junks' which can be seen on the left hand side of the image above. Other artists on show include Valerie A Graves with her beautiful and tactile felted pods, wall-hangings and of course some cute felted hares thrown in for good measure. Lindsay Roberts hand spins her own yarns and then uses them within her collage works to create magnificent multi layered wall pieces.

I seem to have dropped off the blogging radar over the past few weeks, it's been a very busy time for me. I'm off to London next week for a meeting about New Designers so hopefully I'll be able to let on more about that on my return.