Lower Way Farm

I visited another lovely set of studios on Saturday at Lower Way Farm in Thatcham. Joanna Burton and her husband have completely renovated the outbuildings of the former fish farm into artists' studios making it a great little creative community. They are open 11am-5pm Tuesday to Sunday until 26th May.

Joanna Burton herself is a painter using thick, sumptuous colours and splashes of gold along with collage to create these fabulously ornate scenes of antiquities.

Marsha Swanzy is a fashion designer selling her modern, eccentric designs in vintage fabrics from her truly maximalist studio. Walking through the door, I had to stop and take in everything I saw, so tempting and inspiring!

Nuala Whales is a painter and picture framer who really knows how to enhance the image using quality classic and contemporary mouldings and mounts.

Sophie Waite is a talented young ceramicist creating vases as works of art, exploiting the clay as a soft maleable medium and showing it in its raw state.

Sue Diffey had a fascinating story to tell through her work, which is big, colourful and full of meaning that you'd never assume was there. Her abstract oil paintings are striking, yet strangely subtle at the same time.

Helen Mortimer paints on silk using vibrant colours with her inspiration coming from architecture. This results in a beautiful contrast between the soft, mellow nature of the silk and the harsh geometrical lines of buildings.

Whizzing around

On bank holiday Monday I was able to visit some of the artists I wanted to see. I had a lovely inspiring day, driving around the English countryside in the sunshine and the rain. Here are some of the people I went to see.

Kate and Paul Kessling are two very different artists, but both creating some really beautiful work. Paul paints huge striking landscapes in oils, whilst Kate creates very fun digital prints from her vast collection of buttons amongst other things. Paul has a website here, Kate doesn't have one just yet, but you can see more of her work here.
Diana Barraclough is a ceramicist whose work I found refreshingly colourful and playful. She makes garden sculptures called "totems" which fit perfectly amongst the plants and trees.


Finally I went to see Gill Banks and Sue Crook of Frayed Edges who are both textile artists. Gill's work was quite geometrical using layered fabrics and straight lines, whilst Sue's soft needle felted backgrounds played host to some beautiful freehand stitching.

Studio Open!

We had our Gathering Threads opening on Saturday, which was fabulous fun. Here are a few pictures of my pieces.

Creative Boom!

I was asked by Lucy from Creative Boom Reading to write a little bit about myself and my work to go in their LookBook section and here it is! Go here to read the full article.

Only a week to go!

Well, less than a week to be precise, but that just makes me more nervous! Gathering Threads opens next Saturday 1st May and I still have a lot of framing to do. I did manage to get to a couple of other exhibitions this week. "Room to Manoeuvre" was a fascinating exhibition of conceptual sculpture, installation and video works by artist led group arjeea21 at Open Hand Open Space in Reading. Images are below. I also went along to the private view of the first Reading Contemporary Art Fair where there was some stunning work and I could have spent a lot of money! Instead I just came away with this print by Jasmine Mercer because it made me smile!

Busy busy busy

I'm flat out with sewing new lovely (hopefully) things for my exhibition in May at the National Needlework Archive called "Gathering Threads," details below. Now we've done all the bits and bobs like adverts and flyers, we can concentrate on actually producing some work to exhibit!

In between I've also popped another couple of card designs up in my Etsy shop, enjoy!

Trying to be prolific

I've been updating my Etsy shop over the last couple of weeks with all of my hand stitched pictures, so now almost all of them are up there. I've also been busy sewing lovely things, designing some new cards and kOodles creatures which will all be available very soon!

Wow Thank You launched today!

This fabulous new website full of lovely handmade-in-the-UK goodies launched in style on this beautiful sunny Friday! I'll be selling my wares through the site now as well as Etsy so if you prefer to buy through a UK site, this is where to go! Be prepared to fall in love with some of the beautiful products though. Currently only my cards are on there, but I'll be adding lovable creatures over the next few weeks.

Original Artwork now online

Hello all my faithful frOodles! I have finally pulled my finger out and started popping all my original hand stitched pictures up on my Etsy shop. I need to clear some space for all the productiveness I plan for the next two months (before my exhibition, that is). So please browse here for my artwork at heavily discounted prices I might add! Check back regularly though, there's plenty more where these came from!

New card and new news.

The new card design added to my Etsy shop this week has already proved popular. It's a cute card to send to just about anyone that means a lot to you. Get one here. I've been busy sewing away and also trying to get all my old and new items photographed and ready to upload to my shop, watch this space, I promise it won't be long! In the meantime, satisfy your cravings with a keyring or two!