Excited ....

Well that's it for another year. A visit to Blighty, tick, spend quality time with the family, tick, rush around like a headless chicken, tick, tie up loose ends, tick, return to gozo exhausted, tick.  Just enough time to catch my breath before the start of a great adventure in 2016. I love the beginning of a New Year, I love the expectation of what is to come. I love that time to reflect on what went by in the last year and what we can learn from all of that. A time for renewed optimism and a rush of energy. 
Being back on Gozo is a joy, despite January and February being the worst months weatherwise. We still get those fabulous blue skies more often than not and the people look happy and less strained than in the UK. The colour of the stone is sunny and not grey and it won't be long until the fields are filled with the wild flowers of an early spring again. We have carnivale to look forward to in early Feb, which is the culmination of 12 months hard work for all the costume makers and troop chroegraphers. What a spectacle that is. 
So... I must make plans and prepare, lots to do during the dark evenings. All the hard work of last year, I hope will now come to fruition. 

So......

... and a nice little thought for us all to start a new chapter. xx

 If I want to be accepted as I am, then I need to be willing to accept others as they are. It is arrogant to set standards for others.
- Louise Hay

Open Studio weekend

OPEN STUDIO

   December Weekends

      Fri 11^th Sat 12^th Sun 13^th

      Fri 18^th Sat 19^th Sun 20^th

10am – 3pm

Paintings.. Art to Wear

Turned Wood Items .

Carved Stone . Cards

Painted furniture

@

TRIQ IT TORRI. XLENDINDI

UP THE HILL OUT OF XLENDI TOWARDS MUNXAR

Go to my facebook page to see photos of artist's work

CLICK HERE FOR A MAP

    

Cabinet of curiosities

I have long been inspired by the work and collections of American artist Mark Dion. Having seen his 'Tate Thames dig' at the Tate Modern, beautifully displayed in a Victorian collectors cabinet, I have wanted a similar collection myself. I along with all mudlarks and beach combers have one thing in common, the need to scavenge on a river's edge or along the coast line for curiosities. Looking for the unusual, beautiful or just something useful.

Living by the sea and indeed on a small island, my daily dog walks are always spent scrambling over the rocks (if not in the sea) looking for bits and pieces. The weather is changing and finally in November I think we can say good bye to Summer and are due the first of the winter storms and high winds this week, which should produce some big seas. In turn the big waves should wash up a whole treasure trove of driftwood, shells, stones and all manner of things to be gleaned.

My collection is growing fast and is already taking up too much space on my small shelf. I need to make a special display case (probably out of driftwood) to show them off, all lined up neatly. To add to the bits I have found I have also been given some beautiful and unusual pieces that add interest to the collection.

 I have a whale bone, a dragon fly, sea urchin shells, cowrie shells, stones with holes in, heart shaped stones, egg shells dyed with plant dye, a fossil cockle, a sharks tooth, a mother of pearl fish, a manilla (slave currency  in the form of a bronze bangle) and 3 buddha's, one ivory (old), one jade and one sandlewood.

My textile hanging is coming along. I have been working on it for nearly a month now. Every day I spend a couple of hours sewing. I love it. Very medatative ! I am not rushing to finish. I have now sewn down all the edges and will soon begin to work on the detailing. A little gold silk has crept into the gaps, I guess in the style of  Kintsukuroi - mending with gold-

Time

I have used scraps of vintage linen, embroidered cotton, silk, handmade gozitan lace and many other collected textiles. I love the way there is no order to it, it's very intuitive and very wabi-sabi.

Next project, I have some suitable china to use for this !

It's a boro (ed) thing

I can feel a winter of sewing coming on. I have a desire to make a textile panel using the ancient Japanese folk cloth idea of patching and mending old textiles called boro. You can read a bit about boro here. Shabby textiles became works of art, the more stiched and mended it became the more interesting the fabric. Sashiko stitching on the antique boro fabrics became an art form and in true wabi sabi style these old textiles became precious.
Anyway I am going to have a go myself. The backing is an old fine egyptian cotton sheet and the patches are scraps of linen and cotton. Some with embroidery and old lace pieces made here on Gozo. It may take months to finish but the winter here is just the time to do this.

First day's work

Some of my boro skirts can now be found in my Etsy Shop

I will be adding some of my small paintings on here soon too.

It's been a while !

It's been a busy few weeks. A change in the weather has brought cooler air, but with that come the flies ! My family and other animals have been out to stay with me. A lovely week catching up on all the news and just generally enjoying some 'old times'. More to come this month !
A day in Malta ended up at Ghar Lapsi, a picturesque cove where the water is as clear as glass and the marine life abundant. A lovely morning's snorkeling.

Petra and I spent some time holding day intuitive painting and collage workshops. Apart from our 'Art holidays' we facilitate individual tuition. A pared down version of our residential weeks and held in our studio. Check out Studio 38 website for details.

Workshop dates

Inspire

Intutive Painting & Collage.

Art orientated self discovery.

Forthcoming dates for this Autum:

1 week stay hosted in a comfortable traditional 400 year old farmhouse set on the idyllic and inspiring Mediterranean island of Gozo. Four days of art and soul exploration,

October 5th arrive for welcome supper 

Workshop starts 9.30am 6th October

or

November 9th arrive for welcome supper

Workshop starts 9.30 10th November 

Click on the link for details.

Self publishing and wet Wales

Whilst investigating self publishing I came accross this charming book featuring the work of Sid Burnard. A sculptor living in Borth - West Wales - a place I used to spend a lot of time as a child. Coincidentally he is married to a second cousin of mine, who I have never met ! I love Sid's use of driftwood and how he can turn not very inspiring peices of flotsom into something truly lovely and often whimsical. 

The photographs are particularly lovely and reminiscent of fabulous holidays spent wrapped in blankets, sheltering  in the dunes on a windy Welsh summer's day. 

You can also watch a video of Sid on youtube.... here

A wonderful story of how to use your eyes and see creative potential in everything. Nice. Very inspiring. 

Click here to view book

Where am I going ?

This question was posed by one of the posts in my blog list (left hand bar),
Good question. Does it matter that I don't know right now ?
My days generally start with an early morning dog walk, If I have anything pressing to be done in the day I like to get it done first thing. The rest of the day is dominated by moving my painting or creative work forward. The day usually culminates in more dog walking or swimming and a catch up with friends. That's it.
I try not to plan too much and like to allow the day to sort itself out, itself. My life to sort itself out. It usually does.

So here we go, a morning of playing arounsd with glazes.

Out to sea

Xwejni bay

Looking to Libya

Under Xlendi Tower

Chicken memories

Santa Marija, mama mia !    For two weeks in August the whole of Malta is on holiday, 90% (slight exaggeration but you get my drift) of them come to Gozo for the biggest festa of the year. Two weeks of fireworks and celaebration culminates in this weekend. The highlight for me is a small agricultural show. Not quite the Royal Suffolk but a pretty good turn out of all the local breeders and jam makers.

I used to love the shows in the UK, the kids were always very excited about the unusual animals and birds on show. We usually found something to take home. As a result we had many chickens, ducks, ferrets etc on the farm. It was  joy this morning to kind of relive that. My daughter used to keep a diary of the many chickens we had, she called it 'Chicken memories' and it was full of their unusual names, feathers, photos and descriptions. Joy.

 Held in the Villa Rundel gardens in Victoria.

There were prizes for the best jams, fruit, veg, basket making, wine making, traditional tools and all the things you would expect a farming community to produce. There was also an art exhibition with paintings on many different subjects. 

These two caught my eye, first and second prize in what I can only think must be the 'Weird subject matter' category !!

Lots of livestock competitions and much disputing over the prize winners. 

All good fun. 

Day one

Starting a new series of mixed media paintings. Starting with random layering tissue and newsprint and putting down layers of paint.

Rough shapes.

End of the first day.  Quite happy with the way this is going. Tomorrow when these layers are properly dry, I can start lightening it all up so that the whole painting is very pale in colour.

Back to some mixed media

Getting back into some mixed media by trying out some ideas in my journal. A morning spent gathering skyline info and rock formation, to use as subject matter for some new work.