July 2006

June 29th- July 3rd

Since last Christmas when I collated all my rejects to cut up and make into bags, I have been aware of a growing quantity of rejects and scraps. Some of the rejects are design or steaming disasters; some have been in galleries too long and look tired. Others were done a long time ago and no longer look at home with current work. To date I've weeded out anything which is saleable for a future bargain basket rather than a posh exhibition, and the rejected rejects skulk seditiously in plastic bags to await recycling. Or maybe it's some psychotherapy they need.

As it happens, I have decided that it is unlikely I will ever sell a lot of bags made from the rejects. They are fun to make, but time consuming. At fairs and shows there is serious and high-quality competition from bag makers who do nothing else and also study the fashion market. They are alert to all the new closures, handles, attachments and gizmos, and the fabric designs and colours of the moment.

The other week I sent a request to two online lists to ask quilters and embroiderers if they are interested in buying silk scraps and was overwhelmed by the response (summary of the questions I asked here). I had e mails from about 40 correspondents, and the summary of their responses is below.

1. There is clearly a market for hand-painted and dyed silk remnants, and indeed remnants and scraps of other fabrics. As to whether quiltmakers would use silk, it seems they do, and they are of particular value to makers of Art Quilts who incorporate diverse materials into their work. Size and shape can be of minor relevance as a small piece may act as an inspiration, or a small highlight in a larger work
2. Makers of "bed" quilts are more likely to use cotton, for obvious reasons
3. Dollmakers also value small pieces and like to buy lots of varied pieces of fabric. So do those making collages, hand appliques, textile postcards etc
4. Some people much prefer a colour-themed selection, others prefer a variety
5. Those who buy squares often request sizes related to the Fat Quarter (18 x 22"). Other responses suggest you will never please everyone, so there is no point in bothering to try and simply offering usable sizes is the best idea. Some makers only use strips anyway! A minimum of 3" squares was one request, and for strips, 1.5" X 5" .
6. Input suggests keeping the individual bag price low. £5 was thought very reasonable. Bags can be marketed by weight, with 50 and 100 gram bags being common measures. Weight / amount of silk will relate to the individual type of silk contained in the bag: eg heavier silk types means you sell a heavier bag. I had various prices offered as standard but £5.00 / $US 8.50 / $AUS 12 / $NZ 14.50 (excuse any errors please, international finance is not my thing) falls well within what some people are paying for 100 grams and may actually be too low. I suppose it depends how unusual the fabric is.
7. Some people are buying according to a rough yardage of what is contained in a bag, although this is harder to assess when the pieces are irregularly shaped.
8. There are people who had looked at my website after my original post and said they would buy from me right now. This was incredibly encouraging. I never thought there'd be international demand for silk scraps!

As a result, I am abandoning plans to take scraps along to Art in Action. Space is so limited there that I am not sure they would be noticed. So I will be offering them online instead. This weekend I did chop up about 15 scarves into squares according to their widths - and I have quite a heap. There are more to prepare but I will eventually put them on my "Buying work" pages. I need to fix some prices and also look at postage costs. Anyone who is interested, please contact me as amounts will be limited and won't come up all that often. I will let you know the moment they are on the website.

July 4th - 8th

Despite the Silence of the Keyboard, I have been busy labelling and washing out work, preparing leaflets about curses (sic I'll leave that) and getting stuff ready for Art in Action. I had my show information this week and have a good position near an entrance. The layout of The Market seems more open this year and I think this may help keep the temperature down in the tent. Last year it became insufferable as the heat built up in late afternoon. The pessimist in me advises this new layout must surely mean snow in July.

A friend has lent me a X10 magnifying lens to help identify grasses so despite my worthy comments about not needing names here there is now a new sight down on the Moor. That's me, glass and grass in close connection, with a non-botanically minded collie frustrated by the punctuated pace of her current walks. In order to identify a grass, you have to get in really close to see various features of the stem and flower / seed area. Through the glass there is quite another world. I cannot recommend this world enough if you have never looked through a lens. One day I came eyeball to eyeball with a tiny transparent parchment-coloured dragon perched on the end of the grass. I couldn't see it with the naked eye.

After all this labour I have apparently looked somewhat pallid this week, so Health and Safety recommended a dose of sea breeze. We have recently discovered Teignmouth, by which I must explain to the uninitiated that Teignmouth has been there for some time but we have only just realised. There is a confused air of derelict, eccentric anarchy and past elegance about Teignmouth, with its graceful cream seafront houses, small fisherfolk-cottagey backstreets, lived-in boathouses and empty peeling paddling pools.

Someone else has also discovered Teignmouth. They clearly have money to invest and the various restoration projects look promising but I hope the eccentricity isn't cleaned up along with the seagull mess. It's time for some pictures of Teignmouth and I must go and study some brome, fescue and Yorkshire Fog with the unwilling hound.

Therapy at Teignmouth For those overseas (and even domestic) readers who already think the English are mad to sit out on their beaches at all, I should explain that the following photographs do imply a typically miserable British Summer's day with drizzle arriving on an easterly breeze from Siberia. In fact, all was not as it seems. Temperatures were just below 30 C and there was no wind to speak of, nor even the merest hint of rain. Our summer temps are rising as surely as our collective girths are spreading.
Teignmouth pier	Ferry from Shaldon
Spot the mini	Bird feeders
Paint layers on upturned boat	Fishing

Some of the new work just processed

July 9th - 10th

I knew it was nearly time, and this week was it. The Lower Moor has been cut. Those swathes of swaying grass are no more. There are just a few patches left with fringes around the trees and ditches and a patch in the middle where it's boggy. Apparently there is a pressing need to control the bracken and also cut before the thistles go into seed and do their pesky worst over the neighbouring fields of Devon. But I still can't help feeling sad when I look at it.

On the home front, I have just about organised myself to a standstill and everything but the dog is labelled, listed and priced. The screens have been tested and below is a sneak preview. The much appreciated Woodwork Department made two identical sets of three-panel screens, stepped in height by about two inches each. Each section is hinged, but can be detached, so in theory any one screen can be attached to any other. The dowels for hanging work are inserted into the body of each screen and can be removed and moved around, either making a hanger all the way across for wide pieces, or half way for narrower work. It is infinitely variable and should suit many types of exhibiting environment. Three cheers for The Carpenter.

There are also shelf sections which we may or may not use; an upright pole section with an arm on which to hang a selection of scarves (not easy to see, but on the right of the right-hand screen) and a new lighting system which clips onto the top of each screen and leans over.

Finally for today, and not the least of the news, is that I heard today that I've been elected a member of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen.

July 11th

No updates for a few days as I desert the family for Art in Action. Yesterday's description of the screens should have included the fact that we designed them so the longest pair fit into the back of the car without disrupting the front seats or passengers thereof- an important thing to remember. Most of my painting frames fit neatly when I go off teaching but there are a couple of longer ones which cause problems and mean passengers must opt for either a fractured back of skull or comminuted fracture of the femur as injury of the week.

Unknown to me, because we didn't discuss it when we met recently (see June entry here), Carol Mackenzie Gale was up for selection with the Devon Guild of Craftsmen at the same meeting as I was, and e mailed me to tell me she has also been elected to membership. Brilliant news - I am as pleased for her as for me. Back next week.

July 12th - 18th

Where do I start? Not with a description of the inspiration of Art in Action as you'd be better off reading the organisers' words here.

Art in Action isn't like any other event I've been to, although individual parts of it resemble many festivals, shows and fairs. It is a massive event in concept, size and execution and takes place annually in the grounds of an English country mansion at Waterperry, near Oxford, about 40 miles west of London. Around 25,000 visitors are expected over four days and many people buy a four-day ticket as there is so much on offer.

It is almost entirely housed in tents and marquees. There are marquees for demonstrators in many arts and crafts and a separate and vast marquee called The Market where around 100 selected individual practitioners set up, display and sell work. There is also a very popular area for suppliers of art and craft materials.

Around the site there are bandstands where musicians entertain visitors with choral singing, chamber music or piano recitals and in Performing Arts you can attend performances by international musicians and dancers. There are classes and workshops in many techniques and media, and children are especially well catered for with their own programme of workshops as well as storytelling, clowns etc. The site is kept immaculately clean, car parking is well organised and there are even water bowls for dogs!

As an exhibitor one is made to feel both welcome and valued and rounds of tea, coffee, juice and chocolate biscuits - sometimes doing a Dali in the heat - are offered to us by staff several times a day.

This is my fourth appearance at Art in Action and I have always shown work in The Market. I had an especially positive show with evenly spaced sales each day, which were up on last year. I made good contacts with new galleries, sold to repeat and new buyers and had visits from past students, friends and other artists. The arrangement of The Market was new this year with an intelligently planned set of parallel avenues always leading towards light and allowing a pleasant through draught - essential in soaring summer temperatures. I had a good position near an entrance, the folding screens (see previous entry) worked brilliantly and drew praise from a male visitor clearly unimpressed by textiles, but knocked out by the hinges!

Because I had some help with stand-sitting I was able to see some of the show myself and this year the tent I returned to again and again was Indian Arts. This housed 10 artisans brought from India by Jaya Jaitly who is described as a "social activist and a prolific writer on crafts" and founder president of the Dastkari Haat Samiti. There are some images below.

View of my stand between John Dunn and Hafod Hill Pottery in The Market
Inside the Ceramics Marquee	Inside the Printmakers Marquee

19th - 22nd July

I haven't restarted studio work yet but have despatched a new set of scarves to the Burton Art Gallery at Bideford and to Raven Press Gallery on the Isle of Skye.

Last month I put out a call for information regarding selling my silk scraps (see here) and had some really good feedback. Originally this idea was precipitated by my then forthcoming appearance at Art in Action, but I realised from the responses that I could probably sell them online, and in any case Art in Action was the wrong venue. So yesterday I put my silk scraps-buying information here and e mailed all those who had expressed interest in buying scraps last month. I have nearly sold out my first batch in 12 hours... wow. I wish my top-standard output went that fast! My ebay-savvy son was so impressed we joked about hiding the scissors while I was out in case he got any ideas about raiding the studio scarf stock for a chop-up in my absence.

I will still need feeback from the buyers to see whether they are happy with what I've sent. Scraps will only be available from time to time unless I have a massive steamer disaster or, as my beady-eyed son then suggested, I do a Monty Python and just paint seconds (seconds is the English term we use for things which are not good enough in quality).

Yesterday I had an e mail from someone who has tried my twist-dyed scarf project (which you can see here) and she sent me two photos here. I know people visit this page from my webstats but have no idea what they produce as a result, so many thanks to you, Deborah in Italy.

23rd - 26th July

If you are here for art, may I respectfully suggest you click your bookmarks bar again because today's entry will be female domestic trivia. It's all I feel capable of. We are experiencing a heatwave; the only cool place in the house is the downstairs loo and I can't paint scarves in there. Resist-dyed loo paper may be the next new must-have.

A Dye Challenge

1. Go to see an outdoor, evening performance of Hamlet - one of Shakespeare's less jolly plays - and experience temperature drop from sweltering to arctic, in two-and-a-half hours

Time saving alternative: Have them perform the 4 hour version and die from exposure

2. In interval, be lucky winner of a hamper containing organically produced veg.

3. Go home, discover beetroot in hamper, seek out beetroot soup recipe for serving cold on sweltering days. Find blender

4. Attempt to make soup and blend to a smooth puree as recipe demands without kitchen looking like that bit at the end of Fargo with the corpse and the wood chipper

5. Fail, and wonder why it is that when you want dye to dye it often doesn't, and when you don't, it does

An Emotional Textile challenge

1. Have Maintenance Department decide that today, it being unlikely to rain, is a good day to remove EVERYTHING from the garage to paint-seal the floor

2. Engage not very enthusiastically with request of Maintenance Department to sort through bag of children's cuddly toys that they have earmarked for charitable end. NB: Only those with proper safety labelling will be accepted by charity shops. The others have no viable future

3. DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH UNLABELLED BEARS

4. End up with small Noah's Ark of those you cannot part with for various emotional reasons. Sneak them past Maintenance Department