Glorious hands and the hand of glory

Whitby Museum has a very popular object called the Hand of Glory.  It is ironic that the myth surrounding it is about sleep as there I was at 4am last night wide awake and thinking about it.  I should have just gone to work at around 10.30pm when I began doodling birds in my notes and perhaps I would have worked out my ideas then ........ instead of later lying awake wondering whether I could make a wire bird small enough to be an earring.  Anyway, there I was at 4.20am with Earl Grey tea and my notebook thinking about hands......... glorious hands!

Hands are of course important to the making process and at some point in my residency I will almost certainly start making bracelets or bangles, as they have always been a key part of any collection of jewellery I have designed and made.  The large size of my own hands originally influenced me wanting to make bangles as I could never find any to fit.

I then started thinking about the way we use our hands, particularly in western society - we shake hands, kiss hands, hold hands, using them to write (or more often these days to type and text) we wave in greeting; to attract attention and goodbye.  They are unique, each with their own set of marks of our personal histories - fingerprints and rings signifying our personality and our attachments.  I recall once reading that wearing a ring for any length of time leaves a mark on the bone not just in the flesh of the wearer and also remember being fascinated by a necklace of wire hands in a museum somewhere - was it in the Ashmolean? ..... which brings me back, full circle to the wire.

For my visitors book at the museum I would like people to draw around their own hands on paper, then write their name, date and favourite thing about the museum within the outline - maybe a small drawing in the palm?  I will then cut them out and stick them into my book, which is in the process of being bound by Brian Cole www.thecastlebindery.co.uk and they will become a record of my days at the museum.

And so to sleep...... maybe mandrake would help :)

 

Birds and feathers

I spent Tuesday afternoon looking more closely at the bird collection in Whitby Museum.  I did various sketches  particularly of the interesting patterns of the feathers forming irregular triangles and ripples and waves.  There were many beautiful forms and colours and I took quite a few photographs that will help me later on in my project.  I then went around looking at representations of birds in other parts of the collection and found interesting bird patterns of inlay in a gunstock, ceramic birds, prints in the pages of a Japanese book and of course all the birds in the Noah's ark.  I came away really inspired but with a head full of feathers....... all ideas that need to be sorted out.

Resolutions

The new year is now well underway. I am not sure that I have really made any resolutions, I do have plenty of aims and ideas that I would like to pursue though. The first of these is to learn to make different types of rivets..... I realise this may sound like an odd kind of resolution but if I really set my mind to learning how to make the different variations of rivets it will open up the possibilities of joining different materials within my work which has to be a good thing, doesn't it?

I am also aiming to start the Metal Clay Masters programme as the way the projects are structured looks challenging and I definately need to set myself new challenges all of the time.

I will also be artist in residence at Whitby Museum throughout the year and am really looking forward to exploring and developing new ideas in my own work based upon objects, patterns and other inspiring themes and ideas from the museum collections. I think this will push me to explore, learn and develop new techniques and skills too - as well as hopefully getting me into a more regular habit of sketching and drawing, something I don't do often enough.

More birds

I seem to have developed an obsession with making little bird beads.  I am not sure whether this is related to the partridge on the patio or to the collection of birds in Whitby Museum but I am having fun trying to make them in different shapes, sizes and patterns.  Not very beautiful but at least I am learning about making shapes in the glass.

Funny beads

I have decided that I need to try and few more techniques and that now is a good time to attempt this. So yesterday I made a couple of beads masking and pulling dots to try and create a pattern. I also made my first attempt at a bird bead - inspired by all the birds I had been looking at in Whitby Museum. Unfortunately I dropped it on the concrete floor of my studio after photographing it and have shattered it...... not that it was very good, just would have been nice to keep the first one! I have attempted another but it is in the kiln annealing.

I have also made my first hollow bead, again not very good but at least I understood the process and managed to achieve a complete bead. It has a few stray threads of glass inside along with bits of bead release that dropped inside as I removed it from the mandrel (and I have no idea how to get it out).

This has all give me food for thought and I won't be getting any work done for the next few days as I am going down to Warwick to stay on the canal boat for the weekend, then Tuesday visiting Nottingham University to look at it as a possible venue for the Guild of Enamellers Annual Conference in 2010.

Whitby Museum

Today I have had a quick visit to Whitby Museum, where I will be artist in residence during 2009. It is the most fantastic place with an eclectic collection ranging from fossils to birds and butterflies; carved peach stones from China; model ships; Roman lamps; Zulu beadwork; jet; hatpins; toys and a display of models inside light bulbs. All of this and more will become a source of inspiration for work in the coming year. I am really excited about the prospect and can see that it will take me some time to sort my ideas out and begin work in a focussed way.

When I got home I attempted a bead with a face on it, inspired in part by the shields in the ethnographic section but also by the beads by Bronwen Heilman in a new book I bought yesterday Masters: Glass Beads curated by Larry Scott (Lark Books)

Warwick Castle

I have just returned from a weekend craft fair at Warwick Castle. I have never participated in such a well run event, the whole thing from arrival at the venue; setting up right through to dismantling and leaving was extremely well organised and from my point of view went smoothly. The staff were lovely, really friendly and helpful and the castle had a huge number of visitors, particularly on the Sunday and it was lovely to meet so many interesting and interested people.

I will certainly be returning to this venue (if, of course I am invited).