Kel's Space

Exhibition

Tribes

I believe that the root of all conflict is"us and them" thinking. Whether gang wars, religious wars, school bullying or just bitchery at the office, it's all based on the idea of irreconcilable differences between us guys and them guys.

(photo found on flickr, taken by Martien@Arnhem)

I believe that it is the work of a lifetime to overcome every trace of this thinking in ourselves. Tolerance means more than overcoming racism or discrimination against age, gender or disability. It means remembering that we are all human first, and that we are each the sum of our individualities. If our little quirks are what make us the people we are, then why do we waste so much energy on resenting the differences between ourselves and others?

We all want to belong. That's human. There is safety in numbers and it does take a village to raise a child. Many of the choices we make on a daily basis are signals about our selves and our tribes. These signals can help us find like-minded people, make new friends or make people feel more comfortable with us. There isn't anything wrong with that unless it interferes with our tolerance or our authenticity.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Are my signals in line with my values? Do my insecurities and aspirations interfere with my tolerance of people and my openness to them?

Three hour mini-book: revealed!

Three hour mini-book

 

Some Sassafras Lass Hog Heaven paper, a Maya Road box book, a Poloaroid Pogo printer with paper, and some AC Minimark Rub-ons...

Watch this space!

Linocut love

We've been working on this project in my printmaking class for a few weeks now.

I started with this photo of a cafe in Barcelona.

I played with it in Photoshop to reduce it to a high contrast black and white image. When transferring the design to the lino, I improvised a bit to carve in some detail and texture.

Last week I printed this in a cool petrol blue and a bright terracotta on separate prints and in combination. This is a proof taken from that printing.

Then we had to cut into it more - this is called a two-step reduction process apparently. This is a proof taken from my altered block. It was pretty heartbreaking to scrape away all that detail.
The next step will be to overprint the original coloured prints with (very carefully lined up) black prints of the altered block. I ran out of time to do it, but it will look a little something like this, mocked up in Photoshop.

How much fun is that?

In good company

I was really touched a couple of months ago when the lovely gals over at It's A Creative World invited me to join them. They post every day on a wide range of art and craft topics and have an amazing variety of talents between them. I'll be posting twice a month over there, and today I posted about hand carving stamps.

Homecoming

I'm back.
Back from a week in Barcelona.
Back from five months of a temporary/acting promotion.
Back - on the way back anyway - from the workload of a foundation year course.
Back to my life, a delicate balance of unpredictability and creativity and busy-ness and stillness and all that I love.

And back here. Thank you for waiting.

Home-sewn bunting

Such a joyful thing to be doing with this wonderful spring weather. Soooo good to get my sewing machine out, I've been wanting to for six months. My friend made bunting for her daughter's (my Goddaughter) birthday a couple of years ago and it looked amazing - I've been wanting to try it ever since. With a garden party planned at work it seemed like the perfect time. I ran a mini-tutorial on Twitter, which I will share here and expand the notes later on for clarity.

I knew roughly what I wanted, but I was trying to decide how to finish the edges and what sort of spacing I wanted between my flags. I came, I googled, I found: Nasty Wench, Laura Ashley and for kids. None was quite what I wanted, but it clarified what I DID want, so I began.

I gathered 1-2 metres of 5 different fabrics. You won't need this much unless you are aiming for the 20 metres that I was. I got 20 finished pennants out of roughly a metre of fabric. I also bought a a fresh spool of thread and a full roll (20m) of 25mm bias tape. You could certainly make your own, and it would be lovely, but I wasn't making 20m of bias binding. This was a one day job.

	Tweets: Home-sewn bunting step #1 - Cut out your ideal triangle out of cardboard. Mine was 6" wide b 7.5" long. Home-sewn bunting step #2 - From freezer paper, cut out as many triangles as you want flags on your bunting.
	Home-sewn bunting step #3 - With fabric folded right sides together, iron on freezer paper triangles & pin corners. Home-sewn bunting hint: place your triangles carefully and you can cut with very little waste.
	Home-sewn bunting step #4 - Cut out your triangles. Depending on size & spacing, you'll need + or - 5 a metre. Home-sewn bunting hint - if you cut out your triangles with pinking shears you won't need to turn them inside out once they're sewn.
	Home-sewn bunting step #5 - Chain stitch your triangles, sewing only the long sides together.
	Home-sewn bunting step #6 - Turn triangles right way out, poke corner & press into shape using cardboard template.
	Home-sewn bunting step #7 - Sort your pennants into a colour order you like and stack ready to pin.
	Home-sewn bunting step #8 - Space pennants (I used a 3" cardboard template) and pin into folded bias tape. Stitch.

Beautiful weekend on the Isle of Wight

We were staying at 'the mission' on the south coast of the Isle of Wight. The term holiday cottage doesn't even come close really. This oasis of comfort and style is one of the nests offered by Vintage Vacations.

Social networked to the eyeballs

So I'm too busy to blog...
Too busy for Facebook (and slightly creeped out by it anyway)...
So I sign up for Twitter?
Uh-huh, great plan!

Anyway, I'll see if I can't get it set up to display updates here (EDITED: I did it - look left, um, I mean look right, I guess I was thinking of it from the point of view of inside my computer. Or something.).
I really wasn't gonna join Twitter. Oh well.