I'm going to DIE!

Don't panic, folks, it's a mnemonic!  Lol   DIE = Do It Everyday!  :o)  I'm guessing you might have a passing interest in what the hell I'm talking about therefore I will define "it" for you so brace yourself for a rush of cheesiness....

"It" is...

• making MY art, MY way, without apology
• taking no prisoners
• letting rip
• breaking old habits, making new habits
• not believing the doubters
• taking risks 
• changing, growing, learning
• embracing life NOW
• celebrating the madness

Yeah, yeah, you get the picture... I make no apology.  :o)

The Art of Display

Very pleased with this...

...my new jewellery display case.  ;o)  In it's former life it was a cocktail cabinet but now it will be filled with my jewellery.  I'm not certain how old the cabinet is, it looks Art Deco ish but I was placing it in the 50s.  If anyone knows better please let me know! 

I found the cabinet in a local charity shop where it had languished since the summer and been knocked down from it's original price of £80 to £60 and then to £40 when I entered the scene.  ;o)  It fitted the back of our estate perfectly until we got to the slightly curved legs which made it about half an inch too wide to go right in!  We ended up relieving it of two legs for the journey and reuniting them when we got home.

 
 The cabinet stands just over 4' tall and has a lovely striped mirror backed surround on the top.

Inside there are two glass shelves and the back of the cabinet is covered with a self patterned pale fabric.

The glass sliding doors have a mirrored pattern on them, slightly worn in places but all the better for it.  :o)
The only modification made to the cabinet is to add a LED battery powered light strip which is just visible below the top of the doors.

The central section is five sexy glass tubes, loving them!  :o)

The cabinet will form part of a permanent display at the studio of my artist friend, Richard Savage.  Many thanks to him for the opportunity to share my work in this way.  :o)  The hanging display above the cabinet was a temporary measure for a recent exhibition but it will be replaced with a bigger, hopefully funkier, frame shortly to complete the display area. 

I love this find, can't wait to fill it with jewellery!  :o)  Apologies for the amateur photos but I couldn't wait to share the news! 

Dancing and crying

I had a great day out in London earlier this week!  Six of us went off to the big metropolis and our first port of call was to see the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition, Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement.  The exhibition has 85 drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs and prints along with work and early film by some of his contemporaries.

I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of Degas but ballet, ballerinas and the world of theatre is a fascinating subject to me.  I really enjoyed the earlier rooms with charcoal drawings as well as seeing the famous sculpture, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, I was struck by just how large the original is.  It's odd how you form a picture in your mind of the size of a piece of artwork and then, on coming face to face with it, it's so not how you expected it to be!  I had this experience at the Sir John Everett Millais exhibition at Tate Britain a few years ago when his painting, Mariana, turned out to be teeny in comparision to the version in my head!  ;oD  My friend, Neil, had the same experience with a piece of my work, The Internal Lexicon.  He arrived at my exhibition earlier this year expecting to be able to walk into the piece and in reality it's about 6" x 4"!  lol


The teeny weeny Internal Lexicon!

 I digress, back to Degas... the Little Dancer Aged Fourteen display also included all the many drawings Degas produced in preparation for the piece, I do so love to see process.  :o)  I also very much enjoyed the rooms showing early film of human movement and Etienne-Jules Marey's bronze, Flight of a Gull, depicting the stages of  bird wings in flight.  There were, of course, many Degas paintings to delight in and in one of the last rooms I was seized by the compulsion to draw (always a pleasure to be seized by a compulsion!) and inspired by The Red Ballet Skirts I set to and had a scribble.

My Degas dabble!

I really enjoyed the exhibition and highly recommend it.  It's on until 11th December so still time to bag yourself some tickets!  ;o)

On our way into the Degas exhibition, a lovely lady caught my eye and I snapped a couple of photos of her...

In the evening we went to see War Horse at the New London Theatre.  Over the summer I had listened to the audio book so I knew the plot and although the stage play doesn't mirror the book it was absolutely fantastic.  The puppetry of the horses is brilliant, every tiny movement and nuance of equine behaviour is portrayed beautifully and is totally believable even though you can always see the puppeteers.  The music is moving and powerful, the stage has an excellent back projection and the use of the auditorium by the cast is great.  The cast are solid as a rock, the scene changes are seamless, it's just such an excellent production!  Grab the chance to see it if you can BUT take plenty of tissues if you're anything like me, I cried for England!  ;oD

Catching up, moving on...

I was going to write about the tail end of September and the 30 Days of Getting Your Art On but... well, the moment has passed now!  What I will say is that I didn't achieve 30 days but it was a great kick in the derriere for me so it did the job!  ;o) 

Moving on, I'm looking to revamp my blog (and website) so expect some crazy shenannigans while I tinker about with it all!  ;o)  If anyone has any comments about what to include (plenty of scope there as there's so little going on sidebar wise!) or changes to make I'm open to all feedback!  :o)  In the meantime, I will continue (ahem...) to blog and have a few excursions to report back on.  ;o)