Living like the Addams family (click, click)......

This past weekend I managed to get most of the house set up for the Halloween season. Due to being so busy with studio committments, this year I have downsized things a bit (not too much...my kids would never forgive me!). So, we will now live like the Addams family for a couple of weeks, which is great fun and something I feel strangely comfortable doing. It's always interesting if we get unexpected (and unwary) visitors - last year, the night after Halloween, we witnessed someone breaking into our car which was parked in the street outside. The police officer who arrived at our house to take the details must have wondered what on earth was going on as he walked up a spiderweb enclosed staircase (complete with web-wrapped corpse), past the mummy in his coffin and up into "The Lab" with our demented Doctor and his table of dismembered body parts!....oddly, he made no reference to it.....

As I've mentioned before, Halloween decorations are relatively hard to come by here in Australia, although the past couple of years have been better with Toys 'R' Us and some of the 'cheap shops' getting in a reasonable range. Most of our props and decorations have been made by me over the years and this year I've received wonderful goodies from friends in the US, which are proudly displayed. My biggest bugbear is that it is utterly impossible to find candy corn here....let alone the magnificent chocolate/caramel variety that was sent to me last year (dear Keri xx). I did manage to get hold of some bubblegum eyeballs and 'gummi' body parts....but it's the candy corn that sends my kids (and me) into raptures of delight....thankyou Pattee! xx

Of course I'll be adding things as we get closer to the 31st - blacklights, dry ice and such - and I'm hoping to do one or two new 'redead' dollies....I found a large, broken, walking one at the op-shop last week. Fun.

Till next time, Happy Halloweening!

The Faery Catcher

Well, this has been a really busy and excitement-filled week for me. I managed to start a new piece, which came about from a little doodly drawing that I did at the start of the week and by late that afternoon I had most of the face completed. The addition of horns was another couple of days work, but I'm very pleased with the result....also the hands, which I think are improving with each pair I make. I've since completed both hands and the feet (sorry, I forgot to snap them) and am at the body construction stage as of today. He will be big and fat with no neck to speak of....your basic thug really. I'm going to re-visit the "faery catcher" theme with this piece. I made a couple of 'ogreish' creatures with poor, trapped faeries some years ago and feel it's time for another go at a theme that (I'm embarrassed to admit) fulfills a perverse need in me to see pretty little faeries punished and in peril.

It's been very busy at the studio with it being school holidays....there are quite a lot of people out and about, especially when we get a bit of sun and blue sky. On Tuesday, a package from my lovely friend Pat arrived at the studio, filled with the most wonderful Halloween goodies....the best of them a gorgeous little Witch made by Pat. As my children can attest, I was in a state of almost giddy excitement while opening this magical box.....Halloween is not really celebrated here and the stuff that is available is generally pretty crappy.....so to receive this amazingly generous treat was truly delightful. Thankyou Pattee!!

Last week I also spent a wonderful afternoon with a high school friend I hadn't seen in over twenty years! It was weird and fantastic at the same time....she is just the same (not really, but you know what I mean....no huge personality morph) and I'm so looking forward to catching up again soon.

Other very exciting news is the launch of my friend Linda's website. Linda's work is, quite frankly awe-inspiring. Her botanical illustration is the best I have ever seen....she infuses her work with a joyfulness that is so rarely seen these days.....and her little "naturalist" faeries are just superb. If you are lucky enough to know Linda, you will know just how much her beautiful work is an extension of herself....her love of nature and in particular the tiny, intricate details of it, is inspirational. I can't wait for her exhibition!

Yesterday afternoon was spent at Joanne's exhibition launch, "Beyond the Boundaries" at the Stationmaster's Gallery. Joanne's textiles and drawings are also beautifully realized and sensitively executed, a real pleasure to view. The last two photos above were snapped yesterday, but the room was too full for me to get properly decent shots.....I particularly love the triptych of "Spring flowers" and the lovely "Flower Brooches" pinned to the cotton dress. You can see Joanne's work (in a much better light) on her blog.

Well, I'm off to the studio to put the faery catcher together. By the way, there are only four "eeriefae" left.......

Till next time.

"eeriefae"

Continuing the Halloween theme....have spent the past week making these little darlings. There are only 10 available and the plan is to have an edition of 10 available each year for Halloween. Of course, they will be different "eeriefae" each year, so should make a nice little collectible set. They've been wonderful fun to work on and you can check out their shop page here.

I'm still listening to the 'Harry Potter' audiobooks every day in the studio. I'm about halfway through 'Order of the Phoenix' and can honestly say that I'm getting more enjoyment from hearing them read by the great Stephen Fry than I did reading them myself years ago. I had quite forgotten how much they've left out of the movies or changed around....all the small details that make the books so compelling. If you love the movies, I thoroughly recommend experiencing the books this way.....just listening to Mr Fry do the voices is a real treat in itself!

The beautiful Spring weather we've been having the past couple of weeks came to a crashing halt today with a return to wintry cold, rain and wind. A bit of a rude shock really.....as someone who is always freezing during the cooler months, sunshine and blue sky does wonders for my energy levels and my mood. I hope the return to Winter doesn't last too long.

Before I sign off, my good friend and fellow 'Strathalbynite' Joanne Blackeby has finally got her blog up and running. Joanne is a very talented textile artist who creates beautiful, sensitive pieces that reflect her love of nature and the countryside that surrounds her. Being a very private person she was quite nervous about blogging, but I think she's done a lovely job. You can check out Joanne's blog here.

Till next time.

Halloween Faery....finished!...(almost)

I'm always a little nervous about making Halloween pieces....always just a little afraid that I won't want to stop once I start. There is something so 'addictive' about those Halloween colors....I never use orange at any other time (well, rarely anyway). This has been such an enjoyable piece every step of the way....she almost seemed to be putting herself together, everything just worked and there was no stress involved. Nice change! She is all finished except for the tiny light that will illuminate the jack-o-lantern she is holding....I'm hoping to pick that up tomorrow. The little skulls and pumpkins in her hair were great fun to make too....being able to do these little things makes me appreciate polymer clay all over again!

So, this is the first in a series of Faeries (all around the same size and with sculpted hair) that I will be creating over the next twelve months or so. The next one will be a 'spring' themed faery followed, of course, by a Christmas one. I hope to have her up on the website this weekend.

It's been an interesting week with a few ups and downs. We'll ignore the downs, but the ups have been really lovely. There was a lovely post on Koldo Barroso's blog, a 'sneak peek' at a wonderful treat being sent to me by my friend Pattee, a delightful e-mail from the BuNnY Queen Keri, the joy of knowing that the new 'Alice' book by Nancy Wiley is on it's way, the arrival of Brom's new book 'The Child Thief', the joy of listening to the Harry Potter books on audiobook (read by Stephen Fry) every day in the studio, and of course my youngest child, Noah, turning ten last weekend. Life's good.

Till next time.

It seems to be becoming a 'thing' with me that the end of the SALA festival signals rising excitement (on my part) about the approach of 'Gothtober' and the unbridled glee (again, on my part) that is Halloween. Yes, I live in the wrong hemisphere for this celebration, yes the seasonal colors are completely reversed (halfway through spring) and yes most people in Australia not only don't celebrate Halloween but see it as yet another Americanism and can be quite hostile to it. A great pity.....personally, I've loved it since I was a child and wanted so badly to be able to go trick-or-treating, bob for apples and dress up in scary costumes. I love the carved pumpkins, the candy corn and the fun of decorating the house and yard with ever more elaborate props. My kids have now grown up with it and the party that we have each year is probably their favorite family event. So, each August I look back through the photos of the previous years Halloween and start planning. The photos above are all things that I made last year....the dollies were ordinary children's dolls found at my local op-shop, which I attacked with paint, scissors and matches (deeply satisfying in a twisted kind of way).....the kitchen props were all made by me and my daughter Taylor.....also, Dr. Death and the corpse in the coffin and the cupcakes (which everyone felt bad about eating because they took such a long time to make). Here in Australia, each year there is more Halloween stuff available in the shops but you really can't beat the props that you make yourself. At this stage I have no idea what I'll come up with this October, but the seeds have been planted....

Till next time.

We are now over half-way through the SALA festival and I have to say that apart from the 2007 festival, when I was lucky enough to meet and become friends with the extraordinary (I could go on and on here, but I won't) Catchlove/Pills, this has been the best SALA I've experienced. This past weekend I have met some truly delightful, interesting and amazingly talented people. I was very unsure how my 'Open Studio' would be received this year, as I had only a handful of completed pieces for sale and lots of 'work in progress', but the response has been enormously positive with a wide cross-section of visitors (which is what I really love to see; kids, grandparents, and especially those people - usually men - who come in begrudgingly with their families and end up poring over every detail and having to be dragged out!). I've had wonderful conversations with people from Perth and New South Wales, a lovely violinist, an eccentrically fabulous woman with faeries in her attic (no, I'm not speaking metaphorically), two beautiful sisters who touched me very deeply (one is now living with "Old Goat"), two young women who fell so deeply in love with the incomplete "Turtle Man" that they would have bought him 'as is' if I had let them and an incredible artist, whose work I'm ashamed to say, I did not know until yesterday. His name is Ron Francis and I think I may have found another favorite Australian painter. I am always quite overwhelmed when people travel, however long or short, to see my work. Seeing this gifted artist's superb paintings only reinforces this feeling as well as simply making me happy that he could also enjoy what I do.

And all of this reminds me why I do what I do. Of course, I'm driven by what's inside of me....a personal vision.....but it's the sharing of this vision and the response of other people that provides the greatest satisfaction. I've always maintained that I would have to make these creatures even if no-one ever saw them, but lately I'm not so sure. That response from another individual is so important to the work.....it gives it meaning. I can derive great personal satisfaction from a well-built armature, nicely sculpted features and a decent paint job, but all of this pales into insignificance when someone looks at a piece with tears in their eyes because, for reasons known only to them, they feel a connection with it. Nothing beats that.

So, I'll keep sculpting and hope that people keep responding. There are some very exciting projects in the works, one of which has to be secret for now, but there will be plenty to blog about. "Turtle Man" is my newest piece, as yet incomplete. The turtle shell is a real one, salvaged by my good friend, Steve. When it came to me it was covered in at least two inches of tube worm casings.....the poor turtle had long since perished, but it took me two weeks of scraping and cleaning to get the shell to it's present condition. "Turtle Man" will be wearing the shell as a kind of armour and if all goes to plan and Steve manages to procure a smaller shell for me, there will be a young'un to go with him.

Again, I really want to thank all those wonderful people I have met over the past week, as well as all my blogging and facebook friends who are so supportive.....special thanks to Nancy for her friendship and wise advice from across the miles.

Till next time.