Some Thoughts on Creativity

While browsing Youtube the other day, I stumbled across a first-class video on the subject of creativity. It was a talk presented by Tina Seelig, of Stanford University’s School of Engineering. The talk, entitled “Six Characteristics of Truly Creative People,” was primarily directed at companies and organisations but could equally well be applied to individuals. She has written a book on the subject, in which she came up with an intriguing diagram which she calls the “Innovation Engine” – a sort of Moebius strip of interlocking characteristics, all of which are essential if one is to be truly creative.

The aspects on the inner part are all things found within ourselves – imagination, attitude and knowledge. To feed our imagination (which is the basis of all creativity), we need the right attitude, and we need knowledge to formulate our ideas and put them into practice. On the outer part are aspects impinging on us from outside of ourselves – our culture, habitat and resources. We are all influenced by the culture in which we grew up, and the environment which surrounds us can either fire our creative imagination or put it to death. Resources are so much more than money – they include all the things we have, and sometimes it’s really good not to have much money, because one is forced to use the limited resources at one’s disposal. In the video, she got some of her students to create something from their rubbish bins, and they came up with some surprising results. Could we, as artists and crafters, do likewise? I know I have often used rubbish, such as chicken packaging, in my art, and I like to challenge myself with the question, “Could I make art out of this?” – whatever it is, and my hubby usually answers with a resounding “No!” which I immediately take as a challenge to prove him wrong!

All the characteristics on the Innovation Engine are important, and depend on each other. It is arranged so that parallel items are related, for example Culture and Attitude. Relating Habitat and Imagination, Tina Seelig showed a typical kindergarten environment, with a very fluid layout – brightly coloured moveable furniture, with easy access to all sorts of colourful and stimulating equipment. Moving on to your average school, there were desks in rows, and this progressed to the regimented cubicles that so many people are forced to work in for their employment. Contrasted with this were the work environments of Google and other innovative companies, with all sorts of fun and stimulating surroundings, and comfortable furniture laid out in such a way as to encourage people to sit and chat and brainstorm together. Such companies encourage their employees to take time out and rest – take a nap, and the ideas will come! So often good ideas come to us in dreams. In this way, one’s habitat can fire one’s imagination rather than crippling it.

This sort of thing got me thinking about our education system in general. I’ve thought about this a great deal in recent years, especially after I started Zentangle, which is a drawing method that I originally liked to describe as “drawing for people who can’t draw” – until I thought about it a bit, and re-phrased it “Drawing for people who think they can’t draw.” All pre-school children draw. They all dance and sing, however “badly,” according to educated adult standards! Little children are naturally creative, and have well-developed imaginations. As soon as they start school beyond nursery and kindergarten, the system begins to develop the left brain, which is involved with reasoning and logic, and facts. Right-brain activities such as music and the arts are generally looked down upon and not considered such valuable skills because it’s the “Three Rs” that enable people to pass exams and get jobs. The emphasis is always on getting qualifications – bits of paper that say that you know how to come up with the “right” answers. Music and art are fine for hobbies, but “get a real job.” In these days of limited financial resources, a lot of music in schools is now extra-curricular with teachers not being on the payroll but self-employed, and schools in impoverished areas often have very little musical education at all and no facilities – I saw a horrifying programme on TV a few years ago where the poor music teacher in one inner-city school had no musical instruments for the children except yogurt pots that they could bash with sticks. OK, she was thrown back on her resources and had to make do in as creative a way as she could (one of the points Tina was making in her talk) but it was a graphic example of the lack of importance that the powers that be, in our culture, put on creative imagination. A young orchestral conductor went in and provided instruments, and opened up a whole new world for those children, some of whom had never even heard classical music before.

If we don’t educate the whole person, where are the future ideas going to come from, that enrich the lives of us all? We NEED creative people in industry, science, medicine, and every profession. Apart from that, education is supposed to be about producing fully-rounded individuals who can make the best of themselves and live fulfilled lives for the benefit of themselves and others. How else are our communities and the wider nation supposed to improve themselves if people are not encouraged to have the skills that come from a creative imagination?

Tina says we are often far too limited in our solutions to problems, and our education system encourages this by training us to find “the right answer,” when it would be far more creative to pose the questions in a different way, so that there is no one single “right answer” but many ways to answer the question, in a way that encourages us to use our creative imagination.

I love this “thinking outside the box” approach. In my art, I like to experiment with different materials just to see what happens. Not always having the “right” equipment or materials to achieve the results I want, I have to improvise. This is often a lot more fun than just opening a pack of this, or a tube of that, or the exact colour from the complete range – having to work a bit harder at it, one is learning all the time, and gaining far more satisfaction in the long run. Another example of this is thinking beyond the normal art suppliers who usually charge a high price for their products, and looking elsewhere – I use decorating and DIY materials and often raid the cake decorating aisles for equipment. I also use a lot of tools that I inherited from Dad, which were more to do with his interests than mine, but all so useful!

Cooking can be a bit like this too. Where is the satisfaction in simply slavishly following a recipe, and perhaps not even attempting a recipe in the first place because one hasn’t got all the exact ingredients? Substituting these for what one actually does have, one can end up with new and exciting flavours. I use tools and implements for the “wrong” purpose too – one of my favourite kitchen tools is a butter curler. I never curl butter, but it’s brilliant for scraping seeds from melons and squashes. My strawberry huller is in constant use for cutting out the ends of kiwi fruits, and I use my grapefruit knife for removing the flesh from melons. Taking risks is half the fun in all creative endeavours, and often leads to exciting and unexpected results.

Making mistakes. Failure. Doing it wrong. These words are so limiting, and encourage people to give up, and also make us fearful to try anything new. Instead, Tina says we should look on the failures as part of the learning process, to add what doesn’t work to our arsenal of knowledge and experience, and to build on them. I have often made what I initially thought was “a right mess” but before throwing it in the bin in disgust, have made myself think about it in a different way, and build on it, and in the end, have been much more pleased with the result than I would have been, had it “worked” in the first place.

I think truly creative people are rule-breakers, rebels. I know I’m a rebel. I have my own ideas about how to do things, and don’t like people telling me what to do!! Perhaps this is why I am constantly glad that I never had the opportunity to go to art school. I remember I had a friend when I was young, who had recently come out of art school. She was always a rebel and a highly creative person, and she had had to fight hard in order to be allowed to follow her chosen specialty at college – embroidery. In those days, this was looked down upon as the pursuit of little old ladies and not “proper art.” (I am glad that attitudes have changed since then!) I remember thinking at the time that so much that was coming out of art colleges in those days was very “samey” and had a very distinctive style which I called “1960s Art College” (which I personally didn’t like), and how hard it must be for the students to retain any creative individuality if they were forced into the college’s mould. My friend, being a rebel, and capable of being pretty stroppy especially when challenged, came out with her individuality intact! I was always very impressed with that.

Of course I am not against formal art education, and I know that things have improved a lot in recent years (see my post on the high standard now achieved at my old school). There is much to be gained by being taught how to develop and organise one’s work, and basic skills on which to build one’s own creativity – I do sometimes regret not having had this advantage, but I do believe it’s left me freer to follow my own inner guiding and inspiration. Anyway, there’s always Youtube – if you want to know how to do anything, it’s on Youtube!!

All this has got me thinking about my Dad. He was a superlative amateur musician, highly skilled at all the wind instruments (with the exception of the clarinet and the recorder) and he was also no mean keyboard player. He told me that when he was still at school, he had to make a decision about his future career, and it was a sharp tussle between music and medicine. What finally decided him was that if he became a professional doctor and an amateur musician, he would be left alone to lead a happy and fulfilled life, but if he became a professional musician and an amateur doctor, he was likely to get locked up! On a more serious note, he said that if he had chosen music as a career, he would have had to limit himself to one instrument, and would probably have spent his life in the ranks of an orchestra, being forced to play only what was on offer. As it was, he could pick and choose, and although he played in orchestras all his life, he could also indulge his passion for chamber music, and he had so much fun with all the social aspects of this, making musical friends wherever he went, and being in constant demand for his talents. He had so many creative interests outside of work, including his clocks and engineering skills. He went through various phases in his life where one interest or another occupied his time, and looking back, I can see a lot of him in myself, although I do not aspire to his level of genius! We have both moved on from one thing to another, learning all the way, and being excited to learn new things and gain fulfilment from new achievements. Some people may say these crazes and phases lead to a rather undisciplined way of life, as it often heaps up ever more UFOs (UnFinished Objects) but you have to go where the creative flow leads you! Mum never understood this, and when I was a child, she often used to say, “Don’t start anything new until you’ve finished what you are doing.” This can rob you of a lot of joy if the spark has gone out. The spark can come back though – after a number of years, the bug for knitting and crochet has come back, and I’m picking up some pretty ancient UFOs and getting satisfaction from finishing them at last. (This is one reason why I’m such a hoarder. People say “If you haven’t used it for two years, you won’t use it. Chuck it out.” If I throw anything out, you can guarantee that next week, I’ll want to start using it again, even if I haven’t looked at it for twenty years!! Confession time: some of my UFOs are over 30 years old.)

One thing Tina emphasised in the video was the importance of paying attention. I am always telling my hubby that he doesn’t notice things! When we are out and about in the countryside, there are so many miraculous little things, and if you keep your eyes open, you can spot them, and marvel at them. Just looking at ordinary things, and seeing strange juxtapositions of objects, can make one see the funny side – Dad and I were always doing this when we were out together – both seeing something in a funny way at the same time and laughing, with no need for explanations, for example a lorry emblazoned with the legend, “The Chard Meat Company,” or a house with an estate agent’s board outside saying “Sold by Force.” These things spark the imagination and one conjures up all sorts of bizarre images! There is so much fun to be had out of the most mundane things in life, if one just keeps one’s eyes open.

Training oneself to do this, the skill transfers to other areas of one’s life, enabling one to think outside the box and find solutions that might not otherwise come to mind. It also undermines a natural tendency to perfectionism which can be so limiting.

I have been thinking a lot about the Innovation Engine over the past few days, and how I can use it to develop my own personal creativity, thinking about how the various influences impinge on my own life, and how I can use them.

Angels Take Flight

Today I cast some Friendly Plastic pellets in the moulds I made for the angel wings and for some gearwheels. This was a lot more successful than the UTEE although I’ve had some further thoughts about that which I will mention later.

Here is the equipment needed for the FP pellets. You can see that I am working on my Presspahn ultra-heat-proof mat (as I did yesterday with the melting pot) – please see my sidebar for details of these mats which protect the surface underneath.

On the left you can see my electric skillet heating up. I have put some water in it and set it to between 60 and 70 degrees centigrade which is the temperature at which the FP pellets soften and become useable. To the right is the tub which contained my original FP pellets and behind it, the ziplock bag of generic low-melting point plastic pellets that I bought to replace them – at greatly reduced cost! It pays to shop around because you are paying for the Friendly Plastic name and the stuff is exactly the same. You can certainly find it on Ebay. On the right you can see the moulds I made, and my UTEE spatula and spoon for fishing the FP out of the water.

Here are the pellets in the water, beginning to heat up. On the right is a ball of previously melted FP from a previous session. In future I shall flatten out any unused FP into thinner sheets which won’t take so long to melt. You can see that in its unmelted state it is opaque white.

Beginning to melt. If you look carefully you can see that some of the pellets are white in the centre and transparent around the edges as they start to soften. I call this the “frogspawn stage.”

Fully melted and ready for use (apart from the large ball which is still in its frogspawn state – you can clearly see the transparent “shell” around the still-unmelted inner core).

The water is just too hot to put your hands in, so you need something to take the FP out with. I use my UTEE kit – there’s a plastic spoon whose handle is also a pair of tweezers, and a silicone spatula. This is useful for pulling the small fragments of FP together so that they stick together, and it’s great because it’s non-stick. Melted FP does tend to stick to plastic.

This is what it looks like when removed from the water. You can see that I have broken off a small piece ready to use. It has to be moulded in your hands to get rid of air bubbles and to make it the shape you want. You have a few minutes before it begins to harden.

At any time, if it starts to harden and go opaque, and you haven’t finished, you can put it back in the hot water till it goes clear again, and if you want you can put it back in its mould too – these silicone moulds are heat proof and come to no harm in the hot water. This will make the FP go clear and malleable again.

At this point I didn’t take any more photos because I was working fast and concentrating, and more or less forgot about the camera!

Here are the pieces I cast. You can see that they have gone opaque white again as they have cooled and hardened. You can see several pieces of left-over FP which I have flattened out ready for re-melting next time.

These are the two angel wings I made from the moulds I used yesterday for the UTEE. Because the moulds are so shallow, there was a lot of excess FP around them, and I cut this away with an X-acto knife, putting the offcuts back in the water to melt again.

This was quite hard work as the stuff gets fairly hard once set. I couldn’t cut most of it with scissors but used the scissors to help once I’d got started with the knife.

After the trimming, some of the edges were a bit rough. I tried filing these with a needle file but this didn’t work very well, so I heated up my hot knife and rubbed it gently around the edges, squeezing to the back any thickness that was generated around the edges.

You can see that on the smaller one, the inner edge is still a bit transparent from the heat. The hot knife made the edges a bit dirty but that doesn’t matter because they are going to be painted anyway.

Further thoughts on the UTEE

The main disadvantage of the UTEE was that it was too fragile. It was flexible when very thin but not nearly durable enough, and if thicker, tended to be more brittle and liable to break. Overnight I thought about this and wondered whether it would be possible to give it some support – this was my idea with the Angelina fibre but this didn’t work. I really like the look of the transparent wings, especially with the gold Perfect Pearls painted on the mould first, and if I can replicate this but with added strength, it might still work. It struck me that if I proceeded as before, and then, when the UTEE was still in the mould and still hot, I could lay down on top of it a piece of acetate which would stick to the UTEE and give it strength without sacrificing flexibility, and then trim off the excess. Being transparent, the acetate would be invisible. Of course, this would have to be acetate which would stand the high temperature – the normal variety would simply melt and buckle. I have a supply of acetate sheets for use with a laser printer which of course works by heat, and I have used this stuff in the past when needing to put heat in contact with acetate, for instance when one wants to use a hot glue gun. I think this might work. Watch this space.

Another thought about UTEE is that I could make some simple, thick wings just cut to shape without a mould, and stamped with a texture stamp such as you can see here. I love this technique. You can introduce lovely iridescent colours with Perfect Pearls or equivalent.

I have also just come across some stuff called silk clay (thank you Diana of Velvet Moth Studio – Diana says she gets ideas for materials and equipment from my blog so it’s nice to be able to find things on her blog too, which will help me!). Before this I hadn’t heard of it before. It seems that it is an air-drying modelling clay that cures to a rubbery, flexible consistency, and I think this might work well. You can wrap it around something else as well (e.g. beads) so that you use less, and add strength, and if it proves too flexible for my purposes, I might wrap it around some acetate or card before pressing it onto the mould. It was this that gave me the idea of strengthening the UTEE with acetate. Anyway, initially I could find very little about it except kids’ stuff, and a lot of videos not in English (I think it may be of Danish manufacture) but eventually I came across some good stuff in English and for adults, including this very good tutorial on Splitcoaststampers, a site that is well worth a visit for those who don’t know it as it’s full of tutorials, galleries of people’s work, ideas, etc. It seems that you can colour this clay with water-based products (distress inks, acrylic and watercolour paints etc.) as well as alcohol inks and alcohol-based markers. It is available in lots of colours but for our purposes you really only need white. Again, watch this space! I’ve got a small tub of white silk clay on order and we’ll see how I get on with it.

I am glad that I did my abortive experiments with the UTEE because they may not have been so abortive after all. The Friendly Plastic wings are definitely better, and seem flexible and strong enough. Whether there is enough definition on them to show up the design remains to be seen after they are painted. As with the gearwheels I have made in the past from this material, I am planning to paint them (and the gearwheels from today) with black gesso and then add gilding wax, which I know looks good.

My New ARTHaven–The “Before” Photos

As promised, here is the first post about my new ARTHaven. I have decided to keep this particular project separate from the more general project of our new house renovation, because of its special interest, not just to me, but to my fellow artists and crafters online who are interested in such things!

The room itself is one of the smaller upstairs bedrooms. It overlooks the front of the house and has its own balcony. The front of the house faces NNE so to all intents and purposes, it has north light! The light is certainly lovely in there. The problem with my current south-facing room is that from lunch time onwards it’s totally impossible to work in there, especially if the sun is shining, because the bright light is right in your eyes. I have had to keep the curtains closed and work under artificial light (albeit PureLite) which is not very satisfactory.

Here is the door leading from the landing.

Looking in, you can see the doorway that leads into the main part of the room. The smaller part extends to right and left, with the bulk of it being on the right. This is called the “dressing room” in the agents’ particulars, and will serve very well as my office. Up until recently, before I started packing everything up, my office and ARTHaven have been combined, with the office definitely suffering, but neither functioning properly. The other advantage of this “room within a room” is that there is an additional wall to put shelves on, either side! It is only a thin partition stud wall but Andy, our builder, says that installing shelves won’t be a problem – it’s just making sure the supports are in the right place.

The smaller, left-hand portion of this space is occupied at present by a washbasin.

To the right is the door onto the balcony. There is enough space here to put a sink instead of the basin, and I shall have Mum’s old microwave wall-mounted above, where the small shelf is at present. I am having a moveable table that I can put in front of the balcony door to put things on, or to work at, when necessary, which can be moved out of the way should I want to go onto the balcony.

Having running water in the studio is essential – my present set-up has a washbasin tucked into the corner between the fitted cupboard and the wall, and I’ve got bookcases beside it, making access extremely difficult. A sink will be much more satisfactory, and it opens up possibilities for doing things I’ve been unable to do for ages – dyeing, for instance!

This is the view into the office from the balcony door.

In my original layout, I didn’t think I’d have room for my big black desk, but completely revamping the plan, I find it will fit with 6 inches to spare, across the end of the room. I’ve also got my small black desk and two filing cabinets, and a couple of bookcases, all of which will fit, and Andy is going to put shelves up above for ring binders, office paper storage, etc.

This is the doorway from the office end into the ARTHaven proper. I like the way the previous owner has put a fabric blind there – I am hoping to get one of those gorgeous Indian embroidered doorway covers for this.

Standing inside the room and looking towards the window:

You can see how nice and light it is, with the good big window, and the glass panel above the doorway, too.

Finally, a view of the other side of the room, with the blocked-off fireplace.

I am planning to make this little chimney-breast my display area, where I can display recent work, and also the many beautiful things that I have received from others. It will be ever-changing, and hopefully will make a nice focal point in the room.

There will be a continuous work surface from the doorway, under the window, up to and beyond the chimney-breast, and along the back wall. The wall dividing the room from the office will have free-standing storage – the remaining single segment of my large black shelving unit, Dad’s old music cabinet which will be perfect for storing paper as it takes 12 x 12 (I am hoping to alter this with different paint effects), my large black bookcase which exactly fits across the side of the black shelving unit, and various tall boxes for vertical storage of things like my camera tripod, weaving bits and pieces and stuff like that.

Underneath the work surface will be cheap white kitchen unit carcases at intervals around the room, minus their plinths and doors, with shelves for storage. Between each of them will be zoned work areas. The work top will curve around the corners of the room. Above will be kitchen wall units with shelves for further storage, with shelves connecting them, hopefully nice and adjustable so I can fit all my different things in. In addition to the main work area, Sheba (my Silver Bullet Cougar cutting machine) will have pride of place across one of the corners, hopefully with room at last to accommodate some support tables (something I’ve wanted to order, but it was pointless in my present setup as there was no room for them); a special “heat” area where I can put my butane torch when I get it, and my heat guns, soldering iron, hot knife, etc. I have got super-heatproof mats for this area. I am going to have a painting and mixed media area by the doorway, with easy access to the movable table and sink beyond, and on the other side of the room I’m having a dedicated sewing area, and for the first time will be able to have my sewing machine out permanently. It is so big and heavy to lift, and up till now has had to be stored underneath the table, and sometimes it seems just too much effort to get it out, but if it’s out, it will be used! In this area I shall also store all my embroidery stuff. With my big comfy chair on castors I should be able to shunt with ease between these different zones, and to the general storage area on the office wall – the idea is for the whole ARTHaven to be a dedicated mixed media space!

Above the large black storage unit which is wonderfully deep, I am going to have an equally deep shelf running the whole width of that wall. This will be for storing large flat sheets of card, mount board, my portfolio and my cutting mats. These things are hard to store as they tend to warp if not kept flat, and they take up a lot of room, but up above, they will be accessible but out of harm’s way.

I have been thinking about all this for months, and planning the most ergonomic space I can think of. Other considerations are the floor covering, and lighting. Wonderwoman hates the carpet in my present ARTHaven – it is only a cheap nylon one, but it clings onto all the bits that fall on it and is very hard work to clean. I am opting for a vinyl floor covering in a faux floorboards effect – these days they are so realistic it’s hard to tell they’re not real! This will be super-easy to clean up. As for lighting, Andy is going to fix up LEDs around the room for me at each work station – good pure light and ultra cheap to run, and also provide me with lots of power points at working height so I don’t have to grovel underneath to find them. I want to keep the decor deliberately bland in order to enhance any artwork on display. I will probably go for magnolia or some pale pastel shade.

It will be such fun unpacking all my boxes and arranging things where I want them, and hopefully I will end up with an efficient, well designed space which will make working there a truly enjoyable experience, without all the frustrations I have had with my present setup.

Watch this space for the “During” photos, and then the pictures of the room being filled with all my goodies! I can’t wait to get stuck in. This is my dream project in the new house and I’m super excited about it.

Exeter Museum Visit

Warning – long post with lots of photos!!

Yesterday was our 26th wedding anniversary, and my hubby took me to visit the newly re-opened Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, which has been closed for a while for a major overhaul and refit. He had visited it briefly shortly after it was opened and was so impressed that he has been longing to take me ever since. He used to visit it regularly in the old days when he was working just around the corner in the city. I must say I was very impressed! As with many provincial museums, it has at its core a private collection, which by its very nature is going to be eclectic – the Victorians were inveterate collectors and travelled the world in search of treasures old and new: animal, vegetable and mineral! It was surprising just how many strange things were rubbing shoulders with each other! Here are some of the photos I took – I wasn’t able to write down what they all were, but it doesn’t matter anyway – they are just objects which took my fancy and/or inspired my artistic muse! The whole set of photos can be seen in my Photobucket album.

First of all, some pictures of the inside of the building itself. The revamped museum still incorporates the original glorious Gothic revival structure built in Victorian times, with some fabulous modern additions. There is a very good restaurant attached, and although the menu was fairly limited, the quality was good. The restaurant also features a small gallery of artworks by children and others.

This gorgeous gold mosaic is in the top of the front entrance archway.

The main foyer and staircase. I adore Gothic Revival architecture!

This is one of the modern additions – a bridge leading from one part of the museum to another. You can see the original wall beyond.

In one of the hallways we found this amazing paper sculpture hanging from the ceiling – lots of interesting shapes and ideas to cut with Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine?

Here are a couple of pictures I took in the restaurant while we were having our lunch. On the end wall is a beautiful mosaic depicting the museum. One of the favourite exhibits is a stuffed giraffe called Gerald, and the kids had done a lot of paintings of him, which were also exhibited. You can see him depicted in the centre arch of the mosaic.

Along the wall beside where we were sitting, were these extraordinary painted corrugated panels which really took my fancy!

Now for some exhibits. There were quite a lot of tribal artefacts from around the world, including these magnificent masks. As usual I was on the look out for suitable inspiration for zentangle art, and these might just do!

I loved these three American Indian model canoes.

Samurai armour:

I fell in love with this ancient Chinese money cat with tassels for his legs. If you look closely you can see his body is made up of Chinese coins.

I’ve always loved Indonesian shadow puppets with their grotesque features and extended limbs, and the fantastical shows made with them. This could be an interesting project to draw in Inkscape and cut with Sheba!

A beautiful Malay silver platter:

An ancient Mayan necklace – I’d like one of these almost as much as I’d like a Saxon torc!!

There was a great number of artefacts from the ancient world, including several cuneiform tablets.

Ceramics from ancient Greece:

including this charming little dish decorated with three fish, which looked entirely modern in its design!

I think this delightful little object might have been an oil lamp:

An ancient Greek helmet:

In addition to these artefacts from the ancient world, there were exhibits from more modern times, including the arts and sciences. There was a small gallery devoted to the science of microscopy, with various microscopes (including a tiny travelling microscope in a wooden box – if you look closely, you can just see this, just above the mirror of the microscope) and beautiful engravings of drawings of items viewed through the microscope.

There was also a good collection of clocks, including a number of fine long-case clocks, and some smaller ones. This one had a mirror placed behind it so that one could see the mechanism. I was particularly pleased to see that all these clocks were going!

A collection of pocket watches:

Many of these clocks and watches were made locally.

There was a whole section of the museum devoted to the local area, and it contained many artefacts which had been found in local fields by metal detectorists, and my hubby was very interested in these, examining them closely so that should he find anything similar, he would recognise it! Also in the Devon section were some examples of Honiton lace, which was the finest and most desired of all the laces. Unlike many other forms of lace which are worked in a strip, Honiton lace is motif lace, and these motifs can then be joined on a net. I did two terms of lace making before discovering it really wasn’t for me – you have to be very advanced before you can start designing your own patterns, and it was also extremely slow work for very little result (at least for me, as a beginner!) The patterns on display at the museum were some of the most beautiful I have ever seen, and I can really appreciate just how much work went into them. The lace-makers were extremely poorly paid, and often had to work in poor light, late into the night.

Some other miscellaneous objects which appealed to me. Firstly, a display of tortoiseshell hair combs. Amazingly intricate carving and pierced work!

A slice through a fossil ammonite – a really big fossil! There were lots of fossils.

More hair ornaments:

(This second one would make a good zentangle pattern!)

A Pakistani wall hanging with embroidered mirror-work (known as shi-sha – I have done a fair bit of this and it’s gorgeous! My wedding dress had shi-sha embroidery on it.)

African zylophone which anyone could play. Note the gourds underneath the wooden slats, which amplify the sound. There was a man visiting the museum who played it, and produced an authentic African sound which was quite magical.

A Roman mirror:

I think this gives a taste of the amazing and varied collection of artefacts in the museum. I haven’t touched on the slideshows, interactive computer screens, children’s activities, galleries of stuffed animals and birds, cases of creepy crawlies… and the rest!! Before we left, we went up to the top of the building and out onto a newly-built bridge to look at the ancient Roman walls of the city.

We had a wonderful time, and could have spent considerably longer, examining the items in greater detail. I came away thinking again of the incredible inventiveness of humanity through the ages, and the capacity for decorating and beautifying everyday objects, and our endless desire to be creative. I am very impressed with this amazing local resource, and if anyone is planning on visiting our part of the world, I would definitely recommend a visit.

Craft 4 Crafters Show

On Thursday my hubby took me over to Exeter for the day, so that I could attend the annual Craft 4 Crafters show at Westpoint, the exhibition centre and county showground. Of the two craft shows, this is the better one; Creative Stitches and Hobbycrafts is very good, and I wouldn’t miss it, but I think the quality of creativity is higher at Craft 4 Crafters, with more interesting exhibitors, although some appear at both shows.

Just as the Creative Stitches show back in September was made special by my meeting up with my friend Wendy, Thursday’s show was equally special because I met two different lots of friends! Lucy from the Black Cat Forum had said she was going on the same day, and we bumped into each other for a chat, and I also met a friend from Bristol and her husband – she is a fellow M.E. sufferer and we first met at the Naidex mobility show in Birmingham about 3 years ago. It was a lovely surprise to bump into them, and we arranged to meet up at lunch time, and we had a great time.

As usual I took quite a few photos, but this year most of them were taken at Stef Francis’ stand. Stef started her unique silk and fibre business about twenty years ago when doing a City and Guilds course and could not find the colours she wanted, so she created them herself, and the business grew from there. She has a vast selection of many different fibres and silks for the creative embroiderer and textile artist, and her website is well worth a visit – be prepared to drool!!!

Here is a general view of the display wall on the stand, showing the various projects that Stef has made up, to show what can be done with the products she sells.

These are a couple of the necklaces she makes, made from silk cocoons and silk carrier rods. I fell in love with the Harlequin necklace!

This is what she calls her “Sushi” bag, also made from silk carrier rods.

These exquisite, tiny purses are made from the shells of walnuts, covered with fabric and embellished with embroidery, beadwork and tassels.

I was particularly taken with this richly textured embroidered panel which has made full use of the potential of the silk carrier rods, both in their entirety, and cut and unravelled and rolled again. The photograph does not do this piece justice; it shimmered with metallic thread as well as the natural sheen of the silk.

Here is a selection of dyed silk carrier rods for sale on the stand. These dimensional pieces are formed during the industrial spinning of silk. Fibres flying from the spinning machine tend to wrap themselves around the rods of the machine, and periodically they have to be slit and removed, so as not to impede the operation of the machine. They are quite hard as they still contain the gum from the silkworms, used in the formation of the cocoons, but they soften somewhat when dampened, and can be separated out, pieces cut off, and then rolled again in the shapes you can see in the embroidered panel above. Like all silk, they take dyes extremely well, and in the photo below you can see the richness of the colours Stef has given them. She also sells them in their natural state.

As well as selling many forms of silk, Stef also supplies bamboo fibre, which is very soft and fine, and easy to work with. You can see from this picture that like silk, it takes dye well.

Here is the display of threads of all types and colours on Stef’s stand. Drool-worthy or not?!!

When I could finally tear myself away, there was plenty more to see. At the back of the hall was a display of quilts. Here are a few of them.

After visiting my friend Lucy from the Black Cat forum a while back, I was keen to start collecting Really Useful Boxes for my ARTHaven. She has loads of them and I was very impressed with them! They are really a modular storage system – the boxes will stack, and the various sizes can mix and match and stack together, and you can get organiser trays to go inside them. I started a shopping basket on a website and it’s been open ever since – I decided to have a look at the show, and low and behold, there they were, so I bought a few to start me off.

The eggcraft ladies were at the show again, but told me that there weren’t many new ones this time that I hadn’t already photographed! This exquisite little carriage and pair was a new one, though.

I was delighted to find that Colouricious had a stand at the show this year. I am a subscriber to their Youtube channel; they regularly produce high quality videos with interviews with textile artists and workshops. Jamie Malden was there, demonstrating her famous Indian woodblock printing technique, and I succumbed and bought some of the woodblocks! I am assured that they work equally well on paper. They are hand-carved from Indian hardwood and are very detailed and high quality. It was lovely to meet Jamie in the flesh, having seen her often on the videos!

It is in association with this that I am keen to try my hand again at free machine embroidery. I did some many years ago but never pursued it, as I got caught up with other things at the time. Once you have printed your fabric, it just shouts to be embellished in so many ways! I bought a “starter” selection of various machine embroidery threads and a new embroidery hoop.

One thing I did this year, for the first time, was to attend a workshop. Alison from Ali Crafts was there with her husband (I bought some Distress Stains from him later on) was doing several workshops, and I opted to do her Tim Holtz Stamps and Stains workshop, working with Distress Stains and rubber stamps. It was tremendous fun, and this is the card I came away with:

The piece at the top is my practice piece, which I liked so much that I am going to make it into another card.

We started by swiping a piece of white ribbon with the Distress Stain of our choice (in my case, Dusty Concord). This way, you can make a matching ribbon for any project! Using the same Distress Stain, I then swiped across a piece of white card. I went over the bottom part again so that it was darker. She then produced a clock face mask and we used a Cut & Dry inking pad to go over this with Distress Ink in the same colour. We then added a texture stamp, and the bird stamp, and trimmed some card for matting and layering, adding half a small paper doily as an embellishment. I opted to colour mine with Barn Door Distress Stain, and finally assembled the whole thing onto black card.

The “sunflowers” in the practice piece were created by smacking the Distress Stain bottle down hard onto the card – it makes a fabulous spatter pattern once the pad is fully primed! Adding a texture stamp at the bottom looked like foliage. Again, I used Dusty Concord and Barn Door Distress Stains for this. (The mottled background was created by spattering water from my hand onto the Dusty Concord Distress Stain before I did the “flowers.”)

Finally, I can never visit a craft show without photographing the glitter! I will end up with a whole folder-full of glitter photos at this rate – all more or less the same!! Unfortunately the photo really doesn’t do them justice – you can imagine how very glittery such large quantities of bulk glitter would be! I bought a few little packets, including the black one at the back, which was absolutely gorgeous…

I shall do a separate post with pictures of the things I bought.

I had such a wonderful day! My longsuffering hubby was happy to take me, and spent the day with his brother, catching up on a few watercolour projects he’s working on, and they had lunch together. We had a meal in our local pub before coming home, and then I crashed out and have been pretty well worn out since then! It was worth it in spades, though. Spades full of glitter!!