I don’t know where I’ve been all week.

It’s just flown by.

I have been a little bored with the jewelry and just can’t seem to be bothered to start anything new.

I finished this for Serina.

Larimar

And then decided to use up some more of my larimar beads.

That bead cap needs a little adjusting.

And then I started a new chain.

But apart from that not a lot going on really.

I’ve been watching some BBC videos on artists that I found on Youtube. The series is called, What do Artists do all day? And I’m really enjoying that.

My favourite one so far is the one on John Byrne.

It all started when I stumbled across a series on Youtube called JTV Rock Star Designer because I was too bored to bother going into the studio and needed some inspiration.

I’ve suffered through all six episodes so far, and now have to wait until next week to find out who the two finalists will be. I think the winner gets to design a jewelry line for JTV.

I’m actually very surprised at how horrible the jewelry is and that, in the six hours they’re given to complete a piece, they can’t seem to make something that looks a little more professionally finished, but I suppose they’re under a lot of pressure. Also they’re only given half an hour to come up with an idea. That would be the hardest part for me as I generally make it up as I go along.

They’re also given some pretty gruesome materials to work with.

I’m not particularly impressed with the show, but of course now I have to finish watching it.

Then I discovered the artist videos and I love them.

It makes me want to go back to art school.

I went to Winchester School of Art in the U.K. What I wanted to be was a painter, but somehow I ended up in the sculpture department. I still would like to be a painter, but I’ve never given myself enough time to really get into it and now I just end up making piddly paintings which I enjoy, but which aren’t real paintings in my opinion.

Now these artists are making me a little sad that I never really gave myself to it.

I did love making the sculptures. I especially liked working out how the darn things would actually stand up and not kill someone.

I still think about making a sculpture of a woman sitting with her beautiful legs crossed in her beautiful designer clothes using nothing but used fake finger nails. I mean, what do they do with all of them once they’re done. I imagine that there are bazillions of them, in all shades of lovely, somewhere out there filling land fills and waiting to destroy our world.

Perhaps she could be having drinks with a refugee.

Who knows.

So I got my degree and then, nothing.

Well, there was the marriage part, and then the kids part, so it wasn’t exactly nothing.

Now it’s my part, and I’m really enjoying it.

Problem is that I’d have to get up before yesterday and go to bed after tomorrow, to be able to do all the things I’d like to.

Just pick one laddie!

Anyhow, so while I’ve been away I’ve been dreaming of all the things I started out to be and how I need to start being them.

The time is now people!

We just need to get down and be the people we know we are inside and stop fussing around with all the other stuff.

O.K. Well I do anyway.

;)

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Clay vs Jewelry and the Bayou Art Festival.

So I think I escaped.

The sketches I did got me too excited to pass by the jewelry bench, so I managed to avoid the clay room.

I did have to buy myself a little consolation prize though.

Just to get me through you understand.

Ryan Myers

It was a little tricky, and I did feel somewhat guilty about the clay, but the sketch book won.

Did I mention that I’d bought a new batch of stones?

One day I’ll show you them all, but I’m worried your computer will explode.

In’t they cool :)

Here  are some of the sketches.

Tiffany Stone

Crazy Lace Agate

Howlite

Crazy Lace Agate

Indonesian Coral Fossil

The Tiffany Stone again

Not all of them work for me, but they were enough to get me started.

In-between starting and finishing this piece I went to the Bayou City Art Festival here in Houston with a friend.

Like I needed to go to get any more ideas.

I have come home excited.

And I had to buy a few things.

Mostly I bought some stuff for my girls, but this is mine.

Bad photo as I was too impatient to show you.

Here’s her photo of it from her website.

Jennifer Cavan

You can click on the image to go to her website, but I warn you, you may never be the same again.

I’ve wanted one of her paintings for over ten years now.

Finally!

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There was a lot of good stuff, and some blah stuff, at the show. I took some photographs of the pieces that caught my eye, but kept forgetting.

Sorry.

Susan Clayton

Estella Fransbergen

Mark Orr

And these guys are so cool.

Sugar Post

That’s it I’m afraid. Sorry if I got you all excited.

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So, on this fine Sunday, I will leave you with why I need to get a new washer upper. P has (once again) chipped a vital tea mug.

Just can’t get the help nowadays.

Off to paint now.

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I’ve found a new love.

Gerard Collas.

And I love him

this much

No No Wait

THIS much

And now I need to throw everything else out and make some sculptures.

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Don’t you think we should all travel around on this?

Just trotting along, out in the open, with the breeze in your hair and fresh air on your face and a little porthole to escape to when it rains. Which, of course, it needs to every now and then to water the flower.

This, however, albeit colourful and fascinating, looks a little crowded. I’d rather watch those people speed by frantically as I casually guide my humongous dog coach thing down the country lanes.

(Note: Always take the back roads if you can. Not as many accidents).

They’ll probably get there faster, but one of them, namely the woman in the purse, has definitely left something behind on the kitchen table at home.

She’s out of luck as he’s not stopping anytime soon.

And this man

definitely needs to pack a little lighter.

Else he’ll have a heart attack before he reaches wherever he’s running away to.

(Bless him. I feel worried for him now. I think his wife’s been nagging him a day longer than he can cope with).

Perhaps he should think about getting a horse.

Definitely needs to avoid the angry fish though.

And here are some other sculptures by him, just to make you feel really grumpy, but in that great, oh my god, look how wonderful, wish I was as good as him, way.

(O.K. so that’s not so great. Kind of depressing really – in that, oh my god I might as well give up now, way).

click photo to go to website

This last one reminds me a little of one of my favourite sculptures that resides in the Tate Gallery in London. You know, the one that just stands there waiting for you to come across it and stop in your tracks just to stare at it in wonder.

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Prepare yourself to say Oh My God.

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Jacob and the Angel 1940-1 by Sir Jacob Epstein 1880-1959

Look at it.

(Do you think it would fit on my mantle?)

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