Lost in the Wood

Needle Felted Bee Swarm Major excitement in the Lost in the Wood camp last week when my first proper exhibition piece was accepted in The Willow Gallery's 'Natural Selection' exhibition which opened on Saturday! There's some small changes and a few more bees have been added round the base but essentially it looks like this. Each bee was sculpted from merino tops fleece by hand using a barbed felting needle which is an enjoyable but fairly slow process, then they were layered up to create a busy swarm effect. I gave up trying to count the number of  bees that went into this piece. Trying to count them once I'd already fixed quite a few on was in hindsight a bit tricksy, it's over 100 at least. The dome is a piece of old lab equipment while the base is bespoke, made by a fantastic local wood artist John Roberts of Ogwen Art and Craft . In case you're wondering why the bees are unconventionally colourful, here's the artist statement that accompanies the...

Needle felted bee swarm (in progress) As my old school motto had it (see title), living bravely is a Good Idea. I'm not sure I've always embodied it, unless changing my mind & trying out various different paths in very meandering style counts (maybe by default it actually does?). Anyway, let's attribute my latest decision making to boldness rather than folly. Prompted by an adorable little shop recently coming up for rent, I've briefly been debating whether to open a workshop/ studio/ shop with my woolly partner in crime. After much thinking, planning and costing, I've put the idea on hold for at least a year or two. It'd be a big undertaking that financially & artistically I'm just not ready for it at the moment. However, all the thinking and debating has been fantastic in helping me define what it is I want to (and can) do right now. So it'll be a big goodbye to the (part time) day job in 3 weeks HURRAH!! I'll miss the many lovely peo...

It's been a busy week filled with Welsh exams, making felty bees, wrangling with writing an artist's statement (which isn't pretentious) and enjoying this glorious sunshine (new garden chairs purchased, BBQ had, wandering round town with delicious ice cream and glasses of prosecco in the garden, all very lovely). Firstly the exams, it's taken me about 4 years of living in North Wales to get round to taking Welsh language lessons but now I finally have embarked on it, I'm finding it very rewarding and far more fun than I'd expected. Four hours a week over two night classes doesn't, I realise,  sound very compelling but it's turned out to be a lovely, lively and supportive group. There's no denying that it seems a tricky language and it's taken me from last September to get my head around the fact that Caernarfon is sometimes said 'Gaernarfon'  and other times 'yng Nghaerfon' depending on the initially bewildering use of mutati...

Following on from my musings about direction in the last blog post, I've been working on two 'woolidermy' projects which I'm excited about and feel are more distinctive of my style. The first of these are my honeycomb & bees. This year is likely to feature many, many bees (of the needle felted variety). Last summer, I had a burst of inspiration while considering what to make Mamma C for her birthday. Mum really does like bees and their fascinating ways. Indeed, she is an enthusiastic bee-keeper with several hives, acts as adviser to various individuals, allotments and community orchards, has been working with getting hives onto National Trust properties, has achieved the award of  'Expert Bee Master' via years of annual exams, has appeared (ably assisted by Dad) on 'Landward' talking about sudden colony collapse and, much to my amusement, received an email from the team at 'John Bishop's Britain' wondering if she may be interested in ...