I must start doing these round-ups more often because cool stuff keeps happening.

Art Stuff

Sister Diane from Craftypod bought one of my envelopes and wrote a rave review of it.

Diane Gilleland: Red drawing by Kirsty Hall, June 2010

Julie Shackson also bought an envelope recently and she loved it too.

If you lust after an envelope of your very own, click here – they’re a total bargain and who doesn’t enjoy getting fun thing in the mail?

The sequins are coming along just fine: there’s still masses of sewing to do but I’m starting to feel that I’m on the home stretch. I was getting dangerously low but fortunately found a supply of almost identical ones and bought an enormous bag that should be more than enough to finish the apron. If you’re in the UK and need haberdashery stuff, I was hugely impressed by the service I received from JosyRose.

I’ve also been doing a bit of drawing but I’m feeling out of balance lately – far too much internet/business stuff and not enough studio time. Sigh, are we artists ever satisfied? I don’t think so.

Want to win some of my art?

My dear friend Camilla Stacey is currently raising money for her MA. Camilla has been a huge supporter of other artists through her curating work and it would be fantastic if the art community could return that support. I’ve donated two original drawings to her fundraising raffle and there’s also the chance to win work by Alys Paterson, Claire Platt, Peskimo and Elin Thomas.

Camilla says, “I will be mailing out the artwork to prize winners totally free of charge, so for a mere quid you could get something awesome for your wall that would normally set you back ££££££££”

Raffle tickets are only £1 or 10 for £5. There are more details here or you can go straight to Camilla’s paypal (don’t forget to tell her how many tickets you want). Oh, and if you’re in Bristol, pop along to her fundraising sale tomorrow at the Here gallery in Stokes Croft.

Internet Stuff

Honeys, I’ve been a busy little internet bee lately.

I did a long interview about lists, systems and productivity over at Craft Leftovers. It’s a lot more interesting than I’m making it sound!

I also wrote a guest post for Be Awesome Online. It’s called The Power Of Words and it’s all about how the titles we give ourselves have power.

And as usual, I’ve been talking my mouth off over on Twitter.

Business Stuff

Consulting
My consulting packages will be going up in price on September 1st, so if you’ve been thinking about buying some of my time and expertise, now is an excellent time to do so. Sister Diane bought one and she’s already been seeing great results from her reorganisation.

If you’re an internet beginner, you need the Internet Hand-Holding package. If you’ve been around the block a few times but need a better internet strategy, you need the Website Tune-up package (awful name, I know, I’m working on coming up with a snappier one).

Newsletter
I finally got round to putting a newsletter sign-up on the sidebar (look to your right and you’ll see it). I need to prettify it but hey, at least it’s there. It’s only taken me three years! I’m still not entirely sure what my newsletter plans are but if you want to sign up, I’m be thrilled. I promise not to do anything evil with the information: let’s face it, I’m just not organised enough to spam you incessantly!

Facebook Fan Page
If you want regular news but don’t want to sign up for my intermittent newsletter or you find I talk too much on Twitter, my Facebook fanpage might suit you better.

Educational Stuff

I’m on a huge education kick at the moment and have been absorbing online classes, e-books and library books like a deranged info-product addict.

If you’ve been thinking about writing an e-book, Sister Diane still has places on her brand new e-book course, which starts on Monday. I’m taking part and it sounds like it’s going to be an amazing group. I’m super excited about it. And yes, this does mean you can expect some e-books from me in the future.

Like many artists, I struggle with pricing my work so naturally I’m taking this class about pricing art. The fact that it’s by two of my favourite internet people – Tara Swiger of Blonde Chicken and Catherine Caine of Be Awesome Online – was also a big incentive. I’ve worked with both of them before and they rock at explaining stuff.

I also joined The Creative Empire, a new subscription community by Tara Gentile from Scoutie Girl and Megan Auman from Crafting an MBA. The forums are very good value, plus there’s exclusive seminars and practical worksheets. I think the initial price of $15 a month only lasts until the end of August, so join now if you need a bit of support for your creative business.

Cool Stuff (In No Particular Order)

Gareth from Fight Mediocrity made a fab flowsheet (PDF link) inspired by my mantra ‘is it useful? Is it fun?’ It has ducks and chickens, people, ducks and chickens!

If you’re in Britain and want to garden but you don’t have space, or you have land but need help, Landshare connects people. I’ve joined as a landowner, I’m hoping to find some local people to garden with.

I’ve fallen in love with Kim Boekbinder’s voice. Listen to her first EP for free here.

Knock Knock have crazy stationary and office products. They’re definitely going on my Christmas list this year.

My new favourite eye candy blog is Things Organized Neatly.

LaVonne Ellis had a funny chat with her writer’s block.

Lovely short video by Tanya Davis & Andrea Dorfman – How To Be Alone

Finally, check out this superb 10 min video from Scott Belsky about bringing creative projects to fruition.

OK, that should ensure you don’t get a lick of work done this fine Friday!

Comment

As usual, comments are hugely welcome.

What’s Been Happening Lately?

So, I sort of opened a shop for my drawings. There’s not much up there yet but if you’ve ever wanted me to send you a hand-drawn envelope containing a secret, you’re in luck! There’s also a couple of my more expensive archival drawings and more will going up next week.

You may remember that back in February I did a 30 minute talk about blogging for the University Of Arts in London – the audio is now online.

On Friday, I visited the American Museum in Bath with the lovely people from Textile Forum South West. We had a guided tour around their current quilting exhibition. Now quilting isn’t my thing but it was a fascinating talk and the level of sewing skill was quite staggering, especially when you consider that most of it was done by hand. I also ate my first ever Snickerdoodle, which is quite possibly the best cookie name ever. It was very tasty. The museum have their own kitchen where they bake deliciously exotic American goodies and frankly it’s worth a trip just for the baked goods but they also have an eclectic collection set in beautiful grounds.

I sewed lots more sequins and listened lots more podcasts. It doesn’t make for very exciting blogging, does it. But I’ve definitely passed the half way point now. Unfortunately, I’ve – gasp – nearly run out of sequins. I’m praying that they’ve got more of the right kind in Fabric Land. I’m going into town to find out tomorrow, if they’ve run out you’ll probably be able to hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from wherever you are in the world.

I finally made another video. If you fancy a four & half minute tour around my studio, hit play:

Chickens

Last night I was fretting that Colette was ill, she had disappeared into the chicken house for hours and seemed strangely docile. This morning it dawned on me that the silly hen is actually broody. We don’t have a cockerel, so she has no fertile eggs – in fact, she isn’t sitting on any eggs at all but she’s making a fairly determined attempt to hatch out a pile of shredded paper. She’s not the brightest chicken, that one! Still, at least it’s keeping her quiet.

Books
I finished Among The Bohemians by Virginia Nicholson. It’s not flawless, she does rather gloss over Eric Gill’s unforgivable practice of committing incest with his female relatives but I found it a very readable account of this interesting period in art history. If you’ve ever wondered where a lot of our contemporary ideas about artists come from, this book provides many of the answers. Highly recommended.

Other Artists
Two artists inspired by animals this week:

Matt Cummings makes amazing sculptures of animals that manage to capture the essence of the animal without being slavishly realistic.

I’m loving these rabbit prints by Kyoko Imazu, especially the more sinister ones. If I had any money at all, I’d buy one.

Cool Things
Sister Diane’s video 7 Crafting Supplies I’m No Longer Allowed To Buy to buy made me laugh hysterically. Total comedy of recognition.

I’m currently enjoying Marisa’s blog, New Dress A Day, which features daily remaking of thrifted clothing. I don’t always like her finished items but I’m amazed that she looks at some of those hideous dresses and thinks, ‘hell yeah, I can make something with this 1980’s shiny polyester peach number!’ It’s a lesson in creativity, for sure.

If you like things in jars, you’ll like this, if you don’t like dead things, you won’t.

If you’ve not been listening to John T. Unger’s podcast, Art Heroes Radio, you need to remedy that asap. All the ones I’ve listened to have been interesting but the one on pricing is especially valuable.

I’m in the midst of writing a series of posts about artists getting paid and the economy of the arts but that’s a bit heavy for a Friday, isn’t it! So instead, here’s one of my occasional link posts.

Art
My web designer, Steve, had a moving encounter with some art.

This Andre Jordan cartoon made me laugh with comedy of recognition.

The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies – many of these were intimately familiar to me but perhaps they won’t be to younger artists.

This spoof Damien Hirst blog made me howl with laughter (although some of the ‘works’ are more Martin Creed in style).

If you’re a jeweller then the Cookson’s Forums may be worth checking out. I’ve not tried their forums but I’m a big fan of them as a supplier of materials – they’re always very quick and efficient at despatching stuff.

Artists are buying up cheap houses in Detroit – some interesting discussion in the comments about the familiar artist gentrification cycle.

I’m A Photographer, Not A Terrorist is a UK based campaign objecting to increased police interference in street photography.

Unique and clever matchboxes, which naturally I adore because I have a bit of a thing for matches.

Me, Me, Me!

Lisa Pressman recently interviewed me about my art influences. I like her encaustic work very much, you should check it out.

Thanks also to Kayte from the Love Forever blog, who featured my work last week.

There’s loads of excellent comments on my recent ‘art wank’ post. Apparently the subject resonated with a lot of people. Apparently there’s even an entire blog devoted to examples of art wank!

I had my work accepted to culturehall. I haven’t quite finished uploading works to my profile yet but I’ll let you know if I get any interest or opportunities from it. The site is curated by an artist and frankly, it shows – when I researched it I was very impressed by the high quality of work shown.

I also joined Textile Forum South West. If you’re a British artist interested in textiles, you may want to check this out, you don’t actually have to be based in the South West of England to join.

Podcasts
I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts whilst sewing sequins on my apron. Here are a few of my recent favourites.

Jennifer at Craftsanity interviews the Beerhorst Family and discovers how they live a creative lifestyle with very little money. This interview with X got me all excited about my chickenkeeping plan again (it’s moving slowly onward btw, I’ve just taken out a load of library books on chickens and I’m researching coops).

I discovered The Electric Sheep podcast on Twitter and I’ve happily chewed my way through all 20 of them in the last month. It’s knitting based but she delves into other stuff too. Very British.

Craftcast with Alison Lee is always a good listen but I was particularly fascinated by her exploration of Maggie Taylor’s highly involved creative process.

if you’re struggling with your blogging motivation, this podcast from Sister Diane at Craftypod should get your juices flowing again.

Random

Lexicographer, Erin McKean suggests that if it works like a word, we should just use it.

Because nothing says ‘I love you’ like handknitting someone a periodic table jumper (that’s a sweater if you’re American)

Ever wondered where the dark thread of horror in British comedy originates? Welcome to the wonderful world of British Public Safety films! Includes one of my all-time favourites – the Spirit Of Dark Water but thankfully not the one about children dying horribly on farms that gave me nightmares for months after I was shown it in primary school. Definitely NOT for the faint of heart.

I was VERY flattered to make it into the ‘Best Artists Blog’ section of the 100 Best Scholarly Art Blogs list this week.

Congrats to Katherine from Making A Mark, who also made it into the Best Artists Blog section and to Dion from the Art News Blog, who very deservedly made it into the Art News section. I was also pleased to see the New Curator blog mentioned – I only discovered this blog fairly recently through Twitter but it’s rapidly becoming a favourite.

I haven’t checked out all the other blogs mentioned yet but it looks like there’s plenty of good stuff to get your teeth into.

It’s Friday afternoon – time to slack off at work and browse the net instead! Fortunately I’m here to enable your procrastination.

ARTISTS

Really loving this post on DudeCraft about the work of Jim Denevan who creates incredible largescale freehand drawings in sand.

Stephen J. Shanabrook makes rather strange work, including collages of heroin paraphernalia.

For those of us with gothic sensibilities – I’m loving the crazy Victorian aesthetic of Wilhelm Staehle’s site.

Beautiful drawings from Rachel Mosler.

This project gets points for sheer chutzpah – curator Anna Ricciardi is asking people to send her their gallery rejection letters for inclusion in an exhibition at Islington Arts Factory. So far, so good. But here’s the cheeky bit – she’s also asking for a £7 submission fee! I hope she’s done this deliberately as a comment on the increasing tendency for venues to charge artists to apply for exhibitions. Because if it’s not ironic, it would be too depressing for words.

ARTICLES

I like Joanne Mattera’s blog very much; she writes so eloquently about the realities of being an artist. In this post, she recommends that we define what success means to us (something art coach, Alyson Stanfield also strongly recommends) and suggests considering options beyond the narrows confines of the art world.

Daniel Sroka ponders how to survive as an artist in a struggling economy.

Lori Woodward Simons with some advice about how to negotiate with art galleries. This was published on Clint Watson’s FineArtViews, a blog with masses of articles about every aspect of the art world, including this great one about how to sell your art. Boy, do I need help in that department!

Lisa Call gets things done by setting goals and having a system.

HUMOUR

Step away from the metaphors and no one will get hurt! A piece of quite remarkable prose that, amazingly, was actually published. I wouldn’t drink anything while attempting to read this, if I were you.

Have I mentioned Wrongcards before? As their tagline says: ‘E-cards that are wrong for every occasion.’ Including zombie attacks…

When I lived in Leeds, a friend and I used to delight in that urban harbinger of summer – the sight of goths with thick white make up slowly melting down their faces. So as you can imagine, I was delighted to discover the blog Goths In Hot Weather.

And because it takes one to know one, here’s a delightful visual guide to goths. OK, so I’ve never actually been a full-on goth but I’ve come pretty close over the years and definitely have aspects of at least three of these!

Apologies for the lack of posting – as you may have guessed from my last big post, I’ve not been too well. I also got stuck in a cycle of perfectionism, the sort where I think, “ah, I absolutely must blog about such and such a thing next but oh dear, I can’t until I take some photos or do some more research or until the planets are in the correct alignment!”

Sometimes I just get caught up in these mental loops and stay there until I realise that I’m stuck and do something to free myself – in this case, writing a very different blog post to the one I had planned. So here, to loosen me up and hopefully to inspire you, are two very different but connected videos about the nature of inspiration.

First of all, here’s Susan Boyle performing on the reality TV show, Britain’s Got Talent. Unfortunately, embedding is disabled, so you’ll need to pop over to YouTube to watch it.

Secondly, here’s a longer address by writer, Elizabeth Gilbert on the subject of genius, inspiration and creativity. It’s twenty minutes but it’s well worth your time.

I found this touching in a very different way – much of what she spoke about was deeply familiar to me as a creative person and I just loved the two anecdotes she relates. I’ve never been sure where I stand on the whole muse concept but I’m sure that we’re all familiar with the ‘where the hell did THAT come from’ sensation when we’re making our work.

I found this video on Denise Carkeek’s excellent Melancholie Dreams blog. It’s well worth a visit and do make sure you check out her wistful and haunting ceramics.

Firstly, some of you may have noticed that comments aren’t always appearing straight away. Unfortunately we’ve had to tighten up security after the site was hit by a bot that can crack the anti-spam word feature. So if you’ve not commented on the site before, your comment now won’t appear until I’ve accepted it. I’m checking every day to make sure that comments don’t languish in purgatory for ages. If you’ve commented before, your comment should appear straight away unless you include any URL’s.

Secondly, in celebration of April Fool’s Day, here’s an art-related Absolutely Fabulous clip to brighten up your day.

I think this is real but even if it’s a hoax, it’s still absolutely wonderful.

It’s a beautiful sunny day and I need to make the most of the light by getting up the studio and then out to the garden. I’ll be writing a proper post later but in the meantime, have some fun stuff.

I have written about my love for sheds on this blog before and I know I am not alone in my admiration for this humble structure – check out this great song about sheds by Cardiff band, Punks Not Dad.

If only it was really this easy to make money from art! Sean The Sheep shows us how it’s done.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal absolutely nails the art world.

A pointed cartoon about the gallery system.

The Childbirth Song by the very talented Helen Austin – not particularly worksafe but it makes me howl with comedy of recognition.

If I’m getting a bit up myself, I listen to King Missile’s song Sensitive Artist to bring me back down to earth – song here, lyrics here.

It’s National Shed Week. What, you didn’t know that Britain has a National Shed Week? Shame on you! There’s a blog and everything.

The winner of this year’s best shed competition is Tim, a man who has combined two great British passions to create a Pub Shed.

Images from readersheds.co.uk

This isn’t the only pub shed I’ve heard about; a friend of my mum and dad has a small ‘cricket pavillion’ shed in his garden, complete with beer on tap. And yes, there is also an area to play cricket, although I believe that they often go straight to the beer part. You have to make your own entertainment when you live in a small Scottish village…

There are a ton of other inventive sheds on the shed website. including this fabulous Tardis one.

Image from readersheds.co.uk

In fact, there are so many Tardis sheds that they have their own category. but I particularly like this one because of this quote from the female owner, “I don’t think of it as just a shed – more a David Tennant trap.”

Some of their sheds are a bit posh but as a fan of wabi-sabi, I prefer the more ramshackle versions like this one or this. Some sheds are particularly organic. This one makes me envious – I’d absolutely love it if mine had a living turf roof but it’s pretty far down the list of gardening priorities.

And of course, we can’t talk about sheds without mentioning some art inspired by the humble shed.

I find most traditional shed paintings a little boring but I was quite taken with the naive style of allotment painter, Chris Cyprus.

Simon Thackray’s photograph of his shed door inspired him to start The Shed, an unusual series of music, poetry and art events in his small rural community.

Simon Starling’s Turner Prize winning installation, Shedboatshed started life as a Swiss shed that he turned into a boat.

Image from Tate website, unknown photographer

He sailed the resulting boat containing the remaining shed parts down the Rhine to the venue where he was exhibiting before rebuilding it into a shed. I have to say that the confidence of this project impresses me, I’m not entirely sure I’d want to set sail in anything I’d built! Loathe as I am to link to the Mirror newspaper, this attempt to replicate the project made me laugh.

Cornelia Parker’s famous piece Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View involved the British Army blowing up a garden shed that Parker had filled with a collection of objects sourced from jumble sales, charity shops and the sheds of the artist and her friends. The resulting charred remains were collected and hung around a single light bulb.

Images from Tate website, unknown photographer

Sheds, what’s not to love?