Crafting History

Here are some photos of the process of making my piece for the Crafting History exhibition that opens at the Craft Centre on 14th July. The tenants were asked to respond to the Collecting History exhibition that is currently on at the Craft Centre as part of our 30 year anniversary celebrations. I chose to create an intricate papercut depicting 18 fish representing our 18 studios and celebrating the past life of the building as a fishmarket. All the fish are native to British waters and many would have been served up here at some point (except the Pike!). As part of the exhibition the public sent in words that they feel represent the Craft and Design Centre. Each fish contains one of these words. I enjoyed the challenge of making something away from my usual practice and it has proved really satisfying. Come down on Saturday 2-4 to see all the work made plus ceramics by Carys Davies and help us celebrate!

Papercutting at The Whitworth

Last week I ran another paper cutting workshop at The Whitworth for the Crafternoon Tea Adult Learning Programme. I learnt a lot from the last one I did and had all-new cutting mats, fixed blade scalpels and lots of templates for people to use! I tried to keep things a bit simpler too and everyone produced some lovely cards and seemed very happy, so that was good!

I've got a busy month of workshops next month, some for the Ministry of Craft and one for FutureEverything, which is a collaboration with jewellery designer/maker Julia Roy-Williams (Wonderhaus). We'll be taking inspiration from the beautiful surroundings of the Victoria Baths and using a lasercutter to produce stencils for screen printing. Exciting stuff!

Papercutting workshop

Last Wednesday I ran a papercutting workshop at The Whitworth Art Gallery as part of the Crafternoon Tea series. It was a slight departure for me as I'd been asked to do something 'non-messy', suitable for the gallery setting. It was great to do something new and I really enjoyed researching the history of papercuts and all the different styles from around the world. Here is my little fox design:





This was my favourite of the day! So intricate! It was adapted from a template I got from the Scherenschnitte blog, which has loads of lovely designs to try out.

From Russia With Love

I have to admit to being a little obsessed with Russia at the moment, I keep looking at pictures of St Petersburg and dreaming of that magical train ride. One day my friends! One day! In celebration of my new muse, here is my brand new Matryoshka doll print. It's printed as always with love in my little Manchester-based studio with solvent-free inks on gorgeous subtly speckled ivory 'Bier Lager' 250gsm A4 card, manufactured using a combination of leftovers from the brewing industry: 40% to 60% beer labels, 5% to 20% malt/yeast/hops fibres, and between 30% and 50% totally chlorine-free (TCF) virgin paper pulp. It's awesome and I love printing on it! It's for sale on my etsy and Folksy sites. Spasiba! xx