A belated post of a load of fun winter market stock by As The Crow Flies industries… Speaking of industrious – I just went to the Watershed to see the incredible early Russian film ‘Turksib‘ with a live score by Bronnt Industries Kapital. Absolutely mesmerising and beautiful. Everything is rendered so clear and pure in black and white; it gives far more space to simply observe and engage with what’s going on.
whahey!! easter crafty baking joy in Cliftonwood as the Ladies get together for their fourth outing to make simnel cakes and easter nests; undignify themselves blowing eggs (horrible business, especially duck eggs) and getting painty; fondle the chicks that are hatching at an alarming rate in Netty, Jen and Bec’s back room; eat boiled eggs and soldiers with extremely nifty Ukrainian shrink-wrap boiled egg designs on… and other appropriate sorts of activities.
I finally got my marzipan applied and browned this evening, having left far too late last night with a very hot cake and no bike lights to do anything about it before bed yesterday. And this was the exciting result (note the slightly crushed and smudged painted eggs produced especially for the occasion and hung using Holly’s extremely cunning matchstick-and-string Steiner equipment (thus proving the worth of a steiner education for daily living…)
a mo a mass a mat a marmalady moon…. our first try at productivity on a grand scale yielded some rather fine marmalades in January. We rock.
** for things of a more foodie nature – please go to my cookzine which is currently residing at http://frangipanepie.wordpress.com/
… all flowering and bright! Just got some delicious new buttons and brooches out of the kiln this week and have been at Colston Hall selling them from bicycle-stall today at their Spring market…
well… what a weekend, an emergence from hibernation, a getting together of many beautiful people, a whooping up, a gathering of far flung folks before they spin off into the wider world, unlikely to ever be all in the same room together again… what a thought. It seems Bristol is emptying; a diaspora of its own diasporees… Alice and Matthaeus were back for a few days of triumphant post-wedding multiplicitousness, expecting twins to pop out in but a few months. How lovely, how ‘normal’ to have them here, ready to meet for teas, dinners, drinks, saunas, chats. Still, Munich is now their home – in fact, I must get back on the bandwagon and try to procure some tickets to see them before too long. Kate and Ollie, our illustrious Canadians, not forgetting Fin, soon to resume being Canadian, are presently leavinge for pastures old and new in the east of Canada…
What a party they had last Friday. The Polish Club, resplendent with its 1970s Polish football club posters above the bar, long-suffering bar staff and capacious dance floor held the first leg of the farewell tour…which later took us to the horror of Luna Clifton, a positively frightening club beneath the 10 o’clock shop, full of well-watered ladies in the twilight of their middle years sporting a uniform of ill-advised t-shirt dresses, peroxide or jet black coiffures and craggy facepaint… and finally to Ben Neighbour’s flat to waken the dead until 5am, entertaining ourselves with a plethora of fine hats…amongst other frivolities. I was proud to be the last person to wish Ollie goodnight, given my rare all-night party record.
I found it difficult to wear many of the hats at Ben Neighbour’s house due to my being dressed as a snowflake (dress code: what does Canada make you think of?), with a large pastry cutter lashed to my head, amongst other things… this is what I found left of the melted snowflake girl on the morrow…
Well, the sun shone brightly on the day of the market – possibly for the first time with any true gusto this spring, which could account for the slow trickle of art and craft lovers milling through…. However, there were lots of lovely make and do-ers there to meet and peruse. Here’s how my bike-powered stall was looking in early March… Soon might be trying to tout my wares at the Bristol Vintage Velo ride fete and perhaps even Colston Hall’s ‘Made in Bristol’ market later this month. Must admit I’d almost rather be taking part in the vintage dress-up country bike tour rather than trying to sell things!
woop woop… finally my logo stamp designs are back from stempeltempel in time for the Paintworks Spring Art Market tomorrow! What is to stop me from covering every single thing I own in As the Crow Flies logos…
Took part in the rather wondrous art market Checkout at a great temporary contemporary art space (Central Reservation) in Stokes Croft a couple of weeks back.
Really inspiring to be at a market with so many other diverse artists and makers. Good space… Checkout my stall…
browsing through some photos of buttons and things, thought i would post up a range of different styles:
The Gleaners and I – by Agnes Varda…
An amazing film shown by Bristol Indymedia at the Cube. It threw up so many thought provoking images…. hands – and how they are us; reflections of ourself that we can look at; the tools we use to interact with the world and use things, objects; touch people and things; gesture and speak without words. The ways in which people all over interact with waste products – objects left over from the lives and functions of another person or people, objects that take on new meanings when re-appropriated and re-purposed.
To glean: to gather things carefully; to sift out useful remnants of stuff or information.
I like this idea of careful finding – of interpretation through sorting, picking up ends and strands and forming new life or opinions through them. Its how I used to work at university – gleaning the books I needed by slowly reading the titles of all the spines of the books in all the sections i liked the sound of. Its how I interact with nature – slowly sifting my way through beaches for shells left by creatures, softened glass and ceramics left by people and mediated by the sea; hunting through woods and fields for berries and leaves and flowers to eat or dry or just look at. Its how i prefer to attain things – the rummaging in car boot sales, thrift shops, skips, stuff on the street and finding the things that perfectly dovetail into what you want your life to look like without having to look to corporations to tell you what you needed. Its how find what I am doing, by stumbling across things, letting connections happen and finding slowly the things that i need or want to do and make time for. I love to glean – words, poetry, knowledge, artefacts, recipes, images, foods, people, clothes, music: everything gains a certain richness through being a found object – something that others didn’t notice or discarded because they didn’t realise the value or potential. Perhaps that’s part of the fun, the secret knowledge of having got something that others missed. Of having found satisfaction in something that had been left by the wayside. Treasure hunting! Its second nature to me and beautiful to see a whole film full of people who get by in life through treasure hunting – whether via necessity, ethics or a simple desire for the unusual. This lady, Agnes Varda has a really true and unique perspective on the world, a magpie collector of ideas, situations and tiny life stories that are happening all around her, and all of us in fact.
snuck out one night. stole the spots off the backs of the fawns.
they are needed to ease troubled minds. – Mariee Sioux on gleaning
key to photos: gleaned fruit; gleaned patterns; house full of gleanings.
walked home today.. these are the things i saw…
As the Crows Fly 
