The fruit series….

cherry pot

…well, pottery has been a productive heave-ho today. always late. always hurrying. always have a million ideas and not enough time – I need a tardis spacer to make 3 hours stretch into an eternal pottery studio moment… Anyway, back to reality. Excitingly, I’ve been invited to produce a collection of pots to display in the folkhouse vitrines by mid-Feb. So… I’m working quickly (naturally) on getting as many ideas onto clay as possible – the first set is a build on my Christmas pot series of oranges and flowers.

Fruit… there will eventually be oranges, lemons, grapes, cherries, watermelon and peapods ( not exactly fruit but such a satisfying shape to draw ).  So here’s a taste of the first few, all ready to get their first firing.

orange pot

grape pot

lemon pot

peapods

small cherrieslemons 2

Birds of my dreams

Embarking on drawings last year… trying to remember what it was like to produce pictures that felt good.  Some birds happened…. and I like them.  I think both of them capture an idea of freedom – freedom to see the world as you want, freedom to fly in whatever situation you are in, freedom to take the best from everything…. some ideas I needed to engage with, and its good to be reminded of them now and again. So here are the blackbird and the collared dove.

blackbird saw 1 lo even the caged birds singdrawings © Bee hayes/as the crow flies 2013.

Virginia take me home

Feeling very pleased, the buttons are in diaspora! Some of my vintage oxide letterpress buttons have recently migrated to Virginia in the U S of A to be made into delicious crochet things by the beautiful Lindsey….

photo-8

 

So pleased they have been put to good use and taken on a creative journey to be used collaboratively with another maker… That hat! I think we should go into business together…

photo 9

All ready for market…

Everything ready to go for the market on Saturday… flights of wall swallows; owls and owlets; snowflakes and Japanese waterlilies…. click a snap to start the slideshow.

And yes, it’s all for sale!

A bit of a catch up…

So, As the Crow Flies had a fairly busy year for stalls – I say busy, that only means about 5 since last Christmas season but here are a few pics of the past year, as I haven’t posted anything new for while…

Above: Redland Green Christmas fair.  Below:  Windmill Hill Farm Fair.

I’m excited about the new owl brooches!! They sold really well over summer so busy trying to make more before I miss the Christmas bus 🙂

Above: mini stall at Montpelier summer fair.  Below: workspace in my studio at home.

Pottery from the past year…

So, I’ve finally managed to get around to photographing all the little collections of pots I’ve been gleefully taking home with me over the past year… Most of them are in happy use in my kitchen!

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Taken on my kitchen windowsill with some beautiful Nepali lokhta paper as a ground.

New Pottery for Summer

Playing with 1930s motifs created some new pottery… concentrated more fully on decoration for a change:

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In the next post I’ll put some pics of inspirations photos – for some reason putting them on this page destroys the slideshow. Grr.

Cyanotypes

At one stage in my life I decided I was going to be a photographer.. in the end I didn’t pursue that thought very far but I’ve always been really fascinated by ancient photographic processes.  For an overview of this kind of thing and the wonderful and ethereal images that can be produced there’s still an online resource connected to the fantastic British Library exhibition from around 2009-10.

The other day I finally fulfilled my ambition to do a class in cyanotype printing – an early form of photogram producing delicious deep blue and white images using very simple and easy to use chemicals.  I didn’t take many shots during the class but admit that I got more carried away with the mess on the emulsioning table as it slopped about and developed in various stages.  I’ve included a shot of the work as it was coming out of the darkroom – a selection from our whole class…

Nouvelles Objets (ish)

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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.