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.
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!
Taken on my kitchen windowsill with some beautiful Nepali lokhta paper as a ground.
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…
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, 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!
walked home today.. these are the things i saw…
today in Leigh Woods… the beech trees are blessed with the palest lime green or copper pink leaves, screaming out their newness against a carpet of resilient autumn orange. Knee deep in wild garlic listening to the birds i felt the healing power of the outdoors soothing my bruised soul; not the most momentously cheerful of bank holiday weekends but i’m not going to digress into navel gazing wallow… Saw pink and red campions, garlic mustard, dog’s mercury, the nascent blue glow of imminent bluebell groves alongside the fairy whiteness of ramsons’ star flowers dominating patches of the woodlands. photo below of primroses from westonbirt last weekend; an entirely springful day full of primrose and cherry blossom, violets, lesser celandine, speedwell and wood anemones…
Last night i volunteered at the cube cinema for a showing of the Coca-Cola Case -a really inspiring film about the ongoing trial and negotiations of a group of Colombian trade unionists (Sinaltrainal) attempting to bring the despicable giant to book over massive human rights violations and their implication in paramilitary killings of trade unionist leaders and members. Sadly the young workers for the local bottling plant perceive the union to be the preserve of the old and, reading between the lines, those with less to lose – depressing attitude when they then reveal that they make $1 per hour and work 15 hours each day…
Quite a battle; in the end the trade union members refuse their hard won offer of pots of dirty dollars because of the attached restrictions and clauses that would impede the integrity of their union actions. The film was mainly an uplifting documentary of the fairly successful struggle of oppressed workers against an unscrupulous corporation but there were 2 highly demoralising moments: one was watching a bunch of pathetic fat american students wearing sandwich boards proclaiming things like ‘we love coke’, ‘fuck human rights’ (yes, really!!), when activists on campus tried to ban the drink in light of the company’s widespread labour and human rights violations across the globe… oh dear. The other was witnessing an American court discrediting an extremely hard working human rights lawyer by mentioning that he had a poster of Che Guevara in his office…
Live skype discussion with Ray Rogers followed the film; he has been running the Killer Coke campaign since the mid-noughties so that was interesting. Still intrigued, as a worker for a labour rights campaign, as to how he and his comrades scrape together the funding to front such a huge and successful campaign. Mild envy given LBL’s parlous financial state…
As the Crows Fly 
