Terrific Opportunity For Vancouver Island and Gulf Island Artisans!

 The Island Artisans Association has again been offered the beautiful heritage space of Dales Gallery on Fisgard Street in the heart of Chinatown for the months of July and August, 2012.

Last summer, with only a few weeks notice, twenty IAA artisans took advantage of the Dales Gallery opportunity and their work was well received by the public. This year we are looking for at least twice as many participants in order to offer the public a wider range of product. This is also a great opportunity to showcase the work of our artisans to the Victoria market, thus fostering a greater awareness and appreciation locally for fine craft from Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. This is a 60/40 consignment sales framework.  

We need an expression of interest from individual artisans by March 1, 2012, in order to move ahead with this project. There will be a $15 fee for jurying new work.

if you are interested please email me at amusedcreations@shaw.ca and I'll supply further contact info.

Neck Rings

I've made a few more neck rings and am going to make more today. You can see I'm having fun with  colour and textures! The next step will be to get a few into some shops and see how they do sales-wise.

I'm keeping on top of polymer production  work as I wait for the spring clippings to hit the boulevards and my focus shifts over to basketry course work..

Kelp Considerations

Yesterday I paused between taking photos for a mini online tutorial(details coming soon), ordering bezels and getting OUT of this aMused Studio to have a wonderful lunch with good friends to do a Google search for kelp baskets. I was delighted to discover the kelp based experiments and creations of British designer Julia Lohmann. She conducted her some of her experiments in real-time at an open gallery and described carrying a suitcase full of kelp home from Ireland. Having travelled from Ireland and being familiar with the intense scruitiny at the airports there I wished she had given more details of checking that piece of luggage!

Her work is glorious and reminds me that I'll be travelling up the coast of Vancouver Island in a few weeks and hope to collect a nice shiny batch of bull kelp at the beach there. Julia has shown me some wonderful things to do with the luxuriant kelp leaves that I have been leaving behind on the shore!!  

Fibre Fun

Yesterday I hauled out my enormous basket of sari silk ribbons and had a wonderful time coordinating colours to go with resin and polymer pendants. Once again it occured to me that an element I love working with could be incorporated into basketry. I'm imagining a sari silk and metal wire rim on a basket.....

I'm very close to having every available bezel polymered and resin-ed and my inventory boxes are full!

A New Idea

I'm supposed to be clearing up a lot of polymer clay projects so I'll have lots of inventory for shows while I take the  six basketry courses I'm scheduled to attend through the spring . I also have to be ready to collect basketry materials in the form of yard trimmings from my neighbours boulevards as spring cleanup begins. In spite of this I managed to give myself another diversion with this neck ring idea. It's an offshoot of my FuSion bangles. The tips are finished with copper cones and the ring is held with a chain with a hook allowing for a range of adjustability. The clay is buffed to a high sheen with my foredom buffer. This one is a prototype. I think I'll make a few to add to my polymer clay inventory this summer.

It comes to mind that a similar ring could serve as a very interesting rim for a basket!