Big Print Sale!!!

Hello everyone!

It has been a looong time since I last posted. While walking to work this morning I was chatting to a friend and we were both saying how slack we both are at our blogs. So I came home after a big day, had a nap and a dip in the pool and then plonked myself at the computer ... and here we are.

It is almost one year since my spine surgery and although I have had quite a good recovery, my energy levels have never really come back. I am about to go visit my surgeon in a couple of weeks to find out if I am to have my next operation, which is going to set me back a bit, again. But it is hopefully going to bring some much needed comfort and allow me to get some sleep!

So, with all of this looming and my financial situation in quite a poo state, (actually, a very poo state) I am going to have a major clean out of my existing prints. I have just started posting some on my ETSY store - link right here on this very blog. It should be just to the right of this post, see >>> and I have them at much more reduced prices than I was selling them previously at my market stalls. So buy up! It will go to a worthy cause, like helping my handsome anaesthetist fund the lifestyle he is accustomed to!

For my local fans, I am more than happy for you to contact me so you can come to my home to see what I have. And I will be happy to sell to you at a very good price that we will keep to ourselves : D

Go ETSY!!!

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Over the past few years I have enjoyed making this type of work. I don't have to think about it too much, I just do it. And I have really valued being involved in our wonderful local market scene. But I think it is time to make way for some space. Not only in my print drawers, but also my much under-utilised studio, my home and own head space. I need to de-clutter things everywhere. I think it is the whole energy thing, like the side of my brain that is supposed to be creative is dormant due to being hijacked by the side that takes all physical resources required for the body to heal after such trauma. Not much is left at all for making nice things. Actually I have been like that my entire life and know that is why I have never really been outstanding in anything. 


I am constantly clinging to the last of my creative morsels as I drown in this body of mine.


Sounds like this is the talk I have been meaning to have to myself. Yep. It is going to be a while before I can do any art-making if this operation happens. But I will be more than ready, when my silly bones are groaning no more.

The Market this Sunday Feb 26th!

There have been some changes happening with The Market and this Sunday it will emerge with a new look, new layout and new re-energised promotion format. Already it is plainly obvious it is going to be a huge success as it always has been.

I am not exactly sure what is in store. It is going to be a bit more driven toward each seller having free reign to individualise their selling space. I am still trying to figure out how to set up my store. There are several plans I have. Yes, Plan A, B, C and then the plan that evolves about an hour before selling time!

My wares will mainly consist of my wearable items and there are new pieces, such as these longer adjustable necklaces and new earrings. Fuzzy pics, I know. Still lusting after a camera that works better than this one, and a better lighting arrangement.

Come along. The weatherman is telling us to expect 35 deg on Sunday!!! Gosh. In Hobart, that will feel like 50 deg...

Stella

Print Jewellery

I have been working on some new pieces to add to my range of print-based jewellery. Here are two pieces I have recently completed.

Over the past few weeks I have been wearing various prototypes and have had great responses. Mind you, mostly from my friends who are kind of into what I am anyway. Oh I do love my super stylish girlfriends!

Market info to be posted soon xxx

Hello 2012!

Not such a good omen to take more than a week to get my first post up for the year! I think the quiet time I had over the Christmas and New Year break has been a bit hard to shake off. Not much seemed to be going on, mostly because I wanted it that way but I am now trying to be bit more enthused about working in my studio again. I seem to have so many little things going on: small prints that I could sell at markets and my printed jewellery, yet I feel quite discombobulated as I am not getting my teeth into one thing with great interest. And it worries me a bit so might try to consolidate and get serious about something. Hm. And some other things are brewing, so hoping they happen. More on that later.


One of my problems is that my gorgeous geared press is still stuck in the house and yet to be moved into the studio. But, I still have my little press to use, and hopefully some bloke-ish type blokes will move it over the next month or so. I would love that to happen overnight, courtesy of the Printmaking Fairy.


But for now, my plan is to clear my desk. Not my real desk (although it does need it!), but I need to wrap up all of the little jobs that have stacked up and only take on things I really feel like doing. Today I did wrap up one of those jobs, which was an ongoing edition of prints for Saffire, on the East coast of Tasmania. Ink is such a beautiful thing to work with but as I was wiping off each plate I was only kept going by the thought of finally finishing the edition. Thus, I decided to pop down a bit of information and calculation on how much effort went into this small-ish edition:

• Edition of 20, plus 2 Artists Proofs
• The print is a triptych, using 6 collagraph plates 
• 3 of these plates were colour ink-up for the background and the other three were black ink-up for the image itself.
• Some of the colour plates were multi-colour and took about 45 minutes to ink the background plates. alone. In total an hour to print each triptych.
• 20 hours just to print the edition. Add on another 5 hours or so for colour proofing, preparation and clean up.
• 6 passes through the press for each triptych. 
• 22 prints x 6 passes = 132 passes (20 prints and 2 x AP's in the edition)
• 6 prints x 6 passes = 39 passes  (these sets were proofs)
• 171 passes through the press in total. 

I just wanted to share that with the group!

So, this is it. December 31 is almost gone and in a few hours it will be my 5oth new year that I will welcome. And funny enough I am spending it alone, which, from memory, is the first time EVER I have been alone. Well, not quite, as I have my son's little kitten and his young dog with me while he is at the Falls Festival, where everyone else happens to be, even Tom.


2011 was my year of many things of all sizes. Most of them I can't remember but the second half was all about having my surgery and the tough recovery. Which is going good, and I am now very happy to be finally morphine free (that was my Christmas/New Year project) and looking forward to starting the year with a bit more clarity and strength. Being stuck on morphine for over 6 months is why I don't remember the first half of 2011!


This photo was taken at Sacre-Coeur, with my gorgeous friends last year. It is the only pic I have that I felt matched the going of one year and the coming of another. So, with an international flavour, I wish my friends abroad in many exotic locations and also at home in Australia, a very Happy New Year.


Out with 2011, I say. And hellloooooo 2012!

A Christmas Post

It seems funny having Christmas lurking around the corner and not having decked halls, or any decking out happening anywhere at all in my house. My son left home a few years ago, thus my excuse for dealing with the annual problem of removing an almost dead post-Christmas pine tree from the living room was easy. No boy at home, no tree either. But I seem to be having a bit more of emotional time this year. Perhaps as it has been the year to out-do all other years that I felt the need to decorate in true Xmas fashion. (I used Xmas there as I detest that mode of spelling, along with detesting most commercial decorations) I didn't have the budget or physical ability to do much, so I created this little Christmas chandelier in my humble kitchen, using my very retro plastic bubble light shade from the 70's which I dressed up with decorations I made for my son's first Christmas in 1990. It was lovely to put them up again, and I remember how much I loved being a new mother and preparing for Rossi's Christmas, especially his first. Mind you, at that age babies have no idea and it is all about the wrapping paper, then there are a few good years when you can delight them with surprises, then it kind of goes all limp when they start asking for cash instead of presents.

I don't go to church unless someone gets married or dies, or it visiting something fabulous like the Notre Dame. My Christmas is not a religious one. But I am compelled to pop a few words down this year. Yes, to my followers whom I can count on one hand, here are the only words of thanks I will speak of. 

I would like to thank the universe for my beautiful young man-son Rossi and the family Scott, my Tom and the family Vincent. Along with my surgeons, GPs, nurses and health workers, scoliosis forum friends, close friends, not-so-close friends, acquaintances, dogs, cats, little birds in my backyard, children, strangers on the bus and the many beautiful creative people in my life who have enabled me to find a shining end to 2011.

Merry Christmas to all!

Christine xxx