I will be in the gallery tomorrow morning.

Hello! Mike and I have been moving furniture a lot today. It was exhausting. We are doing a mock-up for Ceramic Art London. My arms are already aching.

I will be in the gallery tomorrow morning. If you would like to hear stories about my works in strong Japanese accent, please come! :D

Here is one my latest works in the exhibition. Into the woods.

Hope and Freedom were also sold. Thank you so much!

Hope and Freedom - Sold

WHITE BALANCE, until 29th March, Sunbury Embroidery Gallery
Sunbury Embroidery Gallery Event Page

The Mushroom Age and the Rock Age

I have been very busy. I have made quite a few new works already and also busy at my desk. I have talked to the gallery today and heard that Mushroom Age was sold last Friday! How marvelous! Then I found out later that she is going to a lovely artist! Hooray!

The Mushroom Age - sold 

The Mushroom Age- side view - Sold

So now only one of the trilogy is available. Here is the Rock Age.

The Rock Age

WHITE BALANCE, until 29th March, Sunbury Embroidery Gallery
Sunbury Embroidery Gallery Event Page

WHITE BALANCE - the exhibition with Alan Emsden at Sunbury

The Sunbury gallery is elliptical, a boat shape.  On one wall, there are large embroidery pieces made by the community. The exhibition is on the other wall.  

Hope (left) and Freedom (right) 

Hope and Freedom

Alan's beautiful embossed works are very elegant. The big head, Answer was in the box, had lots of admirers. The small one on the window was sold before PV. 

Answer was in the box (sold)

After the setting up on the 4th, I asked Mike to make a higher mask stand for the Tree Age. She has gone to a wonderful lady on PV. Left is Herald. 

Alan Emsden's works on the wall.
Herald, The Mushroom Age, The Tree Age and The Rock Age (from left) 

The Tree Age (sold)

There is a large Out of sorts in the middle. and the corner has several pieces including new ones.

On this photo, you can see the details of Alan's work. The corner has, from top, Into the woods, three Angels, Ancient Japanese child and Spring.    

The corner

The other side of the room has the glass cabinet. The works in it are for the customers to take home on purchase.  A bronze-goold wren and a few rabbits have gone to lovely ladies while I was there.

The exhibiton is until the 29th March. The gallery has a wonderful walled garden with a lovely cafe. Do visit to see the exhibition and enjoy the day in a relaxed atomshpere. The Hampton court palace is 5 minutes drive from there, if you want to cram the day!

The show is on!

PV for our exhibition, WHITE BALANCE, went sucessfully yesterday, thanks to all people who have come and to all the hard-working saff at the Sunbury Embroidery Gallery.  

There were loads of people, and how much I would like to show you the photos of that! But alas, non! As I was chatting with guests and visitors at PV, I asked Mike to take photos. Mike had a different idea for good photos of the PV. He has waited until end when most people had left, and took photos of my works in empty space. Sigh. 

Nonetheless, Alan and I were very happy. We had good sales before and during PV, too. Thank you so much! I hope all enjoyed the evening. 

It was so lovely to see the customers who came to the Teddington Art Fair and Windsor, again, and also to meet new people! It was also exciting to meet a lovely lady customer, who came with her daughter. We had known each other on Twitter. It was wonderful to meet people who I met on Internet!    

I'm still recovering from setting up. Muscles ache and a sort of jet lag is bothering me despite having a lie in untill 11:30am yesterday. As we didn't get back home until 11pm last night, that didn't help. 

I will share more photos next time! : ) 

     

Hidden creatures

The car is loaded. Now all I have to do is to have a good night sleep and drop the works at the Sunbury Embroidery Gallery tomorrow. Our reliable pet sitter, Tony, Mike's brother, is here, so we could go without worries. Thank you so much!

We just hope that we could go through London without any delay tomorrow morning. Sunbury-on-Thames is located at the edge of Surrey on the border to west London. It is close to Twickenham, the home for England rugby, the Hampton Court and Teddington where I did an art fair last year; Alan and I were selected there for this exhibition. We wanted to visit a few galleries in the Hampton Court whilst waiting for the setting up, unfortunately they are closed on Mondays. We think we have got too little time to visit the Hampton Court. We will see what there is on offer tomorrow.

Here are a couple of photos of the back of the Tree Age. It is one of my latest masks. You can't see them unless you purchase the mask!

The little weasel is hiding behind the tree! 

A couple of rabbits are there! 

Why do I make something people can't see in a show? It's fun! I know they are there. That's sometimes enough for me to make them!

Sometimes my signature is not visible on my works. Only after you break them you can see it.  But please don't break them for that. Once a while, I forget to carve it whilst the clay is dump. So you may not find anything inside and have a broken sculpture!

Come to see my work in Etsy Art Exhibition OPEN!

I am delighted to tell you that my work has been selected for Etsy's first ever art exhibition in London! I am thrilled to be part of it!

I had to keep it quiet for a while until the official announcement. How exciting! There will be 15 UK artists in this exhibition. It is the same week as the Frieze is held in London.

Do come along if you can! I will be at the 'Meet the artists' event on Saturday!.

Friday Oct 17 - 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday Oct 18 - 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday Oct 19 - 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
5th Base Gallery, 23 Heneage St, London E1 5LJ

Curator talk: "Start Your Own Art
Collection," Friday, October 17 at 4 p.m.

"Meet the Artists", Saturday, October 18
from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Here is the link to the Etsy announcement. 

Storm, Oracle and EarthBoundWomen

Imagine my delight when I saw this photo sent by a wonderful lady, ceramic artist, in Germany. She kindly sent me a message that the chameleon had arrived safely. She says the chameleon would stay there. How funny! I just imagine guests' surprises!

Now she lives in a beautiful loving home in Germany

I have been busily working everyday. 'What is the weekend?' is the world I live in. I prepared the work for bisque firing, and started this evening.  On of of my target this year is to improve efficiency of firings. To load the kiln as full as possible, and to start preparing work in advance while they are greenware are two things I particularly had in my mind.    

Top shelf

Although the kiln doesn't look full in the photo, it actually is. The arm of the body is very close to the lid. The lower shelf is also fullish. I forgot to take photos!   

Loading the kiln is sometimes tiring. This evening it was very much so because of this, Storm. It has been a headache to dry, handle and carry.  Literally I held my breath so many times, so I feel exhausted. The hair may not surviving firing. We will see!  

Storm

Oracle was finished yesterday. Her head is being fired, and her body is drying slowly. She is a large girl.   

Oracle

 She has a bird spirit on her head.

Oracle- details

Talking about bird spirit, Pumpkin the queen chicken, looks beautiful with shiny feathers. She rarely digs the soil now. She is 10, and she is definitely slowing down.  So Mike (main pig)  and I (assistant pig) dig for her once a while so that she could pick juicy white grubs! She thinks we are her pigs. 'My pigs came, and dug the soil for me. Find tasty grubs for me! Work, work! '

Pumpkin, the queen chicken. 

Mid-afternoon, we went to a PV of EarthBound Women exhibition at Horsebridge in Whitstable. Six female artists are showing their works; painting, ceramics and prints. They are diverse and so interesting to see them together. It will be on the show until the 18th. You should pop in and take a look if you are in Whitstable!

The Horsebridge in Whitstable

We had a good chat with the ever chirpy Harriet there. Glad to hear that she got rid of flu. She is geared up for her presentation next week! : )

That's it today.  They say it will be another warm day tomorrow. I might be able to work in the garden. That would be wonderful! Have great rest of the weekend, everyone!

PV at Mascalls gallery

Hello everyone. I had a splendid day yesterday! In the afternoon, we went to PV at the Mascalls gallery. When we arrived, we found some of my work were already sold. How lovely!

Catalogue

The exhibition looked great. Even though we saw it the day before, it felt different when lots of visitors were around. Having visitors is the last piece of the puzzle in a gallery space. We have looked at each work carefully again. I liked Running Bird by Bernard Meadows most. It looks a bit like running chicken to me! It was also interesting to see shadows of Henry Moore among the sculpture. It was probably impossible not be influenced by Moore if you did sculpture in UK in the last century.

Running bird

My space looks like this.

My space

Waiting for the next bang II (Sold)

Empress ( Sold)

And all little rabbits were gone.

Now all went to loving homes! (sold)

New chapter for my work

Hello everyone. Yesterday Mike and I went to the gallery to do the take down of my exhibition, Clouds, part 2. We went in after lunch to wrap the purchases. About four we started taking down everything else, luckily there weren't many left. Usually people can only collect their purchase after the exhibition finishes, but as it is Christmas, they made an exception. Some works had already been collected earlier.

Messenger from the North - sold

It is very difficult to find a parking space at this time of the year in Canterbury. Mike dropped me off at the nearest car park to the gallery, but he had to go to another car park as there was no space available. Unfortunately it was raining all day, sometimes cats and dogs.

Angel II - sold

A wonderful thing was that I had the chance to meet customers who came to collect their purchases. What a pleasure! It is such delight to meet them. They told me why they are attracted by what I made. It was truly precious. Thank you so much for coming on such a miserable rainy day. You made our day!

Wind - sold

They start their new lives with their new people. They found lovely people to live with. They are very lucky!

Shadow - sold

I am resting today. We had better decorate the tree before Christmas. But from tomorrow, I will go back to my creation. Creating is totally relaxing to me, and that's what I need to do.

Cloud II - sold

I will share some photos of my new work with you over the holiday. 

Wolf - sold

Dawn and Dusk - Clouds part 2

Hello everyone. I had a lovely afternoon today. I visited a lady who lives nearby. She lives in such a beautiful house that I was inspired. Clutter free and a full of art she and her husband have collected. She is an artist, too. How wonderful! Her garden also looked very nice in December! Now I have got a bit of time, I should make more effort for our house. I can't keep blaming the dogs and parrots for everything!

Today I am going to share the last of my new work in the Clouds exhibition part 2. This is Dawn. She carries padlocks

Dawn

This is Dusk. I gave her a pair of cat ears. I left naturally formed cracks on her body and filled with gold enamel. I love the effect. She carries gold keys.

Dusk

They are separate pieces, but I displayed them together on a plinth. On the night as I set up the previous exhibition, I had a vision of two cats on the chimney breast of the room my exhibition is in. They were cats with girls' faces, not heads like mine. The image kept coming back to my mind, so I made them. I struggled with naming them. First I wanted to call Dawn Riddle, but couldn't find the name for Dusk - Puzzle didn't sound right! After consulting Mike, he came up with Dawn and Dusk.    

Back side

Dawn looks mysterious and Dusk looks a bit happier. I did enjoy making them. I might make more feline girls in future.

New masks in Clouds part 2

Hello everyone. How was your day? We have run errands from morning until mid afternoon. Since then, I have made more little ones. I keep on making, so I don't let 'dark clouds' creeps into my life.

Yesterday I saw an old lady whom I sometimes meet during dog walks. She was alone. So I asked her where her dog was. She had to put him to sleep due to pancreas disease. She said she has misses him. We both became tearful. She said she has to keep going, so now she trots by herself. I promised her to have a chat when we meet again. I know her late dog's name, but not hers. It is time to get to know her. She lives alone and she is 78 years old.

*

I went to Sidney cooper gallery to deliver one of the sculptures this afternoon. It was very nice to see visitors smiling when they see my works. This brightened my heart.

I haven't shared all photos of my new work in the show yet. So I will upload the rest over a couple of posts.

Empress

Empress - details

My masks were inspired by African tribes, the Surma and the Mursi as well as Old Chinese paintings. African tribes decorate their faces and bodies in very artistic way. They look very wild yet beautiful. If that is not art, I don't know what art is. I wanted to create something wild and strangely beautiful, too.

Then I somehow made Empress, which reminds me of old Chinese court ladies. When I made her, I wanted to visit Chinese paintings exhibition in V&A; I booked tickets. So that must had been in my mind.

Poet

Poet -details

He is more influenced by the body art of African tribes. But I also feel a bit of ancient European civilization in him. I love his hair, Empress's and Forest boy's. The style is new to me, and I am very happy with them. I would like to play more on the textures in near future.







    

Wonderful PV, Clouds part 2

Hello everyone. Yesterday evening, Mike and I had a great time at the PV in the Sidney Cooper gallery. We met some wonderful people and also had a catch up with some good old friends. Thank you so much!

We went promptly just after it opened. Imagine my delight when I found two of my works had already been sold. How wonderful! Then one of my female busts somehow found a new home even though it was not in the show. How lovely! I met lovely people who purchased my works, and also had good chats with them. People often say it is nice to meet artists. From my point of view, it is so nice to meet customers and clients. I always enjoy learning why they chose certain pieces and also their interpretation of my work.

Protector of little birds is holding a little bird, our Mochaccino (you can read about his life). He is still with us. But he is blind, paralysed and very weak. He lives in a shoe box on a heat pad in my office. We find him upside down once a while. He has no strength to turn up. We gently put him up. If you have lived with very old animals or animals with terminal illness, you know all you can do to them is to give them as comfortable life as possible till the last moment. Still I am fully aware that the last days in their lives are a real struggle. I pray that he feels less discomfort and less pain.

Protector of little birds (Sold)

Mochaccino is a special bird. He is a chosen one. He survived as twice long as the average Bicheno finches. He is also a fighter. He still gets angry when I wipe his bottom with warm water.

But when I made his guardian, her face was sad and her eyes are in tear. She shares his pain. She knows the end is nigh. Initially I wanted to make her with more hope, but I couldn't.
 

Protector of little birds (sold)

Protector of little birds (detail) 

******

This is 'Breeze'. She is the most innocent girl I have ever made. She is a little sister of 'Wind'.

Breeze (sold)

Breeze (sold)

Backside

Her sister 'Wind' is more willful. She has swirls on her body. I like her hair!

Wind

Wind

Wind

This little boy is 'Forest boy'. He and other two masks I will show you next time are literally my latest work. He came out of the kiln a day before the setting up the show. He was popular yesterday evening.

Forest boy (sold)

Forest boy (sold)

Today, Cloud II also found a new home. She is so pretty.  She greets you when you enter the Side room.

Clouds II (Sold)

That's it today. I will share the photos of other works next time. The exhibition continues until 21 December, Please come!  : ) Details.