The final trimester of my MA in Fine Art has begun and last week we did our midpoint presentations and exhibition, so it’s time to take a breather for a minute and catch you up before I plunge back in for the home stretch towards my final degree show in September!

The presentation I gave last week as part of my course might be a good way to summarise for you where the project has got to so far, as we were tasked with communicating to our fellow students and tutors all the work we’ve been doing since Christmas, where we’ve got to now and what we’re planning for our final show.
You can click HERE to see the PDF or click on the images below to enlarge.

I’d genuinely love to know what you think, as I am very much in the middle of working out how to improve this and adjust it to better communicate my concept. So if you have time, I’d love to hear your feedback - how does it make you feel? What does it make you think of? What things do you feel are currently working well and what needs further work? Don’t worry I won’t be offended (I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want you to be honest!) Use the comments below or email me HERE with your thoughts!

Want to see more? You can follow my work in progress on a week by week basis - join me on my journey over the next 14 weeks leading up to installing my show by following me on social media here on FACEBOOK or INSTAGRAM.

One of the things that I’m researching as part of my Masters degree is different materials, mediums, techniques and equipment for making sculpture. I explored many new things last term from needle felting and wet felting, wood carving, expanding foam, plaster moulds, ceramic construction and sculptural embroidery. And this term the adventures continue…

And I’m already lining up my next exploration which is chainsaw carving, having purchased the safety equipment and booked an introduction induction with a local expert - exciting times!

Life has been a bit of a whirlwind in this final year of my Masters Degree in fine art and I’m struggling to keep you updated with all the things I’m doing! One of the things keeping me busy is taking part in several exhibitions, which has been really exciting to get an opportunity to share my sculpture in public for the first time. Let me share a couple of these exhibitions with you.

Here is my Hidden Potential series as part of Cambridge School of Art installation hosted by Cambridge Art Fair in the fabulous ballroom at Cambridge University Arms Hotel

And here is the series developed further in an MA Collective Interim show called “This is not a shoe shop” situated in unit 15 of Grafton Centre Cambridge. Exhibiting midway through the final year of my Masters degree with 6 of my fellow students from Cambridge School of Art.

I have at least 2 more exhibitions booked in the next few months before my final degree show in September.... so watch this space!

Today I am celebrating - I have completed my assignments for my MA course this term, which means I can start getting ready for Christmas AND it means I can show you what I've been up to!

Because my assignment has to be handed in digitally it means it's super easy to share with you! Click on the images below to take a look.

I have really been in my element, following my dreams, and I'm just getting started!
What unfulfilled creative dreams are you sitting on that could maybe be unearthed in 2022 I wonder?!!

As the temperature drops and clocks have changed here in the UK, I’m starting to think about Christmas. 49 sleeps! (yes I have an app on my phone)! I love the family time, the festive food, giving pressies, lounging in PJs, the decorations!
Life has been super busy jumping back into my Masters degree course in Fine Art this term (after having taken a year off due to Covid) and I have to admit there are moments when thoughts of resting and doing nothing at Christmas are what’s keeping me going! That’s when all the academic stuff starts getting on top of me - and there sadly seems to be rather a lot of that this term - HOWEVER there has also been a lot of FUN as well and I thought you guys would like to see some of it!

I’m planning to use this last year of my MA to learn to create sculpture, so I’m trying lots of different mediums to see which ones I like and to make use of the equipment and technical support while I have it. I hope to work with clay, plaster, wood, felt, foam & textiles (almost all of which is new to me).
My work is inspired by seed pods where I'm focussing on creating contrast between the inside and outside (the life and potential within vs the rough exterior). Here is some of my experimentation thus far.

I’ve also done a whistle stop tour of many places trying to see as much sculpture as I can.

Things are moving at quite a pace and I’ll have much more to show you in a month’s time! For now, back to fun with expanding foam! See you soon!

As you know I started a Master degree in Fine Art in September 2019. It's something I've wanted to do for a REALLY long time, something I was thoroughly loving, and I was milking the opportunity for all  it was worth! I'd chosen to do it 'part time' over 2 years so I could make use of the facilities for longer, I was going into college every day and getting to try all sorts of new techniques, mediums and equipment.

With no more access to facilities the end of my 2nd trimester moved into teaching online and working from home. My 2nd module is now complete but my course has become unrecognisable from what it is meant to be. With my summer term module focussed on writing a dissertation, without access to a library I decided enough was enough and have deferred for a year.
A sad but necessary decision that many on my course don't have the luxury of making. I am really hoping that in a years time, things will have gone back to normal enough, for me to get stuck in again to college life.

At the start of the Covid crisis it seemed (I appreciate this wasn't everyone) that many people had a lot of time on their hands, chance to do those jobs you never quite get round to, chance to be creative etc... whilst I was juggling homeschooling, supporting a medic and 2 teens alongside working towards my MA deadline and getting more and more exhausted.
Homeschooling and childcare will continue for a few more months but I now have time to do some catching up. The MA has been pretty intense (mostly of my own making) while other areas of life have been shelved. Now I get to sort out those cupboards, update the photo albums and tend to family tasks. I also have time to focus a bit more on my art business, my website, my marketing etc.

Maybe I'll even find the time to write more blogs! Watch this space :)

Well I’ve finally reached the end of my 2nd term, having been working on this module since January!
With Covid 19 rudely interupting this trimester, I have needed to present all my work in a digital format for handing in, which actually makes it nice and easy to share with you guys!
I’ve made a video of my portfolio and have discovered ISSUU.com where I’ve had fun making little flip books of my sketchbooks (I say little, it’s actually 130 pages!). I'll even share my essay summary (including bibliography) - as I know some of you love that sort of detail!

Click below on each section to take a look at the parts that interest you, and feel free to ask me any questions in the comments below.

And now for a well earned and much needed rest!

Well this term has certainly not progressed in the way I thought it would!
This current module was always rather complicated with many elements to juggle all at the same time. I was branching out into 3 dimensions, working with clay and the potters wheel for the first time, and with this project being a site-specific focussed piece, I’ve also needed to consider which site would be suitable for sharing my art and how this would work in their space.
Yes things were complicated enough before Corona Virus reared it’s ugly head, meaning that art facilities, equipment and materials couldn’t be accessed, potential sites for sharing my art couldn’t be visited, teaching moved onto Zoom (not a great platform for group discussion amongst 20 people) and of course homeschooling began!
BUT I’ve adjusted and adapted and somehow managed to keep making progress.

Would you like to see what I’ve been up to this month?!

With this module being about site specificity my aim is to show it in a women’s centre for either those who’ve been in prison or those with a history of domestic abuse. It’s a piece about being more than the sum of our parts ‘celebrating the value and awesomeness of each unique individual. From the cellular building blocks and genetic makeup we’re made from to outside influence shaping us. There is only one wonderful you.’ I wanted to share it with those maybe struggling with their sense of self worth.

Inspired by the responses of my group in the crit, I have designed an installation space as my final piece, which I think could work well in a community space, and I’ve been making their dream of huge body cells a reality!

I started by creating a large fingerprint screen, which I used to print several sheets of material as well as various paper for collaging

Then I cut the shapes ready for sewing and had a lot of fun with my very old sewing machine.

I think it helped having a medic in the family as I could see how fast things were about to change with the Corona Virus and I prioritised accordingly - I knew I needed to get together what I needed before limitations struck. I crammed as many hours into my last few days of access as I could, and created 30+ prints in the print room. I was also thrilled to collect my ceramic pieces fresh from the kiln to bring home.

Sadly our college have decided we have to continue ‘as normal’, although we have been given a 2 week extension and everything has to be handed in digitally - which creates a lot more work (videos, photos, editing etc). However this does mean that once I have my completed work in a digital format it will be available to share with you guys.

Once my fabric pieces were sewn, I collected large ball lights from my friend, I created a projection (using a projector I’d managed to borrow from my church before lockdown) and I found lots of soft stuff from around the house to bulk out the comfort of the space.
My intention had been to add a splash somehow to my ceramic tile to represent the personality and uniqueness - the ‘more’ bit of the phrase ‘more than the sum of our parts’. After playing with ideas in Photoshop I decided not to splat the actual ceramic piece as it would look too busy, but instead to make it look like it’s created a splash, by painting the wall behind it (this would be created from sticky vinyl sheet when I share the work in a gallery or one of the sites I’ve been researching).
I added a shelf of 5 separate pots each with different intricate things inside, as an interactive element. I used fishing wire to hang the smaller cells from the ceiling.
Here are some pictures.

It’s been quite a month but I won’t get much of a break until I get to my deadline in May. In my next monthly MA update I should be able to show you the conclusion to my work this term including a video of the installation.

Have a very happy Easter and stay safe.

Last week was week 8 of my 2nd term doing a Masters Degree in Fine Art at Cambridge school of Art, so it’s time for an update.

This was mainly a month of me jumping feet first into the medium of clay for the first time - now that conjures up an interesting mental image! It began on the potters wheel, not the easiest place to start!

I spent over 20 hours on the wheel in my first week, with 23 attempts at throwing a pot.  Day 1: one survived out of 8; day 2: four out of 8 survived (but I killed 3 of these the following day ‘turning’ the base!), day 3 I only killed 2 of the 7 and was able to go larger, round and taller. By the end of the 2nd week I had enough pieces to play with but was aware I was beginning to get sucked into the perfectionist’s need in me to master this - when I didn’t actually need to and had to force myself to “step away from the wheel”! I felt like the pieces I’d made were more about me stopping just before they collapsed, rather than being in control of what I was doing but they will do. I had thought I’d really enjoy this, I like getting messy and learning new things but I found the process a bit stressful, feeling on the brink of disaster all the time and the intensity is rather exhausting! Saying all that, I’m really glad I’ve given it a try, feel a great sense of achievement and am pleased with what I’ve made.
Here's a little movie of me in action.

My next job was building pieces by hand, which I’ve not done for 30 years since I was at school and all I remember was “do it properly otherwise it will blow up in the kiln and may destroy other peoples work as well as your own”! However, I found this much more relaxing and therapeutic as an activity and it suited the results that I wanted.
I decided to make 2 main pieces - the original plan being a square plaque with the body cells arranged in an orderly way to represent the amazing order and design inside of us, with the other I wanted to try something more organic looking, so created a bowl in which I could group them more randomly. I also had a handful of slightly larger pots from the wheel to experiment with later.

I knew that there was going to be a kiln firing while I was away in Madrid for the week (see previous blog post about my trip) and I used this as a helpful deadline to bring my pieces to a conclusion ready for their first bisque firing. On my return from Spain I was utterly thrilled that nothing had indeed blown up in the kiln, so I then set to work to prepare them for their earthenware firing the following week. I used an underglaze to add colour before dipping them in a transparent glaze which I used as a glue to stick them all together.

I worked out that up until this point I have spent over 100 hours on these pieces of ceramics. On Tuesday I got to collect them from the kiln room and the technician was really excited to show them to me - which was lovely!

They are still not completely done. I want to add some yellow to them, as I feel that’s needed - I’ve been told enamel (airfix) paint would be good for this. Then I want to experiment with adding a large ‘splat’ to some of the work to represent our uniqueness/personality/spirit - I will explore using plaster and paint for this. Katy the technician was really reluctant to sell me the bag of plaster as she doesn’t want me to mess up what I’ve done! But I have a concept to deliver!

If you want to hear more about the module I'm working on and my inspiration or if you haven’t seen my other monthly MA updates since I started in September and would like to find out more about what I've been doing, follow this link and you can scroll back through them.

The world has turned upside down with Corona virus and this week has been escalating for us here in the UK, which of course impacts everyone and everything, my MA included. But let me save that story for next time - then I can tell you about what actually happens rather than pondering on what might be around the corner!

I’ve just arrived back from a trip to Madrid with Cambridge School of Art and wanted to share with you some of my highlights - I will try to limit this so as not to overwhelm (I took a million photos), but you want a good look at all the art, right?!
First some obligatory tourist shots of food, flags and fantastic graffiti!

The great thing about not being in charge of the itinerary is that I got to go to places and see art that I would never have chosen to see - a bredth of styles, medium and ages that has filled many gaps in my art knowledge and provided me with a whole new pool of research and inspiration for my own art. From the weird and wonderful 14th century triptychs of Museo del Prado to the quirky, vibrant lego pieces of the Contemporary Art Fair.
Let me take you through each gallery, sharing my highlights and name dropping the key famous art pieces - click each gallery and artists for more info.

A renovated power station with a vertical garden and awesome staircase! An exhibition called 'Painting, an ongoing challenge', with themes of Aura, Monochrome, Enigmatic, Expressive geometry and Mutations, I really enjoyed the curation of this show. I was especially impacted by thse size of a lot of the art and Gerhard Richter has always been a favourite.

It was the variety of sculptures, and the eyes painted by Vincente Lopez Portana that drew me in this exhibition. There might have been some famous artists I could name drop but these were the stand out pieces for me in this place.

Goya, Velazquez and Rubens would be the names to drop in this gallery (to mention but a few) but my highlight was Hieronymus Bosch from the 14th Century. Who I had never met before and despite their age surprised me with how contemporary and modern they were.

Many names to drop in this place - ones even I had heard of: Picasso, Miro, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Delauney, Degas, Toulouse Lautrec, Van Gogh, Renoir, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Pollock, de Kooning, Ernst, not to mention the 2 solo shows of Joan Jonas and Rembrandt, and the whole floor I didn't even get to see.
I realised that I was significantly drawn to a number of pieces not because of what they were about but because of how they made me feel (an important point to remember wrt my own art work) - with a few surprises like a Renoir, which would normally be too chocolate boxy for my taste but had an atmosphere it created that I found really special. Here are details of my top favourites - as my week in Madrid unfolded I was drawn to photograph close ups of pieces more than the whole as I felt it helped me identify with the artist and their artwork on a different level.

I've never been much of a fan of video art, either too weird and 'arty' (meaning low quality) or like a documentary, I don't want to sit in a dark room with headphones on wondering how long it's going to take! But the Joan Jonas exhibition above had begun to change my mind and I could see there was some potential that I might want to think about tapping into for my own work. This Bill Viola exhibition took things to a whole new level for me.
Yes some of it was weird, yes it was in the dark and it was painfully slow - but that was the whole point, it was about the passage of time. As I applied a bit of patience, adjusted, left a piece and came back to see how it had changed, I found it really inspiring and profound.

This was an absolutely massive place full to the brim of a wide variety of modern artists and mediums. Being so large allowed for art work to really have space to breath, room for the gigantic and whole areas given over to installation art - from tails protruding from cupboard doors, to huge blocks of metal.

I was most impacted by art with texture - several pieces made with concrete and plaster.

Again this gallery could brag about exhibiting all the key names, including hosting Picasso's 'Guernica' which was kept under careful guard! But my favourite artist was the Spaniard Miguel Angel Campano who I'd not heard of before and was in a temporary exhibition. I found his scale and expression really exciting!

This was a solo show by Mario Merz (sculptor & painter) - pretty quirky with neon tubes and a variety of igloos. The most interesting part of this exhibition for me was that I learnt about the Fibonacci sequence (which his work was based on) - linked to the golden ratio maths equation that creates patterns found in nature (such as the fir cone, pineapple, curled fern leaves etc).

The last day of our week in Madrid was spent exploring the art of 1350+ artists at this massive art fair and what a wonderful source of inspiration I found this! I had thought by this point in the week that I would have exhibition fatigue but not a bit of it, I'd just learnt to search out the work relevant and exciting to me and not worry about the rest! Of course for me colour and gesture were the biggest draws.

Let me finish with a mash up movie of all the little videos I took, as sometimes photos just don't do the job!

I was pretty daunted about going to Madrid, if I'm honest. I didn’t really know people booked on the trip (a cross section of different fine art courses) and am always a bit out of my comfort zone travelling (which my trip to America in October hasn't helped with!). However it was totally worth me facing my fears. I’ve made new artist friends and come home with a list of things to action just from the conversations and networking that took place. Madrid is a treasure trove of art - if you ever get a chance to visit, I highly recommend it!