SPRING 2017 NEWSLETTER

Crocuses, daffodils, Irises and blossom budding – Spring is springing and it's time I wrote my termly newsletter summary.
This is the first time that I have posted one of these in my blog - follow this link for my past newletters.
It's been a year now since I decided to pull back on my crochet business and focus on fine art, so how's it going?

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Crochet: less is more – I did zero craft fairs this Christmas (not for the want of an invitation). I have closed my Folksy shop, now strictly limit the range and colours of product I sell locally and on line, and have significantly increased my prices. I enjoy crochet as a way to relax and I feel it is useful at the moment to keep my crochet connections open but have very much downsized things. In this more 'dormant' season I have still had some interesting opportunities come my way – my bauble was featured in Woman's Weekly magazine alongside John Lewis and Next decorations in December, and I've been approached with the proposition of a means to outsource my manufacturing and increase my crochet business (very tempting but I felt this wasn't right for me for now).

Painting coach – by May I will have completed a year with Pattie Ann Hale who I have Skype sessions once a week with from America. She has introduced me to daily doodling, watercolours, Kinesthetic/action art and inadvertently increased my confidence in my written words resulting in poetry and blog writing.

Blog – I have a passion to stir creativity in others and one of the ways I seek to do this is by being brutally honest about my journey in my blog posts. I take time to share what I'm up to regularly on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well. I've accepted that self promotion on social network sites is a necessary part of establishing myself as an artist, but hopefully my aim for transparency helps to make the idea of being an artist more accessible to people.

Digital Art – since January I have been trying digital art as a means of doodling and making preparatory sketches for paintings. So I've now moved from wool hanging out of my handbag in the postoffice queue to fingertip scribbles on my iphone! I can, and do, create art where ever I go!

Painting live – I have been painting at the front of our church on a Sunday as part of the worship team once a month for over a year now. I also paint monthly at our prayer and praise evening and have been invited to paint at a few other events too. With this quantity of opportunities to paint live I often end up painting more in public than I do in private, which is slightly bizarre (especially for one who still considers herself a beginner!) In 2016 I painted in public 25 times!

Exhibitions, commissions & sales – I had 8 sales last year (5 of which were commissioned pieces), one of these was my first Ltd edition giclee print. I had a solo exhibition and took part in a group exhibition both at City Church Cambridge. I was also invited to exhibit my work in Cindy's Cafe as part of the Cambridge University CU Mission in February.

Curating City Church Gallery Space – I continue to take responsibility for organising the gallery space in our church as a natural extension of my heart to encourage creativity in others. I've been thrilled to help many first timers exhibit their work as well as the amazing professionals we have within our congregation. We've had photographers, architects, poets, textile artists, mixed media, glass, painters, a fashion designer and even scientists. A particular highlight was hanging my lovely hubbies photography for his first exhibition last month. See our Arts Page for the current display.

Cambridge Open Studios – I have taken the plunge and joined Open Studios in Cambridge, see my artist's page here. It takes place through July and I will be doing the first weekend (1st & 2nd). Sharing my home, work and studio space with the public.

On Tour! – my artwork has been touring the country as part of Lucy Bunce's voice and harp album tour 'Somewhere Between the Words' for which I created the album cover artwork.

Every blessing
Kate x