Cockpit Arts Christmas Open Studios

It's that time of year again for snooping in studios, sipping tasty mulled wine, feasting on fine foods, and most importantly purchasing some beautiful handmade gifts for your nearest and dearest this Christmas...

Yes...it's Cockpit Arts' Christmas Open Studios!

Holborn: 26th-28th November
Deptford: 3rd-5th December

I'll be here, at my studio in Holborn, ready to greet you all with a glass of glögg and some spiced biscuits and with plenty of new treats on display. Do hope you can make it!

This year I have 5 free tickets to give away that will provide you with free entry to the Holborn open studios on 26th, 27th and 28th November. Entry is £5 so to snap up your free ticket please send me an email to enter yourself in the draw. I'll randomly select the 5 winners on Monday 22nd November...so get emailing!!

abigailbrown81@hotmail.co.uk

What?!?!?...more new work!!!

Gosh...even more new work to post, I do feel like I've been busy!

These little critters are on their way to Munich, Germany for the 'Artistic Toys' exhibition at Galerie Handwerk. I've taken part in this Christmas exhibition for the past three years now and love being invited back. It's a fab gallery and the theme is left as open as that so we are all free to come up with whatever it is we might like. I try each year to make something new and exciting for myself and this year has certainly been the most fun. I doubt many of us will be in Munich this Christmas so here's a peek at what I've sent...

Some new things!!!

Wow! It's just non stop crazy at the moment and as usual I'm thoroughly behind on everything...including posting anything on here! I've been making new work for several exhibitions and it's been great to take a break from the birds, as lovely as they are!

The first project was for 20:21 Visual Art gallery in Scunthorpe, 'Tales from the Sock Drawer' called upon the 9 artists taking part.... ( Claire Montgomerie, Donna Wilson, Kate Toms, Lindsay Marsden ( The Black Rabbit), Rebecca Shreeve (Quirkles), Lucy Turnner (Lucy Moose), Louise Evans ( Felt Mistress) and Anna Creighton).... to work their story around a chest of drawers.

My creatures turned their chest of drawers into a travelling circus...

Paul Smith

I had an incredibly exciting request from Paul Smith's head office, to borrow my birds to feature in their Spring/Summer 2011 Press Day last week. Here is a look at how they were displayed...

http://www.facebook.com/paulsmithdesign

Selvedge Christmas Fair 2010

I shall be at the Selvedge fair on the 4th December, selling my wares. It promises to be a lovely day, just how Christmas fairs should be...mulled wine, mince pies and lots of beautiful handmade treats to feast your eyes on.

Hope to see you there!

Natural Beauty

Through some blog, at some time...I completely forget when and where...I discovered the blog 'resurrectionfern'. It is the daily diary of Margaret Oomen, a talented maker from Canada, whose interests and explorations in nature are captured and documented for us all to share in.

I'm swept away into the forests of Canada every time I find my way to her blog, tiptoeing past nesting swans, breathing in the moss and decaying leaves, the fresh forest air and the many flowers and plants she sweeps gently past. Her eyes find the most exquisite examples of natural beauty, from tiny mushrooms to dew dropped spider webs, often added to to form compositions for her photographs, or simply captured as they are, in all their glory.

I don't feel I've ever seen Nature the way Margie sees it, I feel as though they are things I am seeing for the first time. Her pictures excite me, they fill me with that wonder of childhood, the introduction to things you know almost nothing about. They make me so very envious of where she lives and the journeys she makes into that land each day...but I am sure if I set out each day, exploring my surroundings the way Margie does I'd find those same things that currently go by unnoticed.

Margie asked me to make her a little Blue tit a few months back and in exchange I asked her if she could make me one of her beautiful crochet covered stones.

It's taken me such a long time to post it up for you to see, but I didn't want to just throw it up here without taking time to explain how wonderful her blog is. If you feel trapped in the city, severed from nature, take a trip to resurrection fern and get yourself a little dose, it will force you to find time for explorations of your own! and if you would like a beautiful crochet covered stone for your very own...here is Margie's shop

Origin

Eek! 2 weeks to go for Origin. I'm madly crafting and the collection is very steadily growing...making some exciting pieces and some sizes bigger than I've so far managed.

I hope it'll be a great show and all the hard work will pay off.

I struggle a bit being on show with my work so it's a mixture of excitement and dread that I'm feeling in anticipation of standing there with my work for a week! It's always lovely to meet people who admire my work and I love the smiles I can see appearing on people's faces as they take the birds in...but I do find it a bit scary standing there all alone waiting for those responses!

Hopefully I will see lots of friendly faces and the days will fly by!

Origin is a wonderful show, packed with talented makers from all disciplines. This year will be it's first at Spitalfields market...which I personally feel is a great location.

Origin will run from the 23rd-29th September, tickets are £8 in advance and £12 on the door.

Please come and say hi if you make a trip!