Bartholomew Street West

I am embarking on some new work to show at Jilly Edward's BSW Gallery in April. The exhibition is called 3D Tea Party and coincides with Exeter's food festival. This means revisiting an old theme and ongoing obsession for me. I love everything about food, growing it, buying it, cooking it, looking at it, reading about it, photographing it, sharing it. Did I miss out eating it?! I love the vessels and utensils used for cooking and for serving food. I love the term batterie de cuisine! These two tapestries were made in 1995 - I found the images in the Crafts Council's archive. The stripey cup is the first tapestry I ever sold in a gallery - it was at Roger Bilcliffe's



The embarking is taking place in my usual way which is to hoover, launder, cook a great deal (3 loaves of bread, garlicky pea dip, cupcakes and trifle before breakfast today) ride my bicycle and drink tea. But you know this time I am not beating myself up about this as I've finally recognised that it's not useless procrastination as I've always thought it was. It is how I get back into designing and making after a period of inactivity. During this flurry of activity a switch gets tripped in my head and my thinking and focus alter and by the time I'm sitting down with a piece of paper I will, with a bit of luck, have something to put on it.

new year's day

Here are some photos from our New Year's Day walk. Everything was clean and white and crisp. Now the rain is pouring down and everything has reverted to brown. It was nice while it lasted!
We had a lot of fun over Christmas and New Year with friends old and new. Today there was an aperitif in the village hall to celebrate the new year and everyone in the commune was invited. I was amazed how many people we knew to a greater or lesser extent and how many kisses were doled out! 3 is customery here.
There's no doubt that having a child has made it easier for us to become part of this community. A lady who I vaguely know wished me Bonne Année, Bonne Santé saying 'You're Max's mother aren't you?' Yes I said that's me!

It's back to school and back to work tomorrow. I shall let you know soon what is first on my agenda.

Happy New Year!

max & meabh collaborate

He designed it, I wove it. I think he likes it!

season's greetings

Season's greetings to everyone and a happy, healthy, productive 2008.

Cake

The extent of my creativity recently has been three Christmas cakes and quantities of apple chutney and onion jam! I do have one commission to do before Christmas though....


...the artist is my 8 year old son who last Christmas asked for a tapestry. I didn't want to give him any old thing and what with one thing and another it didn't happen. I asked him if he still wanted one and if so what did he think to me weaving one of his drawings? We agreed that I would choose which one so that it would be a surprise. This will translate into tapestry very well I think although I'm going to weave the colour flatter. I'm as much of a masochist as the next tapestry weaver but there is only a fortnight till Christmas after all!

Artists Open Houses

This weekend is the second weekend of the Brighton Artists Open Houses. Over 400 hundred artists are exhibiting in over 60 houses showing painting, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, glass, jewellery, photography, textiles....everything in fact! Many of the houses and studios will be offering tea, mulled wine and cake. What a great way to see art and do some Christmas shopping away from the madness of the high street. You can download a list of all the participants here plus you'll find links to many of the artists and makers own websites.

back from brighton

I'm back home after a busy few days in Brighton. I've been quiet until now as I managed to catch (and then bring home and share) a particularly nasty tummy bug on the last day of the fair. Until that all was going well... Jon, Annemarie and Sarah deserve thanks and credit for their superb and friendly organisation as do the staff at the Dome.
It was nice to meet up with old friends and as always after 3 intense days with your exhibiting 'neighbours' you make new ones. I was opposite Stephanie Ray who makes elegant silver and bamboo jewellery and round the corner from Deva Priya who uses stunning precious and semi precious stones in silver and gold settings. Also just around the corner was Harriet Appleby and her felt hats, scarves and wraps.
It is the law that you treat yourself to something each time you exhibit and my present to myself this time is a belt from Melissa Simpson - couldn't run to a bag unfortunately...

I've been trying but failing to update my website to show which pieces are available for sale. The revised pages just won't upload so on the tapestries page Stripey Fade; Spotty Fade#1; Spotty Fade #2; Circle:Fade; Cross#2 and Circle#2 are available. I can send them framed or unframed (but mounted) and unframed prices range from £120/$246/€168 to £300/$617/€420 plus postage. Please email me at meabh@cantlop.com if you are interested and I can give you more details.

(edit - the website is updated now)