The fringe is done!

Today I got an unexpected day off from my non-art work. I spent a good deal of it making my fringe even better than it was. I had curlycues, painted paper towel tubes cut spirally, for the bottom of each of my strings of "beads". I had enough time to cut and add them so that each string has two curlycues at the end and one at each gap between two beads.

Then I checked my gouache box to see if the gold paint I had from back when I was a student had dried up or was usable. It was fine. So I painted each bead with random squiggles of gold. Now the piece really looks like my description: a celebration of color and texture.

The best part was that as I was painting the gold squiggles, I needed to hang up the strings to dry. I hung them over a door, and as I got about four on the door i was able to see what the piece was going to look like when I got it up.

It's cool. OK, I'm not one of those artists who is super critical of their own work. I know every detail that's wrong. And sometimes I'm not as impressed with my work as others are because of that, just because it may look good, but not as good as I envisioned it.

This particular piece, though, is better. It isn't my original concept anymore. I had to work out the logistics of being able to carry it, and of simply getting enough material, and enough time to do it. I added to it as I worked. The idea of putting the curlycues further up as well as just on the ends of the strings is pretty new. And the idea of the gold just a few days old.

Now it's done in a way that I'm happy with. There are no ideas that I wish I had time for. No wish I had done this differently's. It looks like a celebration, like crackers that have been pulled, like party decorations, like fireworks. And it may be conventional idea of pretty.

But what's wrong with pretty? And I had thought of it as a sort of throw-away piece that would probably be junked after the show. But it won't. If someone doesn't fall in love with it, or even parts of it, since it could certainly be broken up, it can become the window curtain for my studio.

the way it looks now, though, I can actually imagine someone wanting something like it for a party or a garden or I'm not sure what else. I'm very glad I've got extra tubes and can do another project using them. A light fixture of some sort? An embellishment for the ugly one we've got? Christmas decorations for the house, complete with lights?

Yes, lights. That may be what it's asking for next.

Anyhow, I'll stop talking about that because I've also got a few other things to report. I'm added to my website the three pictures of my work that I gave to the AA2A;two for the weaving page and one for the jewelry page. (Ohh! The wire. Suppose I did something incorporating the colored wire...!)

I also added the pictures of the work that my students produced at my New Jewelry from Old workshop. I was quite proud of them and think that my next one will be even better because I'll bring some things I hadn't thought to bring last time. More tools and more materials, and more attention to making sure that the thicknesses of wire and the holes of beads are compatible.

If only I had the money to do shows this year. This unexpected day off will really make our budget squeak this month unless something comes up. Luckily there is potential for something to come up just in the next week. Good luck to me. I need it.

The Fringe project and one more AA2A activity

I've been putting a lot of hours into my project for the Norwich Fringe Festival. The idea was relatively simple, a fringe for the fringe. It was to be a "beaded" fringe of giant beads. The giant beads would be whatever was bead-shaped, but larger. The most obvious ones would be the cardboard tubes from inside toilet paper and paper towels, painted, of course. I have been saving tubes myself for months, and had asked a number of people to save them for me. A few came through.

But it became obvious, especially after I visited the site, that it would take far more of these tubes than I could expect to collect, even after an appeal to fellow artists in Produced in Norfolk and to Freecycle. (I would link each of those if I had the code for linking handy right now. Unfortunately my browser makes it necessary to insert the code rather than just highlight or some such simple method.)

Aluminum foil tubes? Wrapping paper tubes? Tubes from rolls of wraps that delis and fishmongers use? Not enough.

Finally, I thought of the tubes that fabric comes on. Anglian Fabrics, both the apparel fabric and the furnishings fabric stores, helped me out. Without them, I couldn't have finished the project the way I wanted at all. And then there's the Jade Tree, which let me store bunches of the tubes in their back room to be picked up and brought home as I managed to paint them. This wasn't simple, either because I don't have a car.

I painted and painted and painted. Even one "string" of cardboard tube beads per foot adds up to a lot of feet of cardboard tubes when the entry way is twelve feet high and at least twelve feet wide. And the cardboard tubes that fabric come on don't cut up easily. The logistics of the construction of the "strings" had some considerable restrictions. In order to get the piece to the location, it had to be transportable at least by a car. Therefore I decided that each "string" had to be separate, and consist of "beads" that were not much longer (and usually smaller) than two feet long. So the painted tubes that were anywhere from 4 ft to nearly 6 had to be cut into smaller pieces. I discovered that we didn't have a tool in the house that could do this.

And how to join the beads together in a string, given how large the center holes were. I decided I needed two holes at either end of each tube. By now, I had planned there to be some 41 "beads" to be cut from about 20 long tubes, which means 164 holes. But how to make the holes? I would need some kind of a drill.

So I got a little hack saw and an egg=beater-type drill, and with one week to go, I'm still painting and sawing and drilling. And then comes the tieing together.

Whew, this is SOME project.

Happy Birthday, Nancy

Of course that doesn't have much to do with my art practice in the UK, but what's a blog for if you can't use it in whatever way works for you personally. In this case, to say Happy Birthday to my sister.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled (well, not actually) blog and a downright excellent transtion from the above. I've discovered some very useful things about having a website. I get a list of arts jobs in my e-mail every day. Some are music, or film, or circus, or any number of things I am totally unqualified for, but every once in a while, there's something approriate for me. Occasionally, it's something that fits me so exactly that I go all out in replying to them. A little more often than that it's something that I'm moderately interested in, enough that if I have the time, I'll follow through. But there were often enough higher priority items on my list that what happened was that I saved the e-mail, but never followed through. (Yes, one more example of that being one of my weaknesses, more on that later).

Well, now that I've got a website, there have been a few times when I zipped off an e-mail something on the order of: I'm interested. Here's a link to my website where you can see examples of my work along with my CV and artists statement. Done. Which is a way I hadn't thought of that a website works for you personally.

I had my interview for the NSAD job today. I won't say any more on that until I hear that they've decided one way or another. Since at least one of the interviewers had read my blog, somehow it hits me as unfair competition to comment. I can't explain more. It's not clear in my mind. Maybe I'll comment when it is. This blogging business has some thoughtworthy implications. The one thing I will say is that I was asked what my weaknesses are. Anybody going out to any interview ought to be ready for that one. I know the stock answers, but I always just say what comes to my mind. Not that I should necessarily have said that I am not satisfied with the rate at which I follow through on things, but that would have been a true answer, not that you are supposed to give one as far as advice for interviews goes.

There's one more thing, too. This fetish for "teamwork" among employers. i don't even think to mention it, though it's obviously a buzzword they want to hear. But it's so obvious! I wonder if a lot of the best team workers lose out because to them cooperation is a given. There's room for all of us in this world. I've never had that fierce competitive urge that some folks have to the point that they are always considering how to position themselves in relations to coworkers, or costudents, or whatever. I love attention. There's no doubt of that. But it wouldn't be any good if I got it by taking someone else's.

Oh well, Whatever. This one, I'll gladly put in the hands of the powers that be. Opportunities will come in their own good time, and I'm satisfied with the rate at which they are coming here in Norwich, Norfolk, UK.

One more piece of news. I'm investigating the possibilty of doing some writing on fashion subjects for a website. Saw a posting looking for writers and zipped off one of those e-mails. Possibly one more piece in the puzzle.

I know this blog is getting read some, because sometimes it's the site that people were at just before they come to my website. If you're out there, let me know. Comment. If only to say: You're boring as hell and should immediately cease doing this writing thing in public.

A test about achieving a link

Here's a link to my website where you can view my work: www;donnajcarty.co.uk

As yet, the pictures do not cover near the total of the types of things I do. I had pretty much mastered getting good pictures with a macro lense using the old-style type of camera, but it was expensive, the film, the developing, the slides. All that just would not fit in my budget at the moment, but with the digital, I can try and try and try again until I manage to get it right...when I have the time.

Time is a problem right now. It's going toward getting the Norwich Fringe Festival project ready. It'll be at the entrance! Talk about a good location! Talk about a location that might get my work noticed! And it's going well, so far. (Look, I put in another link!)