I have not been posting blogs for some weeks and above is the reason. I decided to do this open studio for North Somerset Arts Week early last year when life was less hectic i.e. before I opened Heart Space Studios. So for 2 weeks I have been playing catch up. In fact I am still so busy that I am writing this between meeting and greeting visitors on the second day of open studios event.

I have an enamelled garden in situ all year round but it needs bit of repositioning for the open days – so the first thing I had to attend to, well not me exactly – my niece Julie Dunn (who runs Trug, a garden design company) was happy to come and help me – she spent the whole of Easter tidying and replanting my winter ravaged garden into shape.

The other more major concern was that I had no new work to show for the Severn Sea Artists group – I had intended to make a series of enamelled panels of the coloured skies of the estuary – but time was running out – but I just had to get these made somehow.  So I set to work, first I made some simple striped embroideries to get me thinking about the colours again and from these flowed the enamels skies.

I started work using the samples I had done but informed by the 8 or so silk embroideries I have made to date. Back in the enamel studio I assembled some large strips of copper and drilled them so they could be strung by 2 wires not exactly stitched but much quicker to make…..

I decided to liven up the stitched areas with beads, this has made me rethink how I may make some larger pieces in future.

The finished pieces are small and irregular as I made them out of random off – cuts of copper I had left over from other projects. I had intended to show these in the garden but I decided to show all the other work with them including the early research drawings.

meanwhile back in the garden the larger enamel panels are displayed, I would really like someone to commission me to make a sky on this scale…….

But the main part of my exhibition is inside my tiny conservatory

I am sharing the open week with my husband Stephen Jacobson who is showing his paintings of the estuary and we are members of a group of 7 artists who use the estuary as inspiration, called The Severn Sea Artists we have made a trail from one venue to another and I made textile banners to advertise us, I am hoping that they withstand the gales that are blowing down the estuary this week.

I have actually managed to sell an embroidered sky between the times I  have been writing this post this morning – way to go!