Hello,
A couple of days ago, I was wandering around the marvelous marquees of the Contemporary Crafts Fair in Bovey Tracey, Devon. I was lucky to travel there in the company of the very lovely Roslyn Mitchell and two of her good friends, who it was a pleasure to meet for the first time.
It was a day filled with much laughter, chatter and most of all - exquisite hand crafted art. My head was filled with inspiration and admiration of all those who had worked tirelessly to put on such an impressive exhibition and had suffered the sweltering heat inside those tents during the days the fair ran for. Good for us visitors that the sun was shining, but maybe not so comfortable for those on their feet all day manning the stands.
I hope all exhibitors know that for us visitors it really was an amazing show. I simply couldn't take it all in - far too many beautiful things to see....
The highlight for me and the main reason for the trip was to see three very special exhibitors, to show my support and most of all, get a rare chance to see their work up close in glorious 3D. They are my friends Marna Lunt, Kirsty Elson and Claire Read of Little Burrow Designs.
It was also a chance to meet up with some other fantastic friends from the design and craft community. As you can see from the pictures, we had lots of fun together.
Pictured in the photo above are, Left to Right: Claire Read from Little Burrow Designs, Helen Botrill from Kindred Rose, Roslyn Mitchell, Marna Lunt, Julia Crossland, Yours Truly and Andrea Berry from Polka.
..and here we all are again with Kirsty Elson on her stand, Kirsty is the third in from the right of this picture...
As well as enjoying the fabulous company, I also enjoyed shopping for a few little treats.
This is my favourite from the day - a little ceramic brooch made by Katie Almond. If you are not familiar with Katie's work, do click the link and have a look. This brooch is very 'me' and the themes she uses as inspiration feel very similar to the themes I draw on for inspiration for mine - tea, gardening, flowers, seasides, birds. Her stand felt like coming home to me!...
Another artist who's stand I admired greatly was Katrin Moye. Her ceramics are beautiful, but I was also very taken with her watercolour greetings cards, so much so, I bought some :)...
And then of course there was my good friend Marna's stand. It was her first time at the Contemporary Crafts Festival and my first time getting a chance to see her work at a show. I'm so delighted to have seen all her hard work in the flesh - especially the labour of love that is her Liberty lampshade, very inspiring - I love the way she effectively paints with fabrics. Now I am the proud owner of a Marna Lunt, Liberty mug...
Whilst I was there, I made sure I got a selection of Kirsty Elson postcards to add to my workspace collection and bring a touch of the coast to my little corner....
And, I fell in love with this trim on Felt Folk's stand as I know just the project to use this for (more about that on a future blog post!)...
It's been hugely refreshing to get away from my usual work and see such creativity in all forms. It certainly made me want to try new things enjoy playing with my art more.
I'd already started to feel a bit like this before I visited the show. The outing at the weekend has confirmed in my mind, that I must continue to make small chunks of time each week to simply play with inks and paints and whatever takes my fancy and see what comes out of it.
Which is what I've been doing and these inky drawings are all results of that time spent playing....
Some of these drawings are finding their way over to my Folksy shop, where you can buy the original pieces, fully mounted and backed.
The first listing is for the piece called 'Hello Peonies', which you can find listed here:
I hope you have a lovely week
Best wishes
