Bad.....er..... slack blogger !

Well, finally I have got my finger out and blogged.  I have spent MONTHS saying that I need to update my blog and yet, as the uncrowned queen of procrastination, I have managed to put it off!

A LOT has been going on in my glassy life since my last blog, so I think I will blog about it in chronological order.... at least then it will make sense to me if no one else  ha ha ha

Gumblossom Dreams boro glass necklace

First off, some of my readers may recall that I was on a bit of a mission to get some of my work into some galleries.   Well, not only do I have work showing at the Barracuda Gallery over in Perth and the Canberra Glassworks gallery I was invited to participate in an "invitation only" flameworking event at the Craft NSW gallery in George Street in Sydney.  The "In Nature In Glass" exhibition was fabulous and at the same time SCARY AS HELL.  I was participating with a raft of big names in glass and felt a little like the tiny little tiddler in a pool of sharks, but I figured as long as I do my best, well that is the best I can do.    It was a really big thrill to see my work displayed beside the likes of Chris Arnold and Laurie Young, Peter Minson, Al Usher, Bernie Stonor, Jo Wu, Justin Rossi, Carol Marando and the lovely Penel Bigg!  I even braved the Sydney Train system (which is scary for a transplant from Canberra who is a little frightened of getting lost on the trains) and went into town for the opening of the exhibition by the gorgeous and talented Marina Hyasat.

Well.... you get the idea, it was crazy fancy and I am a bit of a bogan, but after leaving the crocs and moccies at home, I rubbed shoulders with the big guns and it felt really great!  Here is a pic of one of my entries, Gum Blossom Dreams.  Unfortunately it didn't survive the transport and didn't end up being displayed, but I have since fixed it and donated it as a raffle prize to a lovely Canberra Textile group (ACTTA).



Year of the Dragon bead set 2012 Sydney Royal Easter show Entry

I was also happy to participate in the Sydney Royal Easter show again and W O W was the competition hard this year.  It was so great to see the diversity of styles and the large number of entries.  for a competition that was losing some of its support by the local lampwork bead artists, it has turned right around and now a large number of people enter in support.   I was EXTREMELY lucky to get a third with my dragon set this year and to be honest, there were some sets of beads that utterly deserved a prize and yet missed out.  For local Aussies who want to see what is at the edge of the envelope in glass beads go along to the Easter show and have a squizz (might want to take a notebook to write down the names you might wish to contact afterwards too).

Well, I don't want to just write a novel on this one blog entry, so I shall continue on very soon with more glassy musings :-)

And the Royal Easter show entry is sent....hallelujah!

Thank goodness I have finally sent off my Sydney Royal Easter show entry. This year I decided that I would enter in the set of five beads rather than the jewellery section. Last time I entered a necklace which was truly horrendous and slightly embarrassing to have my name against, but I figured it was better to support lampwork than not.

This year I have done my usual annoying job of proscratinating until I just throw 5 beads in and hope for the best at the last minute. Geeze I annoy myself with this, I could try and justify it by saying that I work better under pressure, but that would be complete rubbish... I was just disorganised and slack as usual!

I stupidly gave my set of beads a name "burlesque" because at the time I entered I was making burlesque beads with corsets and stuff on.... unfortunately I am a wee bit over them, but had to revisit to make a matching set. I ended up taking some inspiration from a lovely family friend who is a wonderful dancer (working at the Sydney Dance Company) and doing some of that fancy stuff on stage with feathery outfits.... hmmmm I though, why not make a couple of feathery dance burlesque-y outfits to include in my set.... so I did.

I don't want to show what I have entered, but here is a sneak peek at one of the beads, my peacock dancer one from the back view only..... now all you Sydneysiders can go along to the Royal Easter show in a couple weeks and see the set for yourself and have a squizz at the other lovely work by our talented Aussie lampworkers too. I know I am heading in the with the kids for sure!