Tamar Otters

This is the third year that I have been making and selling hand-stitched otters and donating a percentage of their sales to an ottery organisation or charity.

This year the money is going to the Tamar Otter and Wildlife Centre near Launceston in Cornwall.

We spent a great day there in 2011 (despite the rain) and I was particularly struck by the fact that it costs over £5,000 to care for and/or rehabilitate EACH otter, excluding vet's bills.  This is an incredible amount - I had no idea - so they were high on my list of recipients.

The centre really is a lovely place and I wish it was a bit nearer so I could spend more time there.

Amusingly, three of the otters share my birthday (though I was born some time before 2005).

Tamar Otter and Wildlife Centre 

North Petherwin, Nr. Launceston, Cornwall PL15 8GW

tel: 01566 785646

13 Women

Forgive me, Blogspot, for I have sinned.  It has been a month since my last post.

I thought I'd break radio silence with a few pics from the launch of 13 Women at Brighton Library this evening - an event celebrating International Women's Day.

My lovely friend Tina Francis is one of the illustrious 13.  She makes tapestries using reclaimed vintage tapestry wool, which gives her work incredibly subtle colours and a lovely bobbly texture in places.  This piece took a month of intense sewing to complete!

Another piece I loved was an incredible dress created by Tess Howell using hundreds of artificial flowers and leaves, which graduated from autumnal reds to spring greens.

The event was super well-attended and featured a fair few fabulous Brighton arty eccentrics.  I wish I'd snapped a few pics.  I think the decision to have speakers, poetry readings and other performances was probably a bit of an odd call, as most of people wanted to mingle and chat. Although I definitely fell into the category of chatterer, I did feel for the speakers trying to compete with the general social hubbub.

Competer

General social hubbub

To round off the evening, on the way home I spied these beautiful Turkish lamps in a shop in Brighton's North Laines.  I have passed this shop many times during the day and admired them, but they look absolutely stunning at night.

I Love Art presents 13 Women 1st - 15th March
Jubilee Library, Jubilee Street, Brighton, BN1 1GE.

Shark Alley @ Brighton Museum

Waaaaaay back in the summer of 2012, I had a meeting with the buyer for the Brighton Museum and Royal Pavilion shops to see if they would be interested in stocking some of my jewellery.  It was decided that the Museum shop would be the best venue and that I could have a cabinet in there in . . . . . FEBRUARY 2013!

It seemed an age away at that point, but in the way of time, it passed and suddenly the day came to install my stuff.

I'd had an idea for a display based on an amazing Sunday Times shoot I'd seen, which featured a woodland set created entirely from cardboard shapes cut from boxes.  I thought it would suit the recycled nature of my work, but feared it might be a bit 'clunky' and so ended up feeling a bit stuck for alternative ideas.

On a particularly silly night out with friends . . .

. . . my designer friend Lucy came up with an alternative idea  - little white cut-out scenes that the brooches could be fitted into. So the next day, I had a little practice with both the ideas.

I decided to go with Lucy's theme, as it separated out the two types of jewellery more effectively - mixed-media in one place and resin in another.

Then all that was left to do was to install it!

The cabinets are happily near a massive model of the Emile Galle cat that I have based some brooch designs on.

I hated these cats when I first saw them in the museum as a student, but now I love them - they are so charming!  Sadly I couldn't capture their sappy smiles on my brooches - they're just too small.

My jewellery is on show for seven weeks until Sunday 24th March.

We're Glad It's All Over

Thank God it's not January any more!

It seemed to go on for ages and I couldn't get to grips with it at all, blinking like a mole into 2013.  And it's been over a month since I posted on here.  Bad girl.  Baaaaaad.

It's been a while now, but I hope you guys had lots of Festive Fun!

The highlight of my Christmas was spending some time with the delightful Nemo Otter at the Aquazoo in Düsseldorf.  What a treat!  Dr Wolfgang Gettmann and Aquazoo friend Heike Degen were so nice to Paul and I and let us spend ages with Nemo, as well as showing us behind the scenes of the zoo.  I got to hold a tarantula!  Squeamish folks, look away now.

We could have stroked an octopus too, apparently, but sadly it had died a few days earlier.

Anyway, let's cut to the best bit.

A sleepy little ott! Nemo's fur is coarser that I expected, as were his whiskers.  He also has an incredibly muscly tail which was really quite heavy and fleshy underneath the tip.

Nemo is made to appreciate some quality Shark Alley workmanship - an otter keyring I made as a gift for Wolfgang.

Now, could I sneak this otter into my handbag? And would they notice?

Taking Nemo for a walk in Nordpark, where the Aquazoo is set.

Nemo hunts for juicy fat worms, which he dispatches with a couple of quick gulps. DELICIOUS.

It all seems like a dream now!  We were with him for three hours and were invited to stay longer, but we had to catch a train up to the north later that afternoon.  We can go and visit him again whenever we are next there, though.

Aquazoo 
Kaiserswerther Straße 380, 40200 Düsseldorf, Germany.

Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a brilliant New Year!

Fairs & Markets

After deciding to really go for it with fairs and markets this winter, I'm slightly regretting taking on so many, as the schedule is rather chaotic and I'm running out of stock - and the time to make it!

But the upside is meeting so many new customers, assorted otter-fans and sending lots of jewellery, purses and otters off to loving new homes.

Here are a few highlights so far.

CHELSEA TOWN HALL
Got to be honest - disappointing footfall and sales, but check the building!

Chelsea Town Hall

How beautiful is Chelsea Town Hall?!

LANDMARK ARTS CENTRE
One of my favourites.

Ahhh.  The radiant light.

Reams of wreaths.

The Landmark Arts Centre

I absolutely fell in love with these amazing hand-felted bootees by Diane Higgins at the Landmark.  They are absolutely exquisite and I so wish she did them in a size 6!!!  You can contact Diane here

Beautiful Bumble Bee Booties!

Badger Booties

Perfect pandas

THE FAIRY TALE FAIR
Such kudos to Claire Montgomery for all the organisation she put into this.  She's so on the ball with marketing and publicity and the fair was full of lovely touches - and justifiably very popular!

A sweet welcome from The Fairy Tale Fair!

Super busy.

DULWICH COLLEGE GRAND FESTIVE FAIR
My first time here - and I've never seen so many people at one selling event!  It was relentless!  The train travel on a Sunday was challenging to say the least, but it was worth it.

South Cloister,  Dulwich College

And there's more to come!  See website for details.

Otter Country

Some of you may well have twigged by now that I'm rather partial to otters.

Yesterday I thought it would be really nice to combine them with another one of my favourite activities - shopping for beautiful things for Shark Alley.

So up I travelled to London to trawl the fabric shops around Oxford Street and Soho for lovely big prints on pale fabrics to make into fox & otter purses.  Unfortunately, I didn't find as many as I'd hoped, but I did stumble across this little gem in John Lewis.  Yum yum!

  Detail - Loulouthi Summer Totem in Grapefruit by Anna Maria Horner

After all this retail excitement and a hastily consumed rubbish supper of crisps and a flapjack, it was off to Waterstones in Gower Street to attend a talk on otters. This featured otter expert Dr Daniel Allen interviewing author Miriam Darlington about her book, Otter Country, which documents her quest to see UK otters in the wild after being obsessed with them since childhood.

Love the beautiful illustration on the front by Kelly Dyson

The three extracts she read were very evocative and sometimes moving, especially as she described carrying the heart of an otter in her hands whilst attending an otter autopsy.  Her descriptions of being alone in the countryside and encountering wild otters were incredibly vivid - so much so that all day today I have had the strong sensation that I have recently been in the countryside myself.

One of the other joys was meeting so many other otter afficionados.  Thanks to the wonders of Facebook and the internet, I have connected with otter-lovers all over the world, but it's always nice to meet face-to-face.  Daniel Allen is a friend-of-a-friend many times over, and I feel quite sure we could have chatted all evening.  I also had the privilege of meeting (albeit very briefly) Daphne Neville, who has cared for otters for over thirty years and is the author of a book about these experiences - 'Bee - a Particular Otter'.  Having had a brief online exchange with her daughter Sophie in the summer, it seemed quite a coincidence to meet her. She was incredibly lovely and let me have a signed copy of her book.

One of the more amusing aspects of the evening involved sniffing an otter spraint - or poo.  Before you recoil in horror, it's definitely NOT what you imagine and turned out to be quite fascinating as each person was asked to describe what it reminded them of.  The answers were unexpected and diverse - 'prawns', 'newly-mown grass', 'citrus', 'musty' and my favourite, 'a church crypt'.

Sniffing the spraint!

After a rather harried and stressy day dealing with London crowds and rude people, I came away feeling very uplifted and happy to have spent time in the company of such friendly and similarly-obsessed people.