Friday 2 May 2014
Spectacular
Thursday 1 May 2014
Critics
Thursday 27 February 2014
How knitting has kept me sane
If you're a knitter I'm on ravelry as terracottalily.
Tuesday 18 February 2014
Drawing to tell the Tale
I started with little doodles that related to the book, the idea of belonging, family and coffee. But after a while I realised I didn't want to be drawing about anything prescriptive so I went more free form. This pencil sketch came from my love of all things folk art and Marquez's No One Writes to the Colonel in which the titular Colonel feels like lillies are growing in his guts. Well, that's too good an image to leave alone, right?
Someone on Radio 2 (I suspect it was some sort of famous reverend) said the phrase "searching for our calm circle". I don't know if it was a reference or even a mistake but it stirred something.
Then I wanted to get less abstract so played with a figure who was trying to claw her way out of her "calm circle". Somewhere along the way I lost her momentum. I think it has something to do with trying to learn how to cable knit whilst drawing this and therefore her jumper got a lot more attention than I had originally planned.
I painted a page to go behind my escaping woman but decided I'd like to add another layer behind that so created a doorway. Behind it was supposed to be a monster, but it became someone sad, twisted and alone. There's a bible in her room, I'm not sure why.
In retrospect I can see that after my woman trying to escape and my lonely trapped woman I must have been feeling the need for something lighter, so here we have Red Riding Hood looking into a mirror and finding the big bad wolf. There's nothing deep about this, I wanted more layers so used a mirror. And then I got to play with embroidery. Which, I quickly learnt, is very difficult. Still not happy with this wolf.
Something totally different. Cutting, collage, watercolours and a printout of a map of the world with a church mistakenly printed on it that I found at work. It's an exercise in composition I think and I'm sure in the hands of someone else could have been pushed more but I just wanted something faster than embroidery.
And then I went back to embroidery. Just because you don't know how to do something, doesn't mean you shouldn't, right? I was inspired after seeing a twitter exchange (that I now can't find) about how exciting sketching dancers is. It's a lot more muddled than originally planned but I like it.
Then the same thing happened, the embroidered piece took me hours so I wanted something fast, and we'd just been to see James Wilton at the Customs House and felt that I wanted to play with rhythm.
Then collage with a face, lots of it. A little reference to Marquez's Love and other Demons and Sierva Maria's ever-growing hair.
A reference to The Saint in Strange Pilgrims and the flowers that remain preserved in her coffin.
This page was all about how much Marquez's parents loved each other, but his father was incapable of fidelity.
I found one of my little faces and wanted to use it, so made a witch doctor of unknown origins.
I'll keep drawing until I run out of pages.
Wednesday 20 June 2012
We have a winner!
Below is a report from the wonderful Philippa Abbott of Phileigh's Cakes. Phil is the best friend a gal could have, she sent me this knowing that I would be going crazy not knowing what was happening at the degree show. Enjoy her account of the night, I know I did.
Hi Lil! Well we arrived to find a mass of people in the foyer of the Glass Centre which was not what we were expecting. It was jam packed! Unfortunately we missed all of the talk about how amazing you all are and missed you getting your prize. But Daniel told us all about it and I have to say that I was not at all surprised! You deserve it! We walked through the glass history exhibition not really knowning where we were being taken but were amazed when we saw the room! It was beautiful, and full of amazing art. I told my Mam to "Look out for terracotta" to which she immediately responded "There!" and there were your lovely little men on the floor sitting in their circle. We were totally amazed at them and spent so much time looking at all their faces. We wondered what was going through your mind when you did them but as soon as we read the little blurb about it in the catalogue we totally understood it! It wasn't long before I saw people pointing and commenting and taking loads of photos! My Mam was a little worried about them getting hurt because they were quite vulnerable on the floor, but her threat to kill anyone who knocked them didn't have to become reality! We met your Mam who we chatted to, and as usual my Mam told her how lovely you are and how much we loved your piece. Then we saw Daniel who told me all about how poorly sick you are, which made me sad. But I was plesantly surprised to hear that he seemed to be taking very good care of you which made me a lot more settled. I recognised some of the names on the pieces and some of the faces I saw around and about. Some of our other favourite pieces were Alice's birds, Helen's wall piece with the black pictures on clear glass, Emma Hollin's piece, Emma Evett's piece which we decided we would like as an ornament and Julie's pots and jars were also lovely. However, all of you clearly put a lot of work into your pieces and each was fantastic in their own right.
It is safe to say that all your efforts and hard work paid off and everyone was amazed at the work you guys had produced and were thoroughly enjoying themselves. You did yourself and everyone else proud! I appologise for not being the best photographer on planet earth but I hope you can see that your piece looked amazing and that there were a lot of people there to see it. Well done Lil! Love you! xxxxx
Thursday 14 June 2012
Big day
Tomorrow is the big day; my degree show. Under ordinary circumstances I'd be excited. I'd have an outfit picked out and I'd have my magic clipboard with all the jobs I need to do outlined on it.
All that changed on Sunday. I had to go to hospital because a pilonidal abscess I was diagnosed with last Thursday started giving me far more pain than it should have. Hours of discomfort later I was admitted over night and expecting surgery in the morning. Everything went well and I came back to Daniel's on Tuesday ready to recover.
Part of the healing process is that everyday the packing in the wound has to be changed. This mostly leaves me a quivering wreck for the rest of the day.
I'm only really comfortable lying down. But mostly I'm upset that I won't be able to go to the opening. I worked hard for this show, I helped raise the money, choose the invites, publicise it and put my work in it. And tomorrow I won't be able to celebrate all that work. We had a little party on Friday when all the work was installed but I was in too much pain then to really join in. I can't imagine being in better shape tomorrow.
So- I need photojournalists. I need bloggers. I need tweeters. I need anyone with a smart phone or a good memory to go to the opening night tomorrow at the National Glass Centre from 6 o'clock and tell me what happened. Best tweet, facebook status or blog about the event wins one of my little men. If you tweet it use the hashtag #gac2012, if you're facebooking it pop a link on the event page and if you're blogging it send me a link through the comments or to lilydaniels@hotmail.co.uk .
Have a look at our facebook event or check out our website.