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On our recent trip to Pembrokeshire I became the junk shop equivalent of David Dickenson (without the perm-a-tan though!)
It would seem that Wales has lots of vintage goodness ready to sell and at good prices.
We found one cold, warren of a place piled high with everything you could think of and not being staffed by the owner. This opened up the opportunity for some cheeky bargaining (I still don’t know what came over me.)
I came away with 3 old wooden storage boxes, two blue and white jugs, a tiny floral jug, a lace work cloth, two embroidered chair-backs and an enamel pan for £15. I quick-stepped it out before the owner came back. I mean when is anything ever as cheap as 50 pence! My gall is a disgrace!!
The next day I spotted two lovely white and blue enamel pieces sitting outside an antiques shop and bartered them down just a little bit.
I have a plan to fill the oval tub with lettuce seeds so that we can grow our own salad this summer and keep it by the back door.
So now the garden is ready for it’s thrifted, vintage makeover (as soon as it stops raining).
We had also been very lucky on a recent family trip to Manchester to come across an antiques arcade. There was beautiful crockery, coloured glass wear, old books, crocheted loveliness and a super wicker basket to carry it all home in.
I was interested to read yesterday that a new film is in production which looks at The Newlyn School of artists of which Harold Harvey was a member. I wrote about his lovely paintings here last year.
- Coloured Wools 1919 Harold Harvey
- Apparently the film focuses on the wild and bohemian Lamorna Group (which included Alfred Munnings and Laura and Harold Knight, not sure if that includes Harold) and a love triangle involving aspiring artist Florence Carter-Wood.
- This is a period drama set in the beauty of the Cornish coast; a good old tale of love, liberty, and scandal amongst the Edwardian artists’ colony (as only the Brits can do!) Looking forward to it already (not sure when its released) but might get started on the book first.
Back in early 2009 I began to hear a small voice of mine asking me a question about the future. I hadn’t heard that voice for some years as bringing up small children didn’t leave much time to hear it. And I wasn’t brave enough. And I wasn’t ready.
Typography © Susan Black - used with permission
But something about turning 40 galvanised me. For a couple of years I have been living the questions and gradually finding the answers as I was only just beginning on a road to the here and now. Today is the first day of my being primarily an artist (I say primarily because I do still have a one-day-a-week commitment to finish at school until the end of July.) But to me, today is my first day of self-employment. Today is the answer to the question I began asking myself when I began art college. Today is the first day of feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
Gallery page
And what better way than to spend today housekeeping my beautiful website (thanks i.e.) and re-loading my photographs properly (no more blurred images) and putting images in the correct places (nice little close-ups.)
Individual painting clicked through from gallery page
I’m seeing hearts everywhere!
… in the woods…
… across the water in a Paris flower market…
… on the beach.
The great philosopher/poet Johann Goethe once wrote: “Do not hurry, do not rest.” I’m trying to wrestle with that dichotomy at the moment!
Spring is certainly in the air now. There is an amazing drift of crocuses over at the woods and I’m having a hard time keeping my dog from running through them like a four-legged vandal.
Tulips are my most favourite flower so I’m glad the shops are full of them and they’re cheap! I feel like you really get your money’s worth because even as they open and die they’re beautiful.
In our house I love the way that we get sunlight flooding the dinner table.
So tulips, sunshine and lovely china makes Claire a happy girl.
And there was a spring theme to the very nice parcel that flew over from Australia. I was the lucky recipient of Barbara’s Pale Blue Door blog giveaway. Amongst the lovely spring fabrics was some of Barbara’s gorgeous hallway wallpaper (which I have coveted since she first showed it) and I have promised to try to use it as a painting backdrop one of these days (might have bitten off more than I can chew there!)
This Paris fabric was also in the giveaway parcel and how serendipitous as we are making our plans to go soon.
And many thanks for the Parisian suggestions.
image taken at Stocktons, Manchester, UK
Do you ever suffer from those times when life becomes so full that you can’t catch up with yourself? I knew, you’d knew what I meant! I began today promising myself that I’d meander through the jobs and just quietly reduce the overwhelm but I feel like I’m running in treacle – where does the time go? The studio is a tip and everywhere I look are half-finished activities which all need proper focus to finish them. At least the washing got done and the dishwasher stacked – two ticks on today’s self-imposed list.
“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.”
I found this quote and I’m hoping to know it’s truth by tomorrow!
Pinterest have quietly responded to the copyright uproar by releasing a piece of code that you can put into you header . This should issue a warning to the pinner reminding them that they do not have permission. Don’t know if it works yet.
This is the code:
<meta name=”pinterest” content=”nopin” />
BTW I nearly had my 5 minutes of fame as a producer for Channel 4 News read my blog post and asked if I’d do an interview! I think Pinterest put paid to the story by releasing the code. Oh well I can sleep well tonight!
Like lots of people I have been delighted by the opportunities that Pinterest offers. And like lots of people I imagine, I opened an account without really reading the small print and got pinning away to my heart’s content in complete oblivion. However there has been a lot of online discussion about this site of late and the issues surrounding copyright.
knitsofacto has a great article here but I too feel like I want to say something about it which won’t necessarily add to the debate (might widen the audience possibly) but to outline my expectations of people who may be pinning me. It is worth reading this article whether you feel you have the time to or not, whether you’re a just a pinner or an artist and pinner, or just an artist.
What I didn’t know even though I have ticked ‘read terms and conditions’ was that if I pin an image onto one of my boards it is agreed that I either own the copyright or have asked for permission.
If you pin something Pinterest is assuming that you have asked permission or own the copyright because that’s what you agreed when you signed up.
If you pin something of mine onto one of your boards, it assumes that you own the copyright (which of course you don’t) or that you have asked my permission (which no-one ever has.)
First then the log in my own eye before I pick at the splinters in others. I apologise to anyone whose image I may have pinned onto one of my boards without asking for permission and please be reassured that I am making it a priority to tidy up those boards by removing anything which compromises your copyright on your image or work, and to properly credit the source of the image or article.
Lazy pinning means that we often just re-pin images from where we saw them, not from their original source. This means that proper credit gets lost amongst all the re-pinning.
Here’s the scarier bit…
” Pinterest’s terms of use state that if you upload content to Pinterest, then you’re giving Pinterest permission to distribute, sublicense, and sell that content:
By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, *modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.”
From http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/Is-Pinterest-a-Haven-for-Copyright-Violations
This means that by pinning others work, or by pinning mine, we are giving Cold Brew Labs (the company behind Pinterest) the right to store that image (full size!) on their own servers for ever, for future use should they wish to use it and profit it from it.
Some may say ‘Oh no-one will ever let that happen, it’s an enormous global copyright scandal and won’t be allowed’ and I imagine, and hope that, that will be the case as lawyers argue the fine points.
But I am going to do what I can now to make sure that my work is not compromised by asking you not to pin my work to a Pinterest board. You could open a Word document and drag an image into it and save it as inspiration or reference that way (like I used to before Pinterest and will be returning to now.)
I’m going to use this as an opportunity to use my sketchbook more effectively and instead of pinning things that inspire me, I’m going to try to draw, record and write from the screen straight into my sketchbook.
Mostly the internet offers us opportunities that could never have been explored before and sometimes we run like lemmings over the cliff believing that every global web-site that’s well designed, is well-designed for our benefit. And sometimes it isn’t as straightforward as that. Time to think again perhaps?
You may notice I have amended my copyright statement now.
love heart shadow cast by a paper decoration at Christmas
Just popping in tonight to say a massive thank you for all your messages of support, excitement and affirmation. It really means a lot. 
Merci. x
I have been dreaming about writing this kind of a blog post for about three years and I have been actually trying to write the words for the last six or seven weeks; from about the time when I gave my resignation in at work.
Yes, you read correctly! I have, after a long period of time thinking about it, decided to give myself fully to developing my art career and so have resigned from my teaching job. On Monday I go back to school for the last seven weeks of part-time employment. Then I will do one day a week until the summer term ends in order to train my replacement. Then I am a self-employed artist (excited… yikes!)
I used to visual journal quite a lot when I’d read some fabulous quote from this book. Now when I look through it I can see how I have been moving towards this moment for many years. Can’t say I’m not a little scared, can’t say I won’t miss the children at school or the laughs in the staffroom but I am looking forward to having just one job to pursue with total vigour, energy and single-mindedness. When I graduated from art college back in 1990 I quite quickly got off the artistic route and eventually began a teaching training course instead. In many ways this feels like I have come full circle and I’m very grateful to get the opportunity to try and pick up that artistic route again.
I have been re-training and updating my pattern design skills so that I will have two strings to my bow and am hopeful that with more time to paint, pattern design and approach galleries that I will be able to establish a small living from my art.
Only one thing is certain at this stage and that is ‘if you don’t try, you never know’ and I know for sure that if I don’t ever give it a go I will regret not trying. Fingers crossed.
