INDIAN SUMMER EXHIBITION 17 Nove - 24Dec

 

Eine grosse danke schön an alle kundschaft, freunde und nachbahrn die am Samstag zu meine erste austellung gekommen sind. Eure unterstutzung bedeutet mir zehr viel, nochmals eine riesen grosse danke schön das sie dazu beigetragen hat an eine erfolgreiche und schöne abend!

Und ja, die kasse hat auch geklingelt..(-;

A BIG thank you to everyone who came to the premier of my exhibition of new works and a special thanks to all of you kind folk who helped me out. Roland for helping with building and construction of works over October, Tanya for all your effort and encouragement to get things done and organized and Alex, thanks ever so much for all you did on opening night!

So far so good, it was a fantastic start to the Christmas season, and a real boost was seeing first my favourit new pieces being sold as a pair as soon as my geusts came through the door...

..and then, apart from some smaller pieces, my signature piece, the 'Divas' vase was also sold!

Also sold on Saturday was the Mask Abstract painting...

Small Millifiori Mosaic Mirrors

Deep purple frame with crackle glass and sea shell details
 

Red and gold frame with metal embellishments and vintage photo detail
 

Aqua blue mermaid mirror - My soul is full of longing for the secrets of the sea.
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Green and gold crackle glass with bezel tiles

These four mirrors I made last weekend and they turned out great..

Anitas Flowers

Yesterday I got a very pleasant suprise when the doorbell rang and there stood a lady with a beautiful bouquet of flowers!
Thank you for the sweet gesture Anita, I was so touched by it...as you can see the bouquet is stunning, and so appropriate with the stralitzia to remind us of Africa!
XXXX

The Snake Project and other stuff...

Well it's been some months now that I have been busy on the snake project, although I started it shortly after we bought the house, I have worked on it on and off for just a couple of months altogether..but spanning over two years....Yes I know that seems like very long, but as I said, it was on and off as time allowed..So this is how it started...

I attached ropes in different thicknesses to the wall by hammering them in with nails and then plastering over the rope with a few layers of plaster. Then I painted a ground coat on and left it for two years to dry and mature..

Anywayz.. it is a crepresentation of the tree of life art thingy with the snake in the tree, and the whole Adam and Eve trip, the temptation, and the creation and what all, and I originally intended painting it up in bright ethinic colours and designs..but then I decided to hold off and renovate the toilet upstairs. So I got isdetracked and decided to do a bit of a mosaic trip around the toilet window, (which I did in black and purple irridium tiles, and it looks really beautiful) then I found more awsome tiles that I just couldn't limit to a brief appearance in the toilet, and sooo I was bitten by the mosaic bug and the rest is history..

So back to the snake and the tree of life...so I got hooked on mosaic, and wanted to do more, but needed a bit of an intro, and couldn't find anything online that really grabbed me by the boo boo, until...I bought Laurel Skye's book on millifiori mosaic! That just blew my socks off..and I thought, hey girl GET CREATIVE and don't make any lame art! So of course Laurels work inspired me no end and took everything into a much higher stratesphere, and then my inner demon told me that the only way to go with the snake would be mosaic...and not just any old crappy broken tile reject mosaic..but coloured mirror and glass mosaic..and thats the way I took it..! In November while my Dad was visiting at the start of winter, and I had finished up working at the park, I pulled finger and started on the snake again..

So a long hard slog ensued where I had moments when my feet were killing me from standing on the ladder, my back was aching from bending doubled over on the floor and my fingers were bleeding beneath tattered rubber gloves from grouting sharp pieces of glass tile..and to be honest I did sometimes wonder why I didn't just make a bleedin table like everyone else...

But hella freekin loo ja..today..I finished da snake..!!!..and it looks so darn good that I could just pee myself with delight and self satisfaction!
Once I got going, I only realized what a job it was..

 At this stage it was starting to look like something and that really gave me the push to get cracking and get it done..

 But once the tiling job was done I thought, oh bliss, now just one day to grout it and then its finished..WRONG...it took me three days to grout..it was a killer job, I went through 2 rollls of kitchen towl just rubbing the excess grout off...the mess was incredible, as of course..I had to use BLACK grout..that just got everywhere..I was sooo happy once I had that job behind me!

 

The finished work looks amazing, all the negative areas cleaned up  and painted...the mirrors...ahh..WOW..I just love the coloured mirror so much that if money was no object I would probably end up tiling everything in coloured mirror. I love my snake, and am very happy that I decided to go with the glass and mirror mosaic, when I look at it now, sparkling and shining, it makes all the hard graft worth while!

 

The funky frames above the doors

Then...as if the snake wasn't enough, I also mosaiced the frames I put above the doors leading off the gallery...(these I also did when we first moved in, and have been chilling for two years..).I used plaster board which I cut into my shapes and nailed to the wall, then same as the snake I plastered over the boards and primed them with a coat of wall paint..and then tiled...

They have turned out fantastic, and look absolutely amazing against the new colour on the walls...they shimmer and glitter the big square tiles are glass backed with hammered metal, and they look fantastic..I love them.

And now the front door...

So now tripping on my high, I decided to renovate the old front door that was so dirty and terrible, and bloody hell, after a good clean and a sanding, taking out the broken old window panes at the top and putting in to-die-for poison green and blackberry purple colourd glass panes..TA DA..Old Crappy Door is now WOW GROOVY DOOR.. it looks so good that I have fallen in love with it and want to make it into a real show piece with a good coat of wood protector or whatever and a fancy new door handle.

 

The rest of the gallery I am still busy with (but nearly finished)...I painted two of the walls in my fav colour...yip..DEEP PURPLE...yeah...sexy...put up the old junk vitrine wall cabinet, which I decorated with some of the funky hats my Ouma made and some folaige... and a stuffed raven..and boy does it ever look kewwwlll! So all in all the gallery is comming together really well, and as I see the light at the end of the tunnel I am starting to think along the lines of opening night/ first exhibition tra lal la la la...

I am also mega inspired by all this renovating and fixing up and painting and decorating and and and... and can't wait to pull finger in the workshops and start MAKING ART..!!!

I will keep yeall posted about how things are getting along..I'm very busy and have chewed my nails down to the quick, so if my posts on here are slow you know why..!
Take care and keep cool!
Cheeerrrrrzzz....

Renovating the Workshop

This is what the groundfloor kitchen looked like when we moved into the house..

Tanya stripped the old rotting wall paper off and completely replastered the entire kitchen..isn't she an angel! And she did a fine job of it too..(.notice the flying saucer hovering in the middle of the room)

Tanya hard at work..



Before - The workshop when it was still Tanyas kitchen...after this it spent quite some months as a dump room..but now...ta da..it's getting a face lift so as to soon become the heart and soal of my business..

Well after clearing the clutter, I have started on the workshop renovations...The pin stripe wall paper was an additiopn Tanya put up, and I like it, so have kept it..
The little cupboard in the wall, which was once a cold storage cupboard that was bricked up (shortly after the invention of electricity and electric refrigeration), I have painted deep purple...
The yellowed and fly poep encrusted UFO flourecent light hanging from the ceiling (that tall people always bump their heads on) is comming down and getting the 'Michelle treatment'..see below..

The back wall I painted this hot orange and trimmed the edge with triangles of glass mosaic..

All fixed up, painting complete! Shelves and work surfaces up and the UFO lamp with its new look..

In the center of the lamp I put one of Marinas stamped pics from her Cherry Pie Stamps broucher that came with my last order, it's of a witches tea party. I thought it was so cute, I don't know where she gets these quirky pics from..

I painted the center disk in the same deep purple I used on the cupboard doors and sprinkled it with stars and glitter. I then stuck on plastic mosaic stones and embellishments and some yellow mirror triangles, outlined everything with glitter glues in gold and turquois, and voila..I'm pretty chuffed with the new look!

A Historic Occassion

In 1953, that would make it...um..65 years ago, the front door to my little house was locked, nailed closed and boarded up...

Fast forward to June 2009, we bought the house and set about with the massive renovations. Of course, one of the first things we did was see if we could open the front door..but alas, the key was missing so the door remained closed till further notice.

But of course, now that the ground floor is being turned into a studio and gallery, the door MUST  be opened..! So..enter my trusty builder Renè, (God bless his cotton socks), with much hammering, banging sawing, dust and dirt..he got the door open..! Thank you so much Renè..!!

Now it's all systems go and a cout down to the opening of my long awaited studio and gallery..hip hip..hooray!

Large Terracotta Bowl on Leopard Stand

This large terracotta bowl has been hand coiled in the traditional African way, slowly building up the form with coils of clay. The inside and border on the outside are decorated with slip, hand painted with underglaze colours and glazed.

The bowl stands on a seperate tripod stand of three sculpted leopards (hand painted and glazed), allowing the bowl to be removed from the stand for easy cleaning.

The bowl on its stand has a complete height of 23cm high, and 37 cm wide.