An art date for your social calendar

When I’m not making craft for Emma Makes, which is not very often, I make prints. For the last few years that has extended to a once-a-year print session so I can contribute to Solander Gallery’s Christmas show.

The show is on again soon and is always a lovely event with all the works retailing for $300 or under. The event details are:

Opening
Saturday, 1 December: 11.00am – 2.30pm
Solander Gallery, 218c Willis St, Te Aro, Wellington

If you’re in Wellington try and make it to the opening so you get first pick. Otherwise the show is on until 24 December.

Here’s my other prints held at Solander.

My love for you

One of the great things about all those podcast recommendations at the start of the year is now making new discoveries. I’d listened to ‘My Love for You‘ podcast (created by this blogger) a couple of times on the train to work and enjoyed it, which I was reminded of yesterday when I listened to a couple more while sewing.

I like art; I did my degree in Fine Arts and love discovering new work. However, I don’t like the pretension that sometimes goes with talking about art – the contest that you’re brighter because you ‘understand’ this or that. I’m more a fan of a thing well made and the pure enjoyment of pretty pictures.

‘My Love for You’ is a great podcast for discovering new artists and their work. The podcast also talks to the makers about what they do. Sure, they have ideas behind what they do but they also talk about their story as an artist and their technique. It’s so enjoyable and refreshing to hear a maker, rather than an interpreter, talking about art and I’ve often listened with my phone in my hand so I can see what they’re talking about.

Here’s a couple of favourites lately. You can get the podcast here - it’s not very timely but that suits me because I find it hard to keep up with all my weekly podcasts, so this is a nice treat.

Yesterday I listened to Lisa Condgon:

A while ago on the train I listened to Jen Stark – the work below is cut paper. I spent a lot of time just flawed by her technical mastery of a pair of scissors.

A work in progress

On Friday, and over the weekend, I started working on some new notebooks. I recently bought a new printer, which came with a scanner, and wondered if I could do some drawings, ink them, scan them in and create notebook covers.

It’s a pretty basic way to work but I don’t do computer design – everything I make, prints included, are sketched, planned and drawn using pencil on paper.

This is the sketch for my 'A life at sea' notebook, which has a sailing ship on the front.

Detail of the back cover - you can see that the ship's frontpiece (the woman's face) once had a longer, less ski-jump nose.

The cover after scanning and printing.

I’ve sewn these notebooks up now and think they look really good. I’ve also made two other designs – one with retro roses and another called ‘strange family tree’, which has silhouettes of people’s heads, like old cameos, but also outlines of other family animals like pigs, dogs and birds.

I’ll launch all three notebooks to the world on Friday at Palmerston North’s ‘May the Fourth be with you‘ craft market and after that send them to stockists and put them for sale in my online shop.

If you like sailing ships as much as I do then you  might also like this and this.

My print is in Your Home & Garden magazine

I was super surprised and really excited to get a text recently from my friend Reanne telling me that my one of my prints was in Your Home & Garden. It’s in the latest edition, which looks like this:

What I really love is that the print was bought by people who’ve got such great taste! I rarely know who buys my work – prints or craft – so it’s wonderful to see where it’s gone to live. Another print from this edition is above our spare bed.

Your Home & Garden is a really nice magazine – it’s filled with the type of houses that are stylish and amazing but that don’t make you feel poor. It’s inspirational and inexpensive (it’s around $8 an issue) and you can get a subscription as a Fly Buys reward.

When I saw my print in the magazine I asked my photographer to take photos of some of  my prints and made a website so people could see them.

As I was adding content, I read the opening paragraph of my statement on the Solander Gallery website: “Emma McCleary has a love of making prints.” I’d forgotten in my haze of craft how much I do love printmaking so I’m definitely going to make more time for it … while also keeping up my crafting.