By Stephie, on Monday 16th November, 2009 at 15:33 pm
It’s Kim’s daddy’s birthday today, but we started off the celebrations yesterday with a picnic on the beach and a visit to Tate St Ives.
It seemed an unusual exhibition to me, a bit different from the stuff we normally see there. For one thing they’d painted the walls brown and tinted the vast windows, all very Victorian and I guess in keeping with the show’s theme of magic. Not sure the exhibition met with the grandiose description on the blurb though. One thing I did enjoy was the large number of drawings and prints displayed, and seeing work by Graham Sutherland – I haven’t seen much of his work for years. It was interesting to meander through an exhibition that presented work in such a wide range of media from installation and film through to more traditional sculpture and painting, which doesn’t seem to happen there very often (such a small gallery I suppose). I came away wanting to go and do some more drawing (immediately), which is always a good thing!, and Kim was fascinated with Damien Hirst’s Unicorn, he couldn’t work out whether the whole thing was real or if it was just “a pony with an antler stuck on” and whether he’d actually had to kill it himself to put it in the formaldehyde! (I hope not?!) Undoubtedly the stuff of childhood dreams, and not something I’ve ever seen on my birthday (or even the day before it!).
I’ll leave you with a picture of father and son on Porthmeor beach outside the gallery – just the place for a cuppa and a slice of chocolate cake! I’m off to bake another birthday cake now, so see you soooooon!
 A great place for a picnic even in winter!
By Stephie, on Wednesday 8th April, 2009 at 10:00 am
 Traditional Rail Fence pattern  Pieced back. I made a lap quilt of course. It was sitting there, the sewing machine, begging me to use it before it has to go back to its owner…
My ancient (well ok, vintage) Jones machine (20 odd years old now) has recently given up the ghost and I don’t know what to do about it. Ideally I’d like a new one, but the sort I’d like (which would be to replace like with like), will cost a minimum of £300. I haven’t got £300. I haven’t even got the £35+ it would cost to service my old one, let alone do any of the repairs necessary (the needle’s nolonger picking up from the bobbin). So what to do? Well, when a friend lends you her machine to make a blind for your sitting room, you can’t not make a quilt top too, can you, if there’s time? Especially if the quilt top you’re going to make is for a mutual friend’s big ’5 0′ coming up in May.
So the question was, what could I make in a shortish space of time and very simply (the Toyota sewing machine, lovely as it is, has 2 stitch lengths and not a lot else!). The patchwork design was dictated by a piece of red fabric with a sunflower print on it. Why? Well, because the intended recipient gave me the said red fabric for patchwork, and once-upon-a-time it was a skirt that belonged to her then three year old daughter. Three years old? Not a lot of fabric in that then, surely?! More than you’d think; it had several gathered flounces. The only thing was that because of the size of the flounces they’d have to be cut into strips. Great, I thought, I could also pick out the yellow colour and use up some of my yellow ‘odds and ends’ (not enough to call it a stash). So the traditional rail fence patchwork began to take shape. And pretty darn quickly too!
 Hand quilted sunflower border Being a simple machine, and not being mine in the first place, I had to quilt it by hand. It’s only about 4 weeks until my friend’s birthday, so I decided the best thing to do would be to tie-quilt the main section and add a quilted border. Taking the sunflower theme from the red fabric I simply hand drew random sunflower shapes in different sizes around the edge. I like it. It’s nice and sunny, and warm. I hope my friend likes it too…
 Tied quilting in yellow, cotton-perle thread. I love the way this is so quick and easy to do and creates almost a 'duvet' feel to the quilt!
By Stephie, on Thursday 19th February, 2009 at 21:10 pm
Who is your favourite modern artist? – Times Online. I’ve voted, have you?
Almost worth just clicking on every single woman on the list. Though one of my favourite artists, Dorothy Cross, isn’t even on the list. That’s a crime.
By Stephie, on Monday 4th February, 2008 at 09:10 am
 Oliver Sutherland's volcano  Kim takes a look into Patrick Lowry's Sculpture to see how far it goes down...
We trundled down to Newlyn yesterday for this fun, light-hearted exhibition that was part of the Newlyn Art Gallery’s Transitions programme and was curated by Sovay Berriman. The work on show was inspired by the film Journey to the Centre of the Earth and had a fantastical, childlike quality to it. The film was playing throughout the event on a tiny old-fashioned tv and was a great distraction for Kim – while I hung around stuffing the rock cakes on offer! Mmmmm, well what else is there to do on a wet Sunday afternoon?
By Stephie, on Tuesday 11th December, 2007 at 19:33 pm
 Paper chain (SB)  Transplant (CB) Unspoken is an installation by Chantal Brooks and me, and these are just a couple of pictures of the installation on show at Invigorate at the Exchange in Penzance last week. It’s made up of a correspondence between the two of us and includes narrative, images (including prints) and small sculptural ‘artefacts’; there were probably around 25 objects on display, but the work is ongoing and will continue to grow. The correspondence is really intimate and personal, touching on themes of vulnerability and protection and has developed a distinct aesthetic as it’s grown.
Related links and posts
- Stephanie Boon – external site
- Chantal Brooks – external site
- Brooks and Boon Unspoken – external site where you can see a full gallery of Unspoken and also join in the project.
- For related posts click on Unspoken in the tag cloud on the right.
By Stephie, on Wednesday 5th December, 2007 at 20:03 pm
ooh have a look at this…
www.vjtheory.net
Listened to a discussion on vj-ing this pm at Invigorate – very stimulating, even late in a busy, busy day (drinking the gallery coffee mostly…). Interesting to learn how practitioners are collaborating in a relatively new field to create a means of debate on an international scale. Have a look at the website for some great articles and links to vj sites and videos and stuff. Go on, I dare ya!
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I'm running a 28 mile marathon in memory of Josie this February. Come and find out why.
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