All set up and ready to go. It took a lot longer than I thought this time around but we’re here and ready to go. I’ll either be passed out from exhaustion or the heat in the Royal exhibition Buildings or drunk by Sunday night. Hopefully drunk as a happy sold out skunk.
I’ve spent months sewing, cutting, packaging, branding ready for Melbourne Finders Keepers. I’m here and I’m set up. Six coffees in, I’m ready to rock ‘n roll. Let’s hope it’s a good one.
Finders Keepers market Melbourne
I am so excited and so stressed at the same time. In less than three days time I will setting up getting ready for Finders Keepers Market in Melbourne. It’s the pinnacle of markets and I have been lucky to get in but do I need some stock! For the last three weeks I have been up late every night, sewing, cutting, screen printing, making in every small moment that I can squeeze a little task in. But my list of things to do isn’t getting any smaller, if anything I keep adding to it.
The hubster has tried to help and I’m not sure if crying or laughing is appropriate as he fights off the little pieces of backing tape that every time seem to get stuck to him and the little dance that follows as he tries to get it off. Every single piece that he touches seems to get stuck to him.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, I’ve got my map, I know where I’m going, just a couple gift tags to package up, few hundred Christmas cards to package and box, tags, labels and bags to make. No complaints, it’s good, I actually enjoy sitting there with some rubbish TV on sticking labels and hole punching things, but I’m just a little worried I might still be doing this come set up time.
At this stage I’m still laughing, I might change my opinion come Thursday night if I’m still up at 3am sticking and glueing things together. But I will be all smiles come 6pm Friday night! Hopefully, fingers crossed.
Most of the time I’m pretty patient, most of the time. Not always. When making something, I get a little excited and just want to get on with it. Like screen printing, which if you’ve never attempted to hand screen print, let’s just say it’s one of those times that a little bit (or a lot) of patients goes along way. Yesterday was my test run day for my series of prints that I about to start doing for a huge market coming up in a couple of weeks time, I had lots of different types of paper, paint, paint thinners to test out and all I wanted to do was rush through in, get it done so I could get lots and lots done.
I learnt something yesterday, patients is a virtue that I might not be blessed with. It took almost all afternoon to test a few sheets of paper out and it took that long because I got too excited and rushed it. So my lesson for when I am printing 500 prints is take my time. It just is way too much fun to go slowly sometimes. But I’m getting there
Original illustration and hand cut paper cut
The creative one’s are always the fun one’s…even if you just don’t know it at the time.
I’m one part of the endearingly named ‘mad family’ as our friends used to call us, or the Safron from Absolutely Fabulous to a lesser extreme. I grew up in a creative family, it was far from the conventional families that mainly surrounded us and at the time and all I craved was to be that ‘normal’ kind of family. But now, many years on and with kids of my own to creatively inspire that couldn’t be further from the truth. The creative one’s are always the fun ones, even if you just don’t know it at the time.
According to my Mum, I knew how to sew a button on before I could talk properly, my childhood was spent creating and crafting. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t buy a piece of clothing with the idea of turning it into something else or adding something to it. I remember sewing myself into something ‘I just whipped up’ one afternoon, to only have to cut myself out of it hours later when I couldn’t get it my arms out of it or over my head. I remember my friends finding it funny, to me this was just normal.
I had a very conservative schooling and I tried my hardest to conform, to be interested in science, sport and maths but it wasn’t really for me. Don’t get me wrong, I use maths all the time, the simple basic or ‘veggie’ maths as we used to call it. I get it, it’s not hard but also, it’s not that interesting. To me anyway. Sorry to all you mathematicians out there reading an artists blog! I tried to conform in my younger days, even in the start of my working career and now I don’t know why I tried so hard. It is in your blood. You are either creative or not, there is no need to hide from it. Just embrace it.
Today I run towards the creative world and dive in headfirst. I’ve got some catching up to do. But I’ve also got some amazing experience being a practical person, I’m aware that it is good to have a practical side. I fought it for a while, but now it’s natural, so just call me a ‘practical creative’.
Some days I just get a little bit excited. Today is one of those days.
Today I am rambling on behalf of someone else in professional basis and other than being a little nervous it’s pretty exciting. It’s a great little group that supports women in the creative world and today my first post has gone live.
I learnt something about myself in writing this, I am someone who is creative with all the wonderful things that go along with that title but at the same time hopefully encompassing some of the practical traits of the left brained folk among us. Coming from a creative family I am very aware that being creative and practical doesn’t always come naturally. I am labelling this as being a ‘Practical Creative’ which I think sums up pretty much who I am. And I bet, if I look hard enough there a whole heap of ‘practical creative’s’ out there…
So go on, take a trip over to the Creative Women’s Circle and have a read. And if you’re a female in the creative world then why not take a deeper look and possibly join.
I’ve been toying with the idea of doing prints for a long time, but the artist in me has found it hard to get past the idea of the original is always best. For me it’s a bit like the movies or TV series, the first original is always better than the remake, the Japanese version of The Ring, the Danish version of The Killing all better the first time around!
But, I am acknowledging as my hubby says ‘I’m stuck in my ways’ and sometimes change is just that, change. For someone who lectures university design students to get ahead and be disruptive and innovative, I know that new is sometimes just god damn fantastic. But there are some things that I just really like the original way. And hopefully when it comes to art, the old fashioned, out dated crafts never truly die and the originals stay coveted.
So, as there have been requests for a print version of some of my pieces, I have learnt to ‘re-train’ my brain on how to use the Adobe Creative Suite, because it’s simply not good enough to scan it and print it. Trying to keep the hand crafted feel is really hard, because frankly, these programs do amazing things and it’s way too tempting to play around. I want to keep it real and authentic looking.
Maybe, just maybe, prints will evolve into something that I love as much as the original, however something tells me that I will always think the original is best. A bit like James Bond, but there is certainly room for Daniel Craig. That might be it, there is room for both but I’ll just always favor the original.
What do you think? Original or reproduction? Or both?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMFn9Yer0ak&index=26&list=PLpIUe_p9ff5OlDOXk0lSp1s5CNSDV6E92
Have you ever watched yourself on video and been totally surprised by what you sound like? Yep, well this one is mine. Here is a little video about my art as part of the RAW Artist event last May. Some beautiful shots taken by videographer Wye Keen Wong of the art and the detail in the paper cuts.
I have an all time creative hero, someone who when I saw them recently up front and in person walk past me, I got all nervous, nudged the person next to me and went ‘Oh my God that is Beci Orpin’. Like a nervous school girl, the sort of thing I’d expect a love struck teenager do when they saw Brad Pitt walk past…well maybe that is showing my age, they’re more into One Direction or Zac Effron…the one’s who get all shy and not scream like lunatics.
Beci Orpin is the sort of illustrator, creatively incredible woman who just makes creativity look so simple and cool. Not that I have ever felt that it wasn’t cool, but she really makes it look cool. Beci (I use her first name, with ease, like she’s my mate…I wish) was talking at another incredible wonderful creative woman’s Big Hearted Business ‘un’conference, Clare Bowditch. This ‘un’conference as they call is a two day event open to all creative people, is aimed at bringing creative people from all arrays of talent together to discuss how to do what you love and make money from it. If you’ve not heard of it, have a look, there are great tips and bits to take from her website. Check out the inspiration bombs, you might see my little hands doing a paper cut accompanying a couple of very clever people’s advice.
Anyway, back to Beci. She was talking about making it in the creative world and to seriously badly paraphrase, she said ‘at the beginning, say yes to everything. Do the jobs that might not be that exciting and take advantage of any opportunities that come about’. So, since I heard this, I’ve taken that quite literally and am saying ‘yes’ to ‘yes’. So if I get contacted about a new market, I say yes. This weekend I went to Bendigo, it’s almost a two hour drive away and normally I might say that is a bit far to go and weigh up the pro’s and con’s but I didn’t have to think about it as I’m saying ‘yes to ‘yes. It was worth the drive, such a beautiful creative town, a true indie market and so many people who really appreciated the art of paper cutting. And I don’t mean that this was financially great for me, it was ok but it didn’t matter I got so much more out of it because it was an adventure that I might not have gone on, had I not said yes.
I am pretty excited about where saying yes is going to take me. New adventures hopefully might lead into new opportunities. So here goes. Yes! Yes! Yes!
By the way, I never knew who Zac Effron was or why he was so popular with the younger ladies, until I saw Bad Neighbor recently at the movies. I kind of get it now. And that film isn’t as bad as it sounds, there are some seriously funny moments. Or LOL as my younger counter parts would say…I think.
Last Friday night was the art show, my first ever art show. Now I am an organised person, to say the least. To do lists, colour coding, check lists and timing plans all come naturally to me. I have always been that way, it’s my way for creating some sense out of the chaos that is the rest of my world.
So in theory I was ready for Friday a week before the event. I knew what I had to get done on the days leading up and to be honest it wasn’t much but it was all vitally important. Of course none of those things went to plan, my dear friend put some flyers together for me, printing those was one thing after another, in the end I only had 50% of the designs but at least I had some. My specially cut glass arrived six hours before the show, but it arrived. Luckily as my star pieces would’ve just had to have been sticky tapped on.
I spent ages designing my wall, I got some old fence panels from a construction site down the road, my Dad drilled them and made sure I could easily put them up with cable ties, I had some lip frame holders that I was going to then screw in and rest my frames on so I didn’t have to use the hooks for the frames. All good, all sorted. That was until I was setting up during the day and they were testing the music for the show, it was so loud not only did I almost jump out of my skin but my frames fell off the wall! They didn’t break but that was just pure luck. So with three hours to go and absolutely no tools or anyone to help me I had to come up with another plan. Thankfully my 2.5 year old was playing with the drill when my Dad was putting the fence posts together during the week and made a few extra holes. So a few bolt thingy’s and some string my frames where finally up on the wall and reasonably secure. I just went with it and it all paid off.
So besides things not going fully to plan and the installation next to mine that didn’t work all night but still had two scary men dressed in SWAT gear with guns and masks making me feel a little uncomfortable it was a successful night. I sold the one piece I didn’t want to sell, but that is always the way. And, hey, who can really complain about selling some of your art. It’s always a bonus.
For a few more photo’s instagram or facebook
Paper Chap 