Merry-Go-Round - Time— to manage or not to manage

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't all posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month:

Time management— how do you juggle your time— how do you wish you could juggle your time?

"Juggle" is about right...

At the moment, for instance, I'm having to deal with an overload of work in my day job and that has to take priority. Whenever that happens, I don't have any time for creation and I just deal with orders, if any...

Sometimes, after a long day of working for my day-job, I will have an outburst of creativity and suddenly put together one or several items in one evening. But I prefer to be able to take a whole day when I work on something, often working on several things in parallel, exploring techniques and allowing projects to "mull" some...

Over the past few years, I have dedicated all or nearly all my leisure time to Le Bar du Vent, researching or actually designing / crafting. That is how I juggle my time and my double life— one day at a time.

Secret Paris

View from the room I was staying in. View AND perfume...

New / Nouveautés

Need feedback! Positive, constructive feedback.

Besoin de retours, avis... et autres encouragements.

Moss terrarium necklaces— I'm only getting started— I just love the colours.

Not posting them abroad, so far— I'm not sure it would be legal. I suppose I might consider Europe, though.

Colliers terrarium de mousse ; ce n'est qu'un début. J'aime ces couleurs !

Je ne les envoie qu'en France, pour l'instant : je crains que ce ne soit pas légal de les envoyer à l'étranger. Mais peut-être que l'Europe serait autorisée...

And now for something completely different, though with lovely colour too—

Rien à voir, mais là aussi j'aime la couleur.

An original, indispensable little something that will add flare to your table, whatever the occasion. Solid copper.

Une accessoire original et indispensable, en cuivre, pour ajouter ce petit je-ne-sais-quoi à votre table, quelle que soit l'occasion.

FOW 10

So little time, so much to do. I stumbled onto these sweet chrysoprase cabs recently. I did try to resist, but I really couldn't... They're two tortoises (rather than turtles, I think), and a lovely dolphin, and, one day, they will stand proudly on handmade rings.
Beaucoup à faire et trop peu de temps pour le faire... Adorables cabochons gravés de chrysoprase, pas pu résister. Comme d'hab.

Deux tortues et un joli petit dauphin qui feront de ravissntes bagues. Un jour.

Merry-Go-Round - Inspiring artist

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't all posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month:

An artist that inspires you.

I'm really not sure what to answer to that. I cannot name one or even several artists whose work I feel is an influence on what I make.

Of course there are a few visual artists I am particularly fond of.

Painters Turner and Magritte, as well as photographer André Kertész come to mind immediately.

For some reason(s) that I'm not sure I would want to explore, even if I felt I could.

I simply enjoy looking at their work and letting my mind ramble.

But I wouldn't say they are an influence. It's more like what makes me like them is also what makes me come up with the ideas and objects I come up with.

One work of art that has played a special role in my life is this landscape by Van Gogh. It's entitled Yellow Wheat and Cypresses.

I am not the happy owner of this painting— it's in a museum somewhere, possibly in the National Gallery but I'm not sure.

I have just owned three reproductions of it. Two of them face each other across my living-room at the moment— a large framed print and a larger unframed copy that my brother had made especially for me in China (unsigned, as I asked— it's a copy not a fake). One of the (many) things that make people find my flat "interesting" to plain old "weird".

I first "saw" this painting when I came across a very large print of it, as I was browsing through prints, looking for something to make the white walls of my Cambridge room less white. It was love at first sight. The print was really huge and much too expensive but I just had to have it.

For two years, it was the "detail" that, to my eyes at least, made my bedsitter harmonious as opposed to its original drab state.

After that, it was my visual haven in three more flats, until the paper (I never framed it) couldn't take any more. I was starting a new life, in a different city— I shed that skin.

But after a few years I remembered it and realized I'd missed it. So I hunted down a quality print on the net. Not as large as the "original", but good enough. I felt much better once I'd gotten, framed and hung up the successor. And then two years ago I had the opportunity to have a copy made— for texture— A really large one.

I must have spent hours gazing at this landscape, getting lost in its perfection.

I am no Van Gogh fan. I don't even like his painting most of the time. But this particular painting is me. Somehow.

There's quite a bit of yellow in this, and ususally, yellow is my least favourite colour. But I just love the yellow strokes in this. Just as much as the gorgeous green ones and the delightful blue ones.

The mix of violence and placidity I see in this picture is mysteriously soothing for me, to this day.

The chaotic harmony of it— I really cannot get enough of it.

I guess it epitomizes the mystery of art. As opposed to design. So, a very, very distant influence and source of inspiration...

Spécial Catastrophe au Japon / Japan Relief Special:

Spécial Catastrophe au Japon / Japan Relief Special:

Sur tout panier de 15 euros dans une de mes boutiques*, 5 euros iront à / Out of all combined purchase of 15 euros in any one of my shops*, 5 euros will go to
www.fondationdefrance.org

(30 euros —> 10 euros, etc.)

Sur les articles Spécial Japon (boutique DaWanda) 50% du prix hors frais de port/ Out of Japan Relief items (in DaWanda shop) 50 % of price excluding shipping costs.

Jusqu'au 30 avril / Till April 30th.

*ALM, DaWanda, Etsy

FOW 9

I know these are already around quite a bit and not in a terribly imaginative way, but I have at least two different ideas as to how to give my own twist to these... So once more: watch this space! ;-)

Je me rends bien compte que l'on voit déjà beaucoup de ces petites choses, et pas souvent utilisées de façon très imaginative, mais quiconque est entré dans mon appartement ne sera pas surpris que j'ai été incapable d'y résister. En plus, j'ai deux idées pour donner ma touche personnelle aux bijoux que l'on peut faire avec elles.

Pour la énième fois : à suivre ! ;-)