Pruning, which has no relation to Prunes, Swords, Mixing Wires and Getting Back into it All

Well, the weather got a bit wintery for a change! In a good way, it's been dismally dull and wet for weeks round here. Steady light rain and the kind of dull light that makes you feel like you never actually woke up fully, so you mooch around, squelching across the mud and moss that may revert to something like a lawn one day if it ever stops raining, grumbling, mumbling and tripping over the chickens, feeling like your battery failed to recharge properly and you left your 'oomph' in your other trousers. .

But a few days ago it was crisp and bright. Cold, (comparatively of course - this is the south eastern bit of the UK after all) but we had bright sunshine for two whole days, which meant it was actually pleasant to be outside. This was convenient as there was work to be done in the garden. 

The apple trees needed pruning and as it was the right time of year for such activity I got the ladder out and set to work. I might have been a bit too enthusiastic as when I looked up a Youtube vid or two  after the event, (I know!) it seems I cut some of the new growth back a bit too much. Still, I got rid of the millions of spindly vertical bits called 'watershoots', that produce neither fruit nor blossom, so if we get fewer apples this year than we potentially might it's no great loss as we usually get far too many anyway. . . 

It's the cooking apple tree up next, Bramleys, lovely great big buggers they are. We get shedloads of them, maybe I should start up an apple pie factory or something. 

Still I'm not really complaining, I am only doing a good impression of somebody complaining, I mean, we have an actual (small) orchard FFS! Not something I imagined I would be lucky enough to own years ago ;-) So I feel suitably blessed.

Anyway, pruning aside, I have been back in my workshop making stuff. I think people, including me in my capacity as a person, are a bit tired of the chunky rectangular image transfer stuff I've been making lately, so I will leave that alone for a while I think. 

I am busy making some spike related things. Spikes with a slight difference, as I am using upcycled wire instead of copper for the bails and loops. Something I have done before but not quite in this way. I have been making Swords. . . Cool huh?

Oh yeah, before I knocked the image trans stuff on the head temporarily I messed around with using thin copper wire wrapped round some of the upcycled wire I like to use as bails etc.

Note the copper leg warmers, very 80's

I liked the effect, so I have integrated it into the Sword thing. . .

 

Selling wise, things have been a bit slow but it's all going OK, with a few things actually selling on Etsy believe it or not. Maybe I have ceased to be invisible there for a brief time, who knows?
Anyway, onwards and upwards, or at least not backwards and downwards, the climate is taking that journey on it seems. . . ;-(
Until next time, whenever that might turn out to be,
be well,
cheers
Jon x

The Curious Case of The Blue Soup - A Spike Spike - and the imminent rise of Mid Century Primitive. . .

Well, starting in a backwards direction, just to be awkward, with the Mid Century Primitive, the above pic should show you what I'm on about. . .

The primitive bit is easy to get your head round, pretty self explanatory, but the Mid Century might be a bit less so. Someone mentioned it in a comment on FB and it resonated. I think there is something about the shape and colours that is resonant of fifties and sixties interior design. Your mileage may vary.

Dunno. A bit of a tenuous correlation maybe, but it's a fun invented category to explore the inherent contradictions, or indeed the inherent similarities to be found within it. ;-) 

More about this further down the blog post.

The spike in spike sales may be an oh-so-witty pun but it is also a real life event. I had another good selling session on FB the other day. (Update - and again last night!) My spikes seem to hit the spot with quite a few people.
Hooray for quite a few people, is what I say. Though a spike does imply a sharp up followed by a sharp down, so maybe it's not such a feel good analogy. . .
Anyway, the beads below all sold, amongst others. Long may it continue ;-)

I'll get to the blue soup in my own good time thank you. The subject of Mid Century Primitive is more pressing a matter. Imho of course.

It's a mixture of artily crude and deliberately and sophisticatedly unsophisticated workmanship and simple, sculptural shapes (whatever that means, as any shape could be 'sculptural' really. . . but I think you know what I mean) reminiscent of shapes popular in the fifties and sixties, especially amongst ceramic artists. Who were no doubt influenced by such artists as Brancusi, Arp, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth etc. Well, that's my take on it.

Maybe because like such artists the shapes are defined by the process as much as by an imposed conscious decision. .  Discuss. . .

I'm not saying my work lives up that ideal, but it's what I am aiming for, without getting too precious about it all. It's fun to make this stuff.

Oh yeah, the ones below sold too ;-)

Blue what? . . Oh yeah, soup.

Well. . . It's all about red cabbage. I cooked a roast chicken with all sorts of veg in the pan below it, including red cabbage. The process turned the cabbage and consequently all the veg dark blackish blue. . . ooer. . .

When I made soup from the chicken carcass and bits (as I always do) I included the left over veg. I whizzed it up in the blender and got blue black, slightly frothy, due to the blending process, soup! Yay! My wife was appalled as it didn't look even vaguely appetising ;-) I ate it however.

It tasted great with a bit of yoghurt thrown in. Hah! Mid Century Primitive Soup. . .

Till next time,
Jon x