Our submission to the online Isolation Portraits exhibition at Devon guild of crafts is a portrait of our middle son and is inspired by our daily exercise during lockdown. The unexpected benefit of the pandemic situation was the opportunity to explore our local surroundings, giving our family the chance to spend time outdoors together in nature.

The portrait is called ‘A feather found’ and features the wild flowers and field roses that were all around us in early summer.. on one walk in particular we found a lot of bird feathers.. The feather that is held in my sons hand is symbolic of the value of basic everyday things and how they came to mean so much more to us during lockdown. As our worlds got smaller the things that we discovered on our walks became more precious and significant.

Louises work has always been inspired by nature and before the lockdown featured flowers and plants, sometimes birds and animals. Spending 100 days in lockdown with our family had the effect that we wanted to reflect our experience in our work. We saw the call out for the Devon Guild portrait exhibition and it gave us the incentive to produce this piece.

The piece is a 20cm shallow dish. As flat as we can make it in order for it to stand and be stable. The dish is hand blown by Colin and the portrait is sandcarved into the surface by hand. The making process was a labour of love, its form and subject being so different to our usual work. This final piece took several attempts to achieve by working out various compositions and technical challenges. It has been and continues to be a difficult time for everyone and as artists we have found our way through by making what we can of what we have.

Spending time outdoors and in gardens this Summer, is one of the ways that we are making our way through these challenging times.

We were looking forward to taking part in some outdoor exhibitions this year, some of which have been cancelled, however four of Colin’s garden pieces are available from AA Fine Art in their Garden Sculpture exhibition.

The exhibition features the work of ten artists working in various materials including stone, bronze and clay.

Click on link to visit the exhibition  Amanda Aldous Fine Art

It was during lockdown and with great uncertainty that we began to plan and blow our pieces for the Jewel Garden exhibition.

During that time, back in March and April we, like many others, became more grateful than ever for our outside space, spending time close to home on our allotment, sowing seeds and raising plants.

As Spring turned to Summer the flowers came out and became the source of inspiration for Louise to create the drawings for the sand carved surfaces of our three finished pieces,  Cornflower, Cosmo and Summer bouquet.

It is a joy for us now to see our work on display in the exhibition, alongside the work of our fellow guild members, in a bricks and mortar gallery that is able to safely open to the public.

These pieces, that began as seeds of hope to us, now represent and celebrate the welcome coming of Summer after an extraordinarily challenging Spring.

Jewel Garden Exhibition

A mixed discipline exhibition of work inspired by the forms and colours of plants anf flowers.

The Guild@51

30th June - 9th August

Tues-Sat 10-2

Instagram Locostudioglass

Cornflowers..We sowed the seeds of these intensely blue flowers back in March and now they are blooming as lockdown is easing a little, bringing joy to us and doing their thing for the pollinators.

We have had our allotment for 18 years and it has always been such a wonderul source of joy and inspiration and this year we we have been especially grateful for it.

Through a process of experimentation in our glass blowing studio we discovered just the right combination of two colours. We used this unique blend to achieve an intense and deep blue with variation of sapphire shades and hints of violet, closely representing the colours found within the Cornflower itself.  Each of the bowls made is blown by hand and has their own drawing of a flowing tangle of stem and bloom that is sandcarved by hand into the surface. Each of these elements drawn from observing the Cornflower plants combine to capture their essence

We have made a small group of six of these bowls and are offering them as part of the wonderful @artistsupportpledge

https://www.locoglass.co.uk/products/204-cornflower-bowl

Cornflower bowl

Hand blown, sand carved glass.

13cm x 8cm