Pink house

For some strange reason, photos I take of my home and room, always look so red and pink. I think it might be because we have pink carpets, reddish brown floorboards, and lots of sunlight all the time. I've tried white balancing my photos but they never work. Anyway, here's some bits from my room. I bought a new chair. Finally an Eames! After so long. I first saw it a couple of years ago on Stephanie's flickr. And have since wanted one of my own. I think I've been in love with Eames chairs since 5 years ago! I kid you not! But you know, at this stage of my life, when I'm not even working and still saving all my money so I can make art, I can only afford a replica. I know! But reading Anna's post, convinced me even more so that it's alright. One day, we'll get the real one! Darren likes the chair too. He says it will make for a really good dining table chair. And he kind of suggested we get a bunch in future when we have our own proper non-rented home. I really dislike leather and fabric chairs. I'm a plastic chair person! So more cute plastic chairs in my future home? Oh surely I wouldn't mind that! Haha.

For now, I'm pretty much settling nicely into my 'new' room and loving every bit of my new chair. Oh bye bye to you horrible bad back aches! It's pastel yellow, has beautiful wooden legs, looks simple but it is so comfortable. Not to mention so cute and every time I sit on it, I think of my cute friend Miss Ebony! Check out her awesome home. Too bad I don't live in Tokyo!

Doing things

The weekend was well spent. Stocking up with lots of fresh organic vegetables from the farmer's market. Making yummy pasta and carrot lentil soup, buying and enjoying my new chair and rearranging things in my room. It's way too dark to take nice photos now. So I'll take some tomorrow and share with you the look of my new room and chair.

Hope your weekend was lovely. What did you guys do? Anything interesting?

In my studio

So this is what's been happening. I sort of finished my Tetley's Tea Bag and hung it on the wall. I am still not done with it. I'm considering adding the white sides to it, to make it look like the real bag. But yup, In the meantime, I scored myself a wooden plate from the thrift store (great for all my spools of thread), used up my prize money and got more fabrics to make more soft sculptures. I wish I still had leftover money from the $100 prize money. Fabrics and art making is just way too expensive! And I still have so much more stuff to make and pay for. Oh my.

Anyway, I'm making a packet of Kraft's Parmesan Cheese now. I like how it's turning out so far. The colour's pretty vibrant and happy. Can't wait to finish it! Anyway, after a long week of working hard and dealing with yet another dreaded art history paper, which I'm still not done writing, I've decided the weekend's here and so no work for today. Instead I will go look for a nice chair. My cheap $19 Ikea chairs broken and the backaches it gives me isn't nice. So yes. Off to look for a chair!

See you around and have a great weekend!

Growing Art Collection

A mixture of art and photo prints, original drawings, gocco prints and postcards. I'm still a student with zero income, so most of these were gifts, exchanges and some were purchases.

Top: Rob Ryan, Lisa Congdon and Laina/erosturannos
Middle: Gemma Correll and Sarah mcneil
Bottom: Amy Borrell and Jen Collins

Top to bottom: Sanja Pahoki, Sarah Mcneil and a portrait of when I was three, a present from my friend Caroline Banks!

Sometimes I wish I had nice light coloured wooden floorboards so I can take photos of things nicely. Unfortunately, I only have pink carpets. I also wish for a nice landlord who'll allow me to hammer nails and hang art around the house, and paint the kitchen a nice shade of green or maybe blue. I can't decide. Hmmm. Anyway, I finally got down to buying some frames yesterday night. As always, I find Ikea frames to be the most affordable and presentable. I like simple frames that allows one to look at the artwork without being distracted. Well, luck allowed me to find two nice frames at the discounted section! I think they were display frames but they look good anyway.

Now, do you have an art collection at home too? Or even a small artwork that you really really like! I would love to see what and whose work you collect/display in your beautiful home. And I'm sure a lot of readers would love to know too, so feel free to blog about it and leave the link to your post below! I think it's a great way to share not only your blog with others but also a bunch of undiscovered artists we should all know of!

Nicholas Building Open Studios!

As promised, finally some pictures from the Open Studios at Nicholas Building! Darren and I went on Thursday evening and started from the 9th floor. We've always loved the building for it's old-school lifts. If you go in the day, there's even an attendant in one of the lifts. He's got such a charming funky character, it's hard to not want to chat with him. Unfortunately, we didn't get to meet him that night. But anyway, we started from the top floor and worked our way down the different levels.

Coming from a person who lives at the top floor of a walk up apartment, and has to climb 8 flights of stairs every single day! Walking down sure beats climbing up stairs right?

There were quite a number of jewellery makers opening up their studios this year. But there weren't a lot of studios open. I had a chat with a lovely jeweller and she said that because of rent increase, a lot of the previous tenants left. Anyway, that aside, we still got to see lots of talented people's studios. And had lots of fun while doing so.
There were lots of pretty jewellery to see and buy and a printmaker's studio was open too! Unfortunately, I forgot the name of several of the artists and forgot to take namecards too! So yes, if you were there that night or if you know whose works and studios these belong to, let me know because I really want to credit them! Thanks!

We popped into some galleries as well. Blindside Gallery had this funky Lazy Slum interactive art thing going on. We didn't join in, but it sure looked hippie and interesting enough for others to want to join in!

The creative studios of Book Sculptor Nicholas Jones and artist Tai Snaith. I'm a fan of both their works, so it was really nice to be able to see their studios and their work in progress stuff close up. Apart from artist and jewellery studios, there was also this bag maker's studio and a vintage sewing shop that made me really excited. I really wanted a bag but I couldn't afford one so I ended up buying two spools of vintage thread instead from the sewing shop instead. Well, I needed some thread for my Tetley's Tea bag, so why not? Haha.

Oh and did you know, the doll house that you see above, tells you your fortune? Apparently you put a coin in at the side and roll it or something and your fortune gets read. Creepy but fascinating at the same time! Anyway, before I end this really long post, I'd like to share with you pictures of one more special studio.

This space and beautiful jewellery belongs to the really talented Jeweller, Natalia Milosz-Piekarska. I loved every single bit of her space. Her inspiration board, tools and her jewellery. Oh be still my heart! I really wanted one of her necklaces, or maybe an earring, or a ring. Seriously I can't decide which one, I like all of them! But yes, I couldn't afford it ( I'm a broke art student! ) so I could only afford to go ooh and ahh at all the prettiness. Sigh. But yes, I think you all should check out her work. It's amazing!

Alright, thank you so much for making it all the way to the end of this post! it's possibly one of the longest posts I've done in a while. I hope you enjoyed reading every single bit of it!

Did anyone else go to the open studios too?

Hello!

I was going to do a Nicholas Building Open Studios post but am still trying to sort out all those photos I took. So for now, here are several non-open studios-related photos. I'm working on my third soft sculpture. This time round, I'm making a Tetley tea bag. So far so good. I kind of am liking how it's turning out. Oh and my beans are growing well too. I can't wait for them to sprout and be ready for harvesting. Now off to finish sewing a bunch of macarons! I had a big shop order. A lovely lady bought 14 macarons!

Thank you! : )
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