Clay for all Seasons:

I'm not going to apologise for it being nearly a year since my last blog, I'm just going to say that sometimes things get in the way. If you're reading this I'm truly grateful to you for not having given up on me :) 
During Covid work has been incredibly intense. I work in the NHS, in mental health, and understandably the lockdown affected people's mental health in so many ways. And when life becomes challenging, what's the first thing that goes......creativity!
So, enough of all that. What have I been up to over the past year - in between work and coping with Covid.
I'm aware of what I'm good at in clay, and more importantly what has potential to improve. And designing jewelery has always been something I've struggled with. I love caning, love sculpture, and love designing, but the  art of putting things together to make a pleasing and original piece of jewelry has always alluded me. So I went on a couple of courses with the wonderful Christine Dumont. I learned so much, but also learned an important thing about myself...... that designing jewelry was not my strength!
I actually don't mind that. I found a wonderful quote that spoke to me regarding my quest to become a jewelry designer:
"Failure in unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself" - Charlie Chaplin. 
While I don't consider what I did made a fool out of myself in any way, the important thing was that I tried. I tried incredibly hard (anyone who knows me knows that I never do things by half), and yet somehow I never really 'got' it. However, I then made a snail and bingo - success!!!!!!
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I wanted to make something that was decorative, yet functional, with an original cane design, and that could be adapted to make a pendant. This little snail is an ornament, a ring holder (very sexist I feel saying that women like to take their rings off to do the washing up, but hey ho, my mother always does so that's where I got the idea from), and the cane can be made into a pendant, as below:

This little snail made me smile. 
It made the people I gave it to smile. 
It made someone who had lost a family member know that I was thinking about them.
It gave me a lot of fun creating it.
It gave my friend Linda lots of fun making up colour combinations for the shell cane.
It gave me the opportunity to teach my first on-line clay workshop with the British Polymer Clay guild, where 60 people made the snail.
And most of all, it made me realise that I have a style. I said to my friend Penny Vingoe of Clayaround (a wonderful place to buy clay and all clay needs) that I wanted to have a style, and about three years ago told me that I DO have a style. I'm a slow learner, but I actually think she's right!

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So, apart from slimy creatures, what else have I been doing?
You'll notice the header for the blog is 'A clay for all seasons', well, that's the title of book 2.
Yes, finally I'm nearly there with the second book. I'm so pleased with this book, I've had such lovely reviews and comments about the first one, and it's very similar, same sort of quirky designs, with canes and other techniques included, but I feel I've evolved in this book. I've attended a lot of workshops, absolutely love learning new techniques, and these have helped me grow as an artist and develop my own techniques and canes. 
It's again a book for everyone, from beginners to more experienced clayers, but I want anyone who is interested in polymer clay to be able to pick it up and make what I've made. Being an Occupational Therapist I'm quite good at adapting tasks to meet the demands of differing levels of expertise, so hope the book is suitable for all levels. Why 'Clay for all seasons' I hear you ask. Well, it gave me the opportunity to make four different page headers. Is that reason enough :)

There are 13 projects, three for each season with an extra one, with a real variety of pendants, sculptures, tea-light glasses,and Christmas ornaments, with techniques such as cane making, mica shift, silk-screening and steampunk. 
I'm hoping to get it out before Christmas, but it's more likely it will be January/February 2022.
This is a rather short blog post, but at least it's done!
My plan to set up a website and write regular blog posts was probably unrealistic once Covid struck, but hopefully will get easier now. I aim to get the book written and published, then probably look to doing more tutorials rather than another book, with a view to doing more workshops, preferable face to face, but also by virtual means. I suppose there has to be something good coming out of everything, and Covid has at least kicked dinosaurs such as myself into the virtual world, and even I now run therapy group happily on Microsoft Teams! You adage 'you can't teach old dogs new tricks' is obviously wrong!
Let's hope it's not 10 months before the next post.