When you work in isolation, as I do, making the things that you think of in your head and finding sometimes very random inspiration it is great to see what other people see in your work and what they think of it. I even had one couple argue as both liked different frames and would not concede to the others opinion! Everybody brings their own life experience to looking at your work and will therefore come at it from a different angle, I find it fascinating when they explain to me what they see in my work.

How people look at your work is very much linked to the way in which you present it I think. I have struggled since I joined the guild to present my work in the right way but I think that I am finally getting there.

Stand at Michelham Priory 2010

The first image is my stand at Michelham Priory, which is in itself a vast improvement on that which I had for my first two guild shows last year (same basic stand but different coverings) the fabric I used to cover it back then didn’t have the desired ‘look’ so it was suggested that I paint the boards white as seen below.

This gives the whole stand a much cleaner feel and lets people look at the frames rather than the fabric. I did have way too many comments on how lovely the fabric was before!

It was then suggested that the frames may look better being on a colour so as to show how they might look hanging on someones wall in their house, more people have coloured walls than white ones I would think. To keep the flexibility of the stand the colour could be put onto large panels which hang from the back boards so that I can alter the number and colour of panels as I see fit. This you can see in the image below.

Stand at Pashley Manor 2010

By the way my carving bench is not about to fall over even though it looks like it in this picture!

I think that the frames look an awful lot better on these panels, I had several compliments on the stand and the public spent their time admiring the frames not the background!

Finally I think that I am getting there, there are a few minor adjustments that need to be made to the stand but the majority of it is now going in the right direction.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below

My thinking beach

I follow the blog of marketing coach Jim Connolly and find that his posts generally ring very true for me. A very recent post ‘I’m off on a thinking trip – A “thinking trip”?’ about a trip he was making so that he could refresh his ideas got me thinking – funnily enough.

Although I have never conciously gone on a ‘thinking trip’ I do have ways I use in order to get the quiet time I need for thinking and working out new ideas.

When I was younger I was lucky enough to have a pony of my very own ( I was 16 and paid for her myself but thats another story), the hacks we went on through the countryside became my quiet thinking time though it wasn’t until after I lost her a couple of years later that I realised this. Boy did I miss those times once I realised how much I had been using them to think things through, not just art based stuff but things in my life.

Ever since then I have been working to get those times back and over the years I think I have found a few ways.

• Dog walking has sort of replaced the horse riding, it is something I do every day either on the beach or to and from work (depending on the weather and what I’ve got on that day). Its usually at least 20 minutes and its often enough time to digest information I have been given, think things through or work on the spark of an idea. Also just looking at the way things change or collecting things on the beach can spark ideas.

• Monotonous tasks help with occupying one side of the brain so the other can think. Many moons ago when I was at university I worked in the holidays at a little company who cast model soldiers in white metal (mainly Britains figures). My job was to clean the castings of the excess pieces of metal that came from the two part moulds and the sprues. Once you knew what to look for on each figure the work became a little monotonous. For a lot of people it would, to coin a phrase, ‘do their head in’. I, however, discovered that it released a part of my mind and allowed me perfect thinking time. Part of my brain was occupied and the other part could think freely. I have found other tasks that allow my brain to do the same thing, mainly hand planing and sanding, I just have to watch that I don’t ‘zone out’ when I’m working on machines!

• The time just before you nod off to sleep. Last thing at night just before I go to sleep can be very good ideas time as my brain seems to connect things that just don’t really go together and come up with something new. The drawback with this one can be the fact that I’m often too tired to write it down, or I fall asleep before I can write it down and I have to hope that I can remember it in the morning!

• Visits to family can prove very good thinking time as I tend to relax a lot (they all encourage me to sleep) and relaxing definetly helps the brain to start running through things. I guess this is the closest I get to a ‘thinking trip’ as I’m in a different environment and doing different things than I usually do every day.

I’m sure I have other times that I use for thinking, mostly when part of my brain is completely occupied, I just can’t think of them right now.

Its nearly time for bed and I have some ideas to be getting on with!

What things do you do when you need to think?

To be honest it has just started to cool down again which makes it a lot more comfortable to work again. Even the workshop can be difficult in the heat as it is a steel clad building with skylights so you can imagine how hot it gets. I had the roller shutter open slightly today so that the breeze we had could move the hot stale air around a bit, but I had to close it when I realised it was raining in!

Don’t get me wrong its not just the hot weather that can cause me problems, in winter both where I carve and the workshop can be sooo cold its not funny.

Does the weather affect the way that you structure your working day?