DIY July and August

This is the only photograph from July and August - the place was so full of dust perhaps I simply did not dare get the camera out of it's case.

These month's emails trace the seeds of new friendships and the discovery of the quiet delights of life in Frome - the Canoe Club, Diva's cafe and the Farmer's Market, the walk along the valley to Mells and gossip at the Keyford laundromat.

The news at last, that I had been awarded funding for not one, but two years to complete the PhD at the RCA filled me with confidence and excitement. This was mixed with anxiety that I would have to put this gentle place on hold again for a little while at least.

The accounts are full of receipts for an apple tree and araldite, a cooker, a clematis, copper pipe and cupboard doors, a second hand fridge and half a roll of roofing felt, buckets of white paint, plaster for patching and a peach tree, roses, radiators, rollers and roofing insulation, worktops and wood, tiles, tape and lots of tea for Dave, Dave and Dave, Ben, Ned, Colin and Clive.

No hot water and the floors in bits meant a fairly spartan existence, sleeping in a bag on the floor and waking early to swim at the Frome Leisure Centre before the team showed up thirsty for tea. The bath became the sink where I learnt to make a kettle-full of water do a whole day's washing up.

Preparations were also underway for the launch of the Eye Hospital and Bate Museum projects and I went to serve at the Vipassana Centre in Hereford: so utterly peaceful - and with endless hot water!

June on hold

Deadlines for joining the end of year exhibition came and went with still no news about PhD funding without which I could not stay at the RCA. I went round and round in circles - was I finishing or starting?

As usual, I dealt with the anxiety with a flurry of displacement activity: the installation of the Eye Hospital panels and a new glass cabinet with the Uveitis work, conversation with Ruth Jacobs at the Children's Hospital about the potential to show children how to use the fractal generation programme that I had used for the Eye Hospital,  long conversations with plumber Dave about boilers, mason Dave about leaks and walls, electrician Ned about wiring and the start of a long and labyrinthine process to get mains gas piped to High Street. Lots of blowing and casting to get together a body of work in case I had to pull together a final show at the last minute, and to France to celebrate Charlotte's birthday.

Verneuil, Oxford, Bristol and London

May Be

A more intense month, starting with the interim exam, which seemed to go well and I eventually heard that my application for transfer to PhD had been accepted. Good for morale although I was clear that unless there was full funding, I would not want to stay on for the PhD. I determined to carry on as though I would be presenting my final show and thesis in July.










With the thought that I would soon be out in the wide commercial world in mind. I accepted a commission from Moorfields Eye Hospital for a series of paperweight gifts for delegates to an international conference and delivered them all on time thanks to James Devereux.

The glass panels for the Bristol Eye Hospital finally arrived amid much excitement.

Annie and I worked away at the Uveitis models - I found it fascinating to play with ideas about immunity, the self and the other, pushing casting and blowing techniques to their limits. We discussed whether these sculptures might help patients to understand and take better care of themselves.

The flute user group at the Bate Museum in Oxford seemed to be enjoying the glass instruments. I met the talented young composition student Oliver Currie and we talked about the potential for him to create a piece of music inspired by the objects in time for the installation of the exhibition in October. Andrew Lamb also introduced me to Chris Garrard, a PhD student, also in Oxford, who made the most wonderful sounds with the objects, using a violin bow to draw a deep song from the rim of a clear dish. We agreed to work together on a series of singing bowls for him to play with and present at the the Oxford Contemporary Music Marathon at St Hilda's College in November.

At the end of the month, I decided to invest in a couple of hours of professional photography with Eszter Segarra. We chose a black background and decided to go for bling or bust.

Matrix 2. Shelley James 2011, blown by Simon Moore assisted by James Devereux 

Matrix 1. Shelley James 2011. Hot glass. Blown by Simon Moore assisted by James Devereux

Matrix 1. Shelley James 2011. Hot glass. Blown by Simon Moore assisted by James Devereux

Visual neglect. Shelley James 2011. Hot glass and transfer print. Blown by James Devereux 

Macrophage. Shelley James 2010. Cast glass, copper foil and borosilicate glass. 

April already

This was a month for a bit of consolidation with some time at home in the West to enjoy the lengthening days and walks in the blue glaze of the bluebell woods.

Studio practice at the RCA looked at pattern in terms of form and surface, while the written work focused on pulling together technical reports and contextual material ready for the interim exam in early May: would I make the transfer to PhD - and did I want to?

The Jerwood Maker's interview went badly - looking back, I realise that I was just not clear enough in my own mind about where the work might go, so was completely unable to convince the panel to take a punt. Probably just as well. I learnt a great deal in the process and was able to meet the inspiring Siobhan Davies who had been very supportive. Perhaps something might come of that conversation one day.

I also went to Sunderland to present a paper at the Parallels and Connections Conference. Got the dates muddled up so missed my slot and was acutely aware that the work is in transition - Kevin seemed disappointed and I vowed not to present again until the results are clearer. But it was such a pleasure to see old friends and eat home made ice cream again.

March hares

Another lively month

The PhD proposal was put to bed and we started to get the hang of this encapsulation business and even to be able to play a little!

Three very different commissions kept me busy too:

The first, a series of lenses for the Crafts Council Handling collection demanded extreme precision at every stage and the chance to reflect on a process that had started to become so familiar that I had stopped wondering about how to make it better.

The second, for a private client from Durham who asked me to interpret an image he had made and encapsulate that in glass. Rodrigo Solarno, artist and computer tutor at the RCA showed me how to recreate the form of a blown embryo in Rhino to create a flat ‘map’ of the surface that I could then use to generate the transfer print art work. Sonja Klingler and KT Yun then worked their magic to encapsulate the piece in hot glass

The third, a wedding gift commissioned by a good friend, involved a more intuitive and playful approach to colour and form and was again only possible with the skill and generosity of Sonja and KT. 

A trip to Paris was feast in every way: museums, opera, food, wine and wonderful company.

A day trip to give a talk at the Craft Study Centre in Bilston made an interesting contrast.  

The Anthony McCall installation at K9 in Baker Street was quite magic - probably the most memorable and inspiring exhibition of the year. 

February - cooking!

My nieces experimenting with colour and icing sugar...

James and Simon experimenting with colour in hot glass

This was a month of consolidation and production– refining the musical instruments, checking and double-checking production and installation details for the Eye Hospital panels and working with the nurse consultant Annie Hinchcliffe to find different ways of describing the way the immune response works in the eye.

At the RCA, as well as writing and rewriting the PhD proposal, studio practice centred on a series of experiments to test each of the variables of matrix encapsulation: size and thickness of plate, different types of stencil, depth of sandblast, temperature at pick-up, set-up in the pick-up kiln.

Having joined the Gospel Choir at Imperial College in October 2010, I donned my best bling and joined my young friends on stage for the Afrogala concert. That's me at the back in the middle...

a year in the smoke... January 2011

Well it's been quite a year and as I look ahead to the next 12 months, it seems worth taking the time to look back and see what I've been up to.

January 2011 - snowed in – but not under…

BEH200

The snow finally abated enough to allow a flying visit to the Derix factory perched between woods and suburban houses on the outskirts of Wiesbaden in Germany to see the Bristol Eye Hospital glass panel samples. It was a chance to see the celebrated workshops where much of the most ambitious and vibrant stained glass of the past fifty years has been produced.

We had a long and robust conversation about whether it would be possible (or affordable) to achieve the finely detailed sandblast patterns while making sure that the prints would be bright and luminous. I had a very particular idea in mind that seemed to pose an almost insurmountable technical challenge - the UK producers had assured me that it could not be done.  But the team finally agreed that they would have a go- but I would need to completely rework the artwork files. Many many hours of clicking and dragging ensued.

I was invited to stay in the home of the Derix family next to the factory, while my host Andrea MacKay kindly took another visiting artist and I on a whirlwind tour of the cultural sights, sausage joints and stylish bars of this tidy town. For more information about Derix, see  http://www.derix.com/en/

The Admissions team at the Eye Hospital invited me to create a pair of panels for their newly-decorated office, with their patterns on the one hand, and a single pattern combining their team data on the other. The file was so huge that this poor machine had its sleep function turned off, spending over 15 hours crunching and whirring on the kitchen table several days running until I found the pattern that seemed right.

Individual and group patterns from the Admissions team project and, below, panel installed in the office. 

Music

I was excited to hear that my entry for the Jerwood Maker’s prize had been shortlisted - a very rudimentary video shot by a fellow student Mia Fernandez of me playing a series of glass horns, singing bowls and borosilicate flutes. Andrew Lamb, curator of the Bate Museum of Musical instruments in Oxford suggested that the work might find a temporary home in his grand wunderkammer once the current exhibition ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ was over and we agreed to talk more.

Clear horn and black horn 2011, blown by Louis Thompson. Rain stick detail, borosilicate and corn kernels, blown by Shelley James

The visit to Oxford was a chance to spend time at the Museum of the History of Science, to enjoy the treasures there and prompt an outing with Claude along the Thames to the National Maritime Museum past the site-specific sculptures to wonder about different ways to present information. 

Oxford Museum of the History of Science, National Maritime Museum and site-specific sculpture representing discovery of longitude and latitude, January 2011. 

RCA

This was crunch time for the PhD proposal – working with tutors Alison Britton and Martin Smith whether to decide whether to apply for an upgrade from MPhil to PhD and whether I might be able to secure AHRC funding. Studio practice focused on refining the techniques developed in the first three months of the academic year, working with Simon to encapsulate and register matrices of marks. 

I also found time to go home to the warmth of my Frome Fireside and kind friends and to meet my new goddaughter Pip!