Off to the IFG this weekend - woop woop!

The what??

The International Festival of Glass 2010.

Every two years, there's a big glass festival held in Stourbridge, West Midlands - I discovered it the first time two years ago; I went with my son, and we had the most fabulous time.

The festival is set out over several sites around Stourbridge, including Broadfield House Glass Museum - always worth a visit, I loved it there.  Well, they had glass, of course I loved it!  The special exhibition two years ago was Glass dresses, here's a pic I took:



As well as street market, entertainment, a bead fair, evening goings on, a big part of the Festival is the Glass Bienale, a mahoosive exhibition at the Ruskin Glass Centre (which has lots of other happenings over the festival weekend).  The exhibition two years ago was amazing, with lots of fabulous work, but this was on of my favourites, having made it to wallpaper status on the laptop (that's high accolade to make it on my desktop!):

When I get back from this glass fest, it's time to start moving!  Yup, got the keys, space will be clear, now I just have to make several journeys back and forth from Uni to get all my stuff in the right places...

I've got the keys to the door....

Never been twenty one before...!

Go the keys to Shed 2 Studios today... now the moving operation begins....exciting.

If i remember to take the camera with me, I will take photos!

Congratulations All Round and time to start packing....

..... for a holiday?  No. I wish! 

But possibly a whole lot more exciting! I've been fairly quiet about this, but time is fast approaching, and I want to start sharing my news... I was very pleased to be offered studio space at Shed 2 Studios in Ilkeston.

This is great news for me.  Shed 2 was founded by former students on the same course as I did at Derby, everybody who is there is not only lovely, but produce great work and are all doing very well, and I know it will be a wonderful supportive environment.  I would be terrible if I worked from home - about the only time that I ever really want to do housework (as in an insatiable burning desire to do it!) is when I have a project to do... so all that remains is to pack up the three truckloads of stuff I still have at Uni and move it all in...

So, why congratulations all round?  Well, course colleagues Deborah Miles and Nicola Lidstone have both been accepted into the Design Factory, as well as along with Katie Heeks and Robyn Holgate were selected for Lustre 2010 in November at the Lakeside Art Centre, Nottingham.  Well done to you all!