Young man

This is grandson, Grisha, 4. Dressed for the recent wedding of his aunt, in Bavaria. With a new battle scar on nose. A most edible creature.

The bigger picture

Our London garden.

So, the garden alone could be a full time job. It is all vegetables. We inherited it from my mother who grew specialized little plants that to my mind were not only useless, certainly inedible, but didnt even look good.
This is a functioning patch, at the front of our triangular house (where two roads meet), thus overhanging the pavement. I am amazed no-one pinches the beans! And, true to Bauhaus principles, form follows function. It looks fabulous, and we have bought any greens for months.
This is one thing.
Another, is rather heavy family obligations, which eat time.
The purpose of this bulletin is to explain to myself why I am getting so little work done. It preys on my mind and is a constant challenge to overcome. How to live with the fact that my work is now classified (by my husband) as a HOBBY. After all these years. It takes a bit of getting used to.
I continue with it, of course, and as always selling it is the hardest part, by far, but sell it I must. So therefore I have to do the fairs etc etc etc. It simply will not sell itself.
Oh well.....   I am very privileged to have such problems.  Onward and upward.

High class work

This is done by Peter Binnington.
He works in the depths of Dorset, UK and is little known.
The work is done on the back of glass, with a variety of precious leaf and paint.  No CAD here, just damned good drawing. I hope those clients, whoever they are, appreciate what they have got.

caa appl., again

I have just sent off another application to join the Contemporary Applied Arts. I wonder if they will have me this time. http://www.caa.org.uk/
They have just moved to a new, Southwark, address.  Wish me luck, and if not, hey ho.

September, summer over

At last, back to the blog.
I have no pics yet, but we have been to a 2-day family wedding in  Garmisch Partenkirchen, in Bavaria. My son, Laurie, lives there with his family. It was one of those occasions that went like clockwork, where most got, if not drunk at least very jolly, let their hair down and completely relaxed. We will have very happy memories.
Back to London and the stress of having rather too much to deal with kicked in straightaway, only to ease up after a few days of gradually, slowly getting on top.
To Garmisch yet again in a couple of weeks to participate in a conference: 8 Tagung zur Hinterglaskunst,  (8th Annual Conference of Reverse glass Painting) 4/5 October.
It will be held at the Schlossmuseum at Murnau, where so much traditional glass painting was done.
I am to do a practical demo, struggling along with my horrible German (my head is full of Polish, which goodness knows is only elementary, and at my age switching is like turning a blooming liner).
My chum Erik Winkler will be giving a talk on the whole history.

He is Dutch, so German is no problem.
Last year I had prepared a paper so I could read it. The audience broke up when I tripped over one of those schwippesterer words (I made that up) and burst into giggles. At least that broke the tension. Heaven knows it had been pretty dry and German until then.

The other thing is I am going to be taking a stand at Pure, London, in February, 2014. www.purelondon.com It will be at Olympia. It is fashion and accessories.
I am a bit nervous, it is a big investment, but I have to do it as all the buyers come, looking for the next new thing, or for anything, frankly, that will turn a profit, I guess.
It will save me a lot of nerves and footwear to be where they will come me, rather than me trying to find them. I will have the jewellery and also some new paperweights which I think will be very exciting. All sorts of possibilities there!
I visited it recently and met the charming Jennifer Chuks.
She is young and just starting out, and asked me to help publicize her work.
Her site is cheekypoppins.co.uk, and she make accessories for shoes etc.  I found the goldiest one I could for the blog.  If you are reading this, take a look at the site!
Thats it for now, more soon!  Take care.