Tuesday 23 February 2010

Features - How Exciting!

Just a quick post. I just wanted to share with you some lovely bits of web lovliness where I have been featured.

This is a short but lovely write up from Art at Heart (one of my favourite websites so I was thrilled to be featured) Check out the nice comment below too :-)
http://www.artatheart.co.uk/artatheart/2010/02/paper-thin-ceramics-by-jenny-creasey.html

I was also featured on Creative Boom which is an exciting online magazine:
http://www.creativeboom.co.uk/leicester/2010/02/08/jenny-creasey-ceramicist/

Last but not least, I won some free advertising space through twitter and the lovely guys even designed my advert!
http://www.handmade-crafts.co.uk/

Check them all out!

Twitter Names
@jennycreasey
@ArtAtHeartUK
@Creative_Boom
@RebekahHarriman
@ukcrafts
@KevJaques

Over and Out,
Jenny x

Monday 15 February 2010

Exhibition Update 2: Need a Venue!

So maybe I jinxed myself the other day. Despite us all falling in love with the venue we saw the other day, it may not be for us after all. When I went to book the dates I was informed (as an "Oh by the way....") that for that particular space they are hoping to get a longer rental as an office so if someone wants to rent it for longer than us then they will move us to a different space or cancel us altogether up to 2 weeks before!! Can't help thinking it would maybe have been nice for them to mention it as they were showing us round - or in fact not show us it at all if they want to rent it as an office?!?! There's only really 2 spaces that are suitable for us so I don't really want to risk booking it only for them to move us somewhere we don't want. They've been unwilling to keep the second space free for us either - have been advised maybe to book our space for an entire month to secure the booking - £600 for a 12 day exhibitions - I don't think so!

So all in all I think it's a no on that one. Which brings us right back to square 1 - looking for a venue again! Good times! This business with the venue has (as you can tell) put me in quite a bad mood. It's just very stressful as we are on such a tight schedule. Today is 15th Feb. The only possible dates for us are around the 23rd April. Due to Easter holidays, I won't have kiln access for over 3 weeks which means the deadline for my last kiln firing is around 22nd March - that gives me just over a month to make: new body of work for AIR exhibition, all work for selling at SOCK craft fair (a 2 day event), pieces for a gallery order AND all my work for an exhibition that will start during the time we're hoping ours will be on. This is on top of finding venue,booking venue, getting sponsorship, marketing and promoting event, getting website sorted. In short, a lot of work just to keep my head above water. Don't get me wrong, I work well under pressure and I'm excited that I'm busy enough for it to be a problem. I just wish things would start working out with the exhibition. Once that's under way I can really start to focus on my work.

Today (with help from Enterprise Inc) we drafted a letter asking for sponsorship. That was always going to be a toughie as none of us had a clue where to start or what to say, so I'm just glad I got something productive done today.

Over and Out (for some 'recovery chocolate!')
Jenny

Tuesday 9 February 2010

Exhibition Update

Our exhibition now has a name! It is called 'Air' as we commonly abbreviate our titles as Artists in Residence to that. After much hunting, we think we may have found the perfect venue. We went to have a look at it yesterday and we all fell in love with it.

We were initially thinking about holding the exhibition in a disused shop, but then we'd have to pay rates and write a proposal to the council and then undertake a fair amount of work to make the shop fit for our exhibition. The venue we are hoping to get has big shop windows, its own private entrance separate from the rest of the building. New carpets, freshly painted walls - in short, it's lush! Fingers crossed we can get it now.

Today we bought the domain name for our exhibition and have hired a fantastic web designer (Mark Spiers Interactive Design - http://www.mspiers.co.uk) Mark did my web site and I love it. For anybody looking for a website I can highly recommend him: great designs, tailored to suit you and competitive rates. He's already come up with some good ideas for the web site and I'm excited about getting it up and running. Mark Spiers Interactive Design is also our first official sponsor for the exhibition!! The last 2 days have been very busy!

We are now having meetings almost daily as in this initial period there is so much to organise and we are running on a fairly tight schedule. On that note, I'd better get on with some of it!

Over and Out,
Jenny

Friday 5 February 2010

Exhibition Time!

At present I have been selected for the following shows:
Sock (27th & 28th March - Loughborough Town Hall),
Made in Leicestershire (1st May - 30th June - Ferrers Gallery, LE65 1RU)
and Fresh (31st July - 12th September - Beetroot Tree Gallery, DE72 3PP)

Very excited about all of those shows as they look to be good quality and organised and selected by the best people :-) But I will also have another show coming up....

As Artist in Residence (AIR) at De Montfort University (DMU), I have to put on an exhibition with my fellow AIRs to showcase a new body of work by each of us. We are hoping to collaborate with the AIRs at DMU's partner course in Banbury, but we're not yet sure whether there's 1 or 2 of them. I'm excited about the challenge but I know it's going to be a lot of work and we have to fund it off our own backs (which will probably be the biggest challenge seeing as none of us have any money!) I'll hopefully keep you updated with the progress of the exhibition and how we manage to organise it. I've got a lot of good ideas so it could (should? - touch wood) turn out to be a good event.

On another note I thought you might like to see some more photos to brighten up my blog a bit....




Tuesday 2 February 2010

Grand Designs Might Explode My Mind!

On Monday I received a call from the organisers of the Grand Designs Live show in London. They said they had seen my work online and wanted to offer me space in their Design Arcade at a discounted rate (about £1000 cheaper than normal)I had to make the decision pretty fast as "spaces are selling very quickly."

Very excited, I rang my parents and we decided I should go for it. Whilst I was waiting for the contract to be emailed through, I emailed my mentor who questioned whether I maybe needed a bit more experience before embarking on something this big. This was just the beginning of the circle - for every person who has told me to go for it, there has been someone else telling me not to. Everyone has very valid points so round and round I go in circles!

Great experience, potential sales and exposure vs lots of money involved, is it the right environment for my work? Am I ready for it?

I feel like my brain might explode. At the minute I'm edging towards not doing it and giving myself a year to develop my products more before I try but that's by no means a final decision. The sales man rang again wanting answers and I told him to give me til the end of the week to sort things out. He said that all the stands might have gone by then but if they're gone they're gone. At least that would be a decision made!

Over and Out