Hampshire Open Studios - the second installment

In my last post I promised you a bit more about Hampshire Open Studios - so here you go.

Four artists shared the space - Rob Turner China was hosting, so my first post focussed on his wonderful and joyful china.

But lets take a closer look at what else was going on.

Basically we used three linked spaces - and the garden deck in between.

Rob and Andy have a wonderful garden studio - I wrote about it here when I had a dog sitting session and took the opportunity to borrow the studio.

The garden studio featured large in my last post, the first one about Hants Open Studios. One end is the decorating station and the other end is more display etc.

But the kiln is in the former garage linked to the house - the kiln room. Now this is really semi industrial space - that Kiln is a beast - but its amazing what you can do with a bit of flair and imagination and we were able to turn that kiln room into a lovely long gallery.

Here is my end - the original garage door is gone and replaced with patio doors for deliveries etc. 

And the top of the kiln was turned into a big display area - more of my lamps and some hand made cards, plus you can just about make out my artists book in the bottom of the picture.

And pictures hanging behind the kiln.

 I shared the top of the kiln with some smaller works by Jane Willingale of Loudware. Some of her cards made from Lino prints.

And on the wall of the garage hung simply on a sheet of coloured card some of her perspex necklaces.

At the other end of the garage, as you come in from the garden and the studio, is a working sink. Rob had rigged up an ingenious side panel to hid the sink and all the nasty sink stuff. Here are more of Janes necklaces gracing the side panel and below is Jane during set up.

We used all the space - hanging some of my smaller lampshades from the beam in the middle of the room.  (See what I mean about that kiln? Its a beast!)

Below, another shot of the kiln room from the Vestibule (I will come onto that next!)

And so, onto the final display area - The Vestibule.

This is the official gallery space and since it is probably not much more than 6 ft square we reckon it might be the smallest gallery in England! (Give me a shout if you know of a smaller gallery. )

First up, stunning Poole Pottery transformed by Rob and Andy. This made it's original outing at the Transformation show in Milton Keynes in 2016.  This was on the wall immediately on the right as you came in from the kiln room.

I loved those little tea and coffee pots. I should have snaffled one up earlier because during the course of the show they all found a new home.

Next up, let me introduce you to Malisa Sledmere. 

Yes, those lampshades are by yours truly but look at what is going on on the walls. The most amazing 3D pieces.  It is difficult to quite describe them. There are stitch techniques in there. And fabric but I guess they are best categorised as sculpture.

I loved this 'doll' - it found a loving new home!

 I am going to let the pieces speak for themselves here.

Some of Jane's jewellery dotted about.

The display looked absolutely stunning. 

Wall space in the vestibule filled with stitched mono prints by yours truly and more jewellery.

If nothing else, this was a lesson on how to turn fairly unpromising space into the most amazing display area. It was hard work. I was there for 2 days and infact Rob and Andy had started much earlier redecorating etc.

It was a very successful event. I made the best sales ever, Jane sold a lot of jewellery and Malisa sold work too.

We are planning a November sale. Which means I have to get my act into gear. I am running low on stock!