Studio Renovation Part 2

This is the next chapter in my studio renovation blog, I had hoped this project would be completed by mid-March and I'm still here finishing things off.

Special thanks goes out to my husband Iliocht and friends John and Johnny Lyons for all there help on this project, I would not have got this far without you guys! lots of love for you all rock awesomeness!

Here are the most recent photos:

John working on the construction of the 2nd interior wooden wall.





Parts of the wall had used to be animal stalls at some stage in the buildings past. We used a sledge hammer to try and remove the concrete blocks but to no use in the end the new walls frame had to be built around the blocks.





Meanwhile there was still much more pointing to do before the walls boards could go up.




I sprayed expandable insulation foam from a can in the gaps between the roof and the top of the stone wall, this should stop any drafts getting in.





Iliocht and John fitting the boards to the frame. These boards were then removed and polystyrene insulation sheeting was added into the frame then the boards were screwed in place.


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The end of the wall was left until Iliocht could bring the water pipes into the room for pluming up a studio sink.





The next part was the ceiling, I started this by coating wood preservative on all the old structural beams, the wood was so thirsty for this and looked revitalized. This also protects the wood from woodworm.





To board up the ceiling supporting beams had to be put up so there would be something to screw the ceiling boards to.





Rock wool was slid down between the tin and the new ceiling braces. I remember rock wool as being super itchy and bright yellow, this is my first time using the brownish type and I must say it's a lot less itchy than the yellow one. However still itchy especially when it gets on your face, which was unavoidable as the dust fell down as you were looking up.





Yay! warm fuzzy ceiling felt! the whole roof is done!! this will make a huge difference to the heat in this room.





This part of the project is called 'putting up the ceiling boards',

Myself, Iliocht, John and Johnny were all now feeling like the end was in site after all the hard work...

OFFSET 2012

On the weekend of the 10th of March I came down from my mountain top in Leitrim for a little road trip up to 'OFFSET' Dublin's creative festival, a 3 day art festival centered around a creative conference at the 'Board Gais energy Theatre' where a schedule of speakers gave talks about their successful creative practices. The speakers included big names like Conor Harrington, Rinzen and Shepard Fairy (Obey Giant) of whom I was most interested in hearing.

The tickets were e150 for the 3 days of talks I bought a e75 day pass for the Saturday as much as my budget permitted.

When I arrived at OFFSET I was not sure what to expect and got my hands on a schedule and wandered into one of the talks in the 'Second room' the talk was called 'Staying Creative' with Antoine Et Manuel and Steve Rinzen. The atmosphere of the room was that of a television set filming a breakfast talk show, a couch and a large screen showing television interview style close ups of the speakers discussion. The audience sat round on chairs and had the opportunity to ask questions towards the end of the talk. The speakers spoke of their careers in the graphics design industry and about licensing there work to advertising companies. It was all very interesting.

As I had arrived in the middle of a talk, my friend Alexa who I wanted to meet up with was at a different talk. After the talk I walked downstairs to get a coffee and find the toilet. I used the disabled toilet, whyle gazing into space I spotted on the underside of the sink a small sticker with a star, I quickly peeled it off and stuck it to my phone because I knew it was one of Shepard Fairey notorious street art stickers featuring his iconic tag of Obey Giant. I was excited to here him talk about his work, I met some friends from Sligo outside who had spotted some larger stickers of his famous obama 'Hope' image and had peeled them off from lampposts along the street close to the venue. He must have gone round and stuck a bunch up around to herald his arrival in Dublin. I wondered about how he would feel about his tags getting quickly removed by his fans, if it annoyed him or if perhaps he was flattered by this.

I met up with my friend Alexa and we attended Shepard Farey talk together this talk was one headlining the event, taking place in the main stage a huge auditorium that was absolutely packed, we were asked to shuffle down to ensure everyone got a seat. I thought wow, what does he feel like knowing all of those people had paid and come to hear him talk about his art for an hour. The atmosphere was lively and the crowd were responsive to his humour, he talked mainly about the political concerns his work aimed to highlight and his beginnings as a street artist with a bunch of stickers.

Here are some photos I took at his talk:






After the talks we met up with my husband Iliocht and went to get some sushi and noodle soup before heading to the opening of ;'This OFFSET Space' at the Little Green Street Art Gallery. I was excited to have some paint in this show as part of the OFFSET festival.

Here are some photos of the opening:



                                                                                     me^
 

My good friend Alexa from White Lady Art made this nice little video of the opening:

After the exhibition we met up with some friends from Leitrim and Galway at a club called 'The Academy' to see Leitrim's dub-step genius Aaron Gardener (aka Zenji) perform his awesomely wicked original Dub-step.




I had a fun weekend in Dublin and hope to go to OFFSET again another year!

Studio Renovation Part 1

I have been super busy since the years start, renovating a the stone shed beside my house. It is going to be my new studio! Im so excited about the space, this is my first custom fitted out studio.

As excited as I am, this work has been sucking away the time I have for making art. This is one of those projects where although its taking me away from painting for a while, it will ultimately help me work on my art in the long run. Im hoping to be moved into the studio by mid March.

I have been super lucky to have the best technician I know on my team 'John Lyon' who has worked with me on many of my exhibition installations and festival projects. John is also a very talented artist. He doing a art portfolio NCVA in Co. Sligo's VEC, and he is helping out with this project as a part of his work experience module.

Thank you so much for all the help guys! shouting out big love to my husband Iliocht and awesome friends John, Johnny, and Steven.

I'm not featured in any of these photos because I took them :)

There's still a way to go with this project but here's some progress photos of the work so far...

The stone walls, after scraping out the old render.

The traditional Irish stone work of this 200 year old structure, needed to be re-pointed, the pointing is the render between the stones. We had to scrape the remaining original render out. Originally this render would have been a mixture of lime, mud and animal blood!

There was so much of it! it was weird to think of the dust as part dry old animal blood, Yuck!

We needed to re-point the walls with a more modern substitute cement mixed with sand and lime. this involves filling back in the gaps between the stones by hand, literally 'pointing' in with your finger the wet mix into the tight gaps. This will help with insulation and help keeps away the damp in our often wet climate.

Johnny heading up the ladder to scrape the top of the inside gable wall

Iliocht and wet cement mix, lots of it and more to make

Johnny pointing the wall.

Some of this wall had in it's long past been repaired with concrete blocks quite ugly. We are going to build wooden flat walls to cover and insulate the space further. the gabel wall will be left with the stone showing as a feature in the space.

More pointing John (left) & Johnny (right)

It was cold in the shed as there is no heating yet, we used this gas powered parasol heater to keep the edge off.

The walls to be covered with a wooden interior wall needed to be painted with masonry paint, to stop mould growing on the stones behind the new wall.

John working on the construction of the interior wooden wall.

John and Iliocht moving the wall.
 

John fits polystyrene insulation sheeting into the wall frame, the paint work is nearly done.

Coffee break!!! With Steven, John & Johnny.

John begins work on the side counter tops frame.

The side counter top frame is fixed to the new wall.

That's all for now! More photos coming soon!! In my Studio Renovation Part 2 blog.

State of Emergency

Watercolour and Indian ink on paper

After finishing the small paintings featured in my previous blog, I decided to do a larger watercolour.

The inspiration for this painting is partly from 'Guro Lolita' a sub genre of  'Lolita' in Japanese street fashion. Have you ever spotted a staggering lolita covered in blood and wearing an eye-patch? You most likely had just encountered this rare breed. Guro is an abbreviation for grotesque, and includes lolitas splattered with blood, to lighter versions where they are covered in tattered bandages.

An overview of this styles motifs include medical cross symbols, arm slings, eye-patches, nurse hats, fake knives, plasters, fake bruises and stitches on arms and knees, broken dolls or bloody teddy-bears are all common accessories.

My painting is a little more bright and playful than this image of a blood splattered Guro. My character is a whimsical lolita clad nurse surrounded by her mischievous animal patients, these characters are reminiscent of childhood toys including the little smiling ambulance rushing down to the chaos below. This world is very cute a vibrant duality of sweetness with darker undertones.

I was recently asked what the theme of this paintings was? In reply I said 'crazy head-spaces and cute escapism' hence the title 'State Of Emergency' 'State' was referring to ones 'state of mind'

This painting was done using the same process I described in my last blog, the images below include a process photo of the painting at its second stage, after I had inked the original pencil sketch with Indian ink and rubbed away any remaining pencil lines.

State Of Emeregency

Detail

Process photo of inked sketch