Random Hamster

Between the Walls
Originally uploaded by RandomHamsterling

One nice thing about getting out of my studio and ‘meeting people’ whether they are in the flesh, such as our first East Anglia Etsy meeting this weekend (Hi Lisa www.iseestars.etsy.com and Kathy at www. paintboxcrafts.co.uk/!) or on line.

One of my new online contacts is the wonderfully named ‘Random Hamster!’ aka Tracey at randomhamsterphotography.co.uk/ who has got a wonderfully quirky sense or humour reflected in some of her pictures on sale at Folksy, as well as some dramatic darker photographs. I actually prefer the darker ones of the moment, one she has of a carousel in black and white looks so creepy! As soon as I saw it I had Siouxie & the Banshee’s ‘Carousel’ in my head, and I don’t remember the last time I listened to that! It has that same brooding quality of something sinister about to happen ‘Such little hearts to miss a beat……..’

We seemed so saturated with advertising images making the world appear dayglo it’s great to see someone using their camera to peer though the gaps at a darker world beneath, and reminding us of things long buried to be forgotten. The carousel even reminded me of being stuck on one was I was tiny, and I remember not liking it very much either, amazing! I would never have remembered that until I saw that picture. The picture above is of Battle Abby, and I daren’t think what’s around that corner…

Tracey has kindly given me a very glowing report in her blog, as well as throwing me a new headache/challenge which is providing interesting; to make some of my implosion flowers into an earring/ear-plug. I started in earnest on Sunday morning, re-programming my kiln for the higher Boro annealing, only to find it had developed Alzheimer’s and couldn’t remember the next steps in it’s program! An hour later I sort of got it going, hastily changing it once it got up to a heady 530deg C as it thought it should only stay there for 1 minute, not 7 hours! . I then followed with an annealing/strike firings, this is the highest I’ve fired to so far, 570deg C and I will need to fire even higher soon as well! After a few attempts I think I got what I was looking for, although getting a predetermined size was tricky as I normally let the glass decide it’s own shape and thickness. This is certainly an interesting idea Tracey has put to me, for those with ear plugs the range of body jewellery is often limited to wooden dragons and steel shapes. I have seen some very interesting dichroic plugs, but they tend to all be made in America. I shall post picies when the kiln is cool. That’s if the kiln remembers to cool down…….