Tour de Byard" - new exhibition of my work featured at Byard Art in Cambridge

New exhibition at Byard Art in Cambridge is now on! - "Tour de Byard" runs until the 20th July and celebrates the world famous cycle race coming straight through the town! It's exciting stuff to think the riders will be zooming through the town! Below are a couple of my pieces on show....

"Rainbow Bicycles" ©Vanessa Stone

"Trio of Bicycles" ©Vanessa Stone

"Creativity & Cocktails" - sticky backed plastic workshop for adults!

Had a great night last night at Dot to Dot Gallery in Letchworth, running an adults sticky plastic collage workshop for adults. It was the very first I have done using the plastic, but having run countless workshops with paper cutting, I knew it would work well as its such an accessible medium. Artist Venice Shone, who works at Dot To Dot, made some awesome cocktails and we worked to the sound of summer thunder. The heavens opened and it felt very tropical! I brought lots of plastic for people to use, along with books to inspire them which featured Eskimo art, snowflake photos and other visual resources. We chatted away as we worked and also were relatively quiet at times too when everyone was working in the zone. Everyone said how much they enjoyed the evening and working with the plastic. 

Wonderful to make something lovely from stuff that would be thrown away!

Here is to fantastic plastic!

Private View - and sticky backed plastic workshop for ADULTS with cocktails!!

It's the Private View for "Joie De Vivre" at Dot to Dot this Friday - direct message me via Twitter or Facebook of you would like to be added onto the
list....


and... I am running a workshop for ADULTS!! see the poster for more details! Places are limited and I have had lots of interest, so do book your place soon.....

New exhibition - "Joie De Vivre" at Dot to Dot Gallery, Letchworth

I have a new exhibition at Dot to Dot Gallery in Letchworth, so if you would like to see the "Up the Garden Path" mural in the flesh then do visit! The show is open Thursdays - Sundays until the end of June. See poster below for details....its work that's celebrating joy and life really. Sticky backed works and cut paper bikes. Affordable works to support the work of Rhapsode, a social enterprise that runs arts events for the community.

"Up the Garden Path" - plastic mural ©vanessa stone

"Apple Tree of  Life" © vanessa stone

"Joie De Vivre" - the walls full of colour at Dot to Dot Gallery!

Me posing... for a press release!

"Up the Garden Path" - part of Letchworth Rotary's big lunch in Howard Gardens...

On June the 1st I did another sticky vinyl mural event! This time for the Letchworth Rotary Club via the social enterprise Rhapsode for the "Big Lunch event in Howard Gardens, Letchworth Garden City. This was a drop in session for all ages to come and make a sticky backed plastic garden path - a mural to be used for all sorts of things after the event.  It was great fun! and we made a wonderful mural that was vibrant and bright and full of wonderfulness!! And even better - ALL ages were involved and all types of families....so it reached across the social spectrum. That's the great thing about art, and the plastic too; it isn't scary as a medium and anyone can have a go and it just makes people feel good to create and be part of something....

The prepared backing board.....

A shoe box of cut up leaves, petals and flowers to stick down....

Tug o' War at the event!

It was a full day in the gardens with crowds and crowds...

The final mural! isn't it lovely in its flowery plastic stickiness!!

Cutting into Artefacts - paper with memory

Following on from the black and white works in 2012, I felt a need to use paper and materials that had greater authenticity. I had been using brand new Canson paper to make the paper cuts but I longed to touch the paper and feel a bit of history rather than something that was virgin to the world. I have always loved postcards, so collected a few together from market stalls and ebay, and went about making pieces that were unutterably tied by image and content and authenticity. In many ways these pieces are the things I am most proud of. They aren't illustrations and aren't commercial at all! and they are about difficult subjects of love, death and belonging, all subjects I was dealing with at the time.

"B is for Bambi"

"Where have You Been Little Stamp"

"Love Lines"

"I Know You"

"Who are you Baby Boy?" (front)

"Who are you Baby Boy?" (back)

"Head of an Angel"

"The Three Kings"

"Never Seen, Never Sent"

"Letter From My Father"

"I am of Little Value"

Warriors and Masks - black and white works - time moving on

It's time for a change and to lay some of my works to rest....

In 2012 much of my recognisable life fell apart. The three big things of marriage breakdown, move and then death all came in 8 months. It was a very difficult time. I felt pretty vacant and hollowed out - and surviving in part on a diet of jelly babies and diet coke!! Not very healthy....I can see now very clearly how these pieces  below surfaced. The black and white expressed a clarity and a brutality of the situation I was in. The masks of course are easy to figure... and the warrior heads too. I was trying to externalise feelings of gaining my own strength in order to fight and survive.

Time is a wonderful healer. Its 2014 and my life has dramatically changed, and all for the better. I feel happier and more content and more complete in who I am than I have done for the longest time. Much of that has been meeting an extraordinary man and falling deeply in love. My fathers death was awful and beautiful too. All the Parkinson's pain had gone and he just felt at peace finally. I feel him often - not in a spooky or morbid way - just in a lovely joyful, keeping me company kind of way. 

So its time to put some of these works in a symbolic portfolio and put under the bed....

"Face to Face"

"Knight Head"

"I am Not a Metal Man"

"Camden masks - Lucha Libre"

"Camden Masks - African"

"White Cut Head"

Warrior head and the Tears"

"Warrior Woman"

NEW EXHIBITION - "Joie de Vivre" at Dot to Dot Gallery

New exhibition starts today and ends on June 28th 2014. "Joie de Vivre" at Dot to Dot Gallery in Letchworth Garden City is showcasing for the very first time my sticky backed plastic collages on wood new pieces in cut paper. Run by the social enterprise Rhapsode - Dot to Dot is a small vibrant gallery showing an eclectic range of work. Profits from work sold goes back into the community arts events Rhapsode runs for adults and children. I have specifically made works that are more affordable for this mini show and range from £40 - up to larger pieces at £300. See three of the works below.....

"The Flame Tree" ©Vanessa Stone

"Apple Tree of Life" ©Vanessa Stone

"Little Green Bike and the Flowery Hedge" ©Vanessa Stone