Mini cuts, limited editions and getting letters

I can't believe how busy it has been lately. Family stuff is always a juggle - with children aged 10 and 14 they seem to need me more and not less. I like them being older very much - their tastes and personalities are really growing and forming and it feels like nothing is standing still. I like that. I like change in a way, in that there is the tantalising thought of what is just around the corner. Its that same thrill of getting a letter that you have no idea of what it says inside. Some visual clues can make your heart sink of course, but if there are none - then it can be so exciting. A letter is a rare thing these days. I love the immediacy of emails, but brain to hand to paper just blows everything else out of the water. So to you people out there in cyberland - write me a letter and I will be as chuffed as punch. I might even send you a print back!!! and that would be cool to think of something arriving out of the blue to someone else.......





Mini Cambridge cuts in Perspex blocks

I have been very busy doing some new pieces and commissions. It's been brilliant to see the new Cambridge cuts on show at Byard. I can put the work on walls here at home, but it doesn't compare to seeing them all in the spotlights of the gallery. It's been exciting too to put my cuts in glass and see the reaction of people. Its prompted some mini limited edition paper cuts that I have framed in Perspex blocks. They are only small - about A5, so really only the size of your hand really. They are very fiddly to do and I have had to have regular breaks as they are more intense to cut. I can cut for an hour or so and then need a walk about and a stretch and then back to the cutting. I love the size of them though, they are intimate little things, though I have had to make them limited editions. This is a step away from all my other cuts. It's been rare that I have done more than one of the larger pieces. Each paper cut is unique anyway, I will often tweak things that I feel haven't worked well. And some cuts just don't work at all, so I start again from scratch and fill the recycling bin.

These new mini cuts are available to buy straight away from my website - www.vanessastone.net

Making shadows

While I am making the paper cuts I have to keep holding them up to the light to check how the image is progressing and that I am getting the balance right. I hold them at different angles in the bright sunlight and the shadows cast are always so delicious. They are fleeting and actually need very strong light to be made. They are intangible - disappearing like a will o' the wisp as soon as a cloud passes over and of course not appearing at all on a cloudy day. Its easy to see them as metaphors for experiences in our lives, both happy and sad. It's the playing with light that keeps me grabbing moments on a sunny day, but also having in my head the idea that the shadows have a deeper meaning. And seeing the shadows sets up a stream of creative thinking...it make me question whether I want the pieces to be much more sculptural rather than flat mounted, to be set in 3d boxes so you can see them all round... or hanging in space like a mobile so that air interacts with them too or to photograph them too to capture that exact moment....or, or, or.... the ideas come piling over each other like kids rolling down a hill. It's very exciting and a joy to feel my brain synapses sparking.

Here are a few of the shadows that I have captured in a few sunny moments in the morning in my front room on a simple day. Radio 4 was in the back ground, washing machine whirring in the kitchen and a cup of tea getting cold while I played with the light.








Have a look too at Steve Rood's Shadowmaking machines. I think they are fantastic and I love the sculptural feel of them. Here is one of them...




His work can be seen at: http://www.shadowmakingmachines.com/

"Capturing Cambridge" - first piece started for the show....

Starting work for "Capturing Cambridge" exhibition in May at Byard Art in Cambridge -here is the first in a new series featuring some of the gorgeous buildings in Cambridge. I am going to attempt some new buildings - some that are much more complicated and make me slightly go ARGH!!!!! but hey!...its always good to leap and see what happens.

This of course is Kings College Chapel - looking up on what was a cloudless sky a month or so ago. Its the most beautiful building, makes me want to throw open the kitchen window and sing, sing, sing.