Please do visit my new website with yummy pictures, portfolios, same eclectic blog posts, and a SHOP

The facebook page is still thriving, pop along, ask questions, chat about techniques and your own personal art experiences.

I am on twitter too > always happy to make connections.

adios amigos xxx

New new new: not always a good thing, but I reckon this time it’s been worth it.

I am very close to launching my new website, the making of which has been a focused activity which has sharpened my artistic resolve. I am also hoping this is the year my art gets out of the valley and into far flung destinations such as Lancashire and Yorkshire – also known as ‘out there’.

I’ve drawn and written ideas for almost a dozen installations, most of which celebrate my love of objects and creating domestic shrines. It just takes one kindly and sympathetic curator to say ‘yes’ and then I’m there, all over it and on it. xx

The Doing

I’m painting, building boats, incrementally leaving a house, designing print matter, re-fitting websites, empowering technophobes, assisting small companies to communicate clearly, researching galleries who might like my art, being a glorious Mama & Wife too.

The constant puzzle is – how this fits with ‘the dream’.

My dream aged 5 – be a famous artist and have an art gallery.
My dream aged 19 was the same plus a city farm attached to the art gallery.
The dream now includes all of the above and a life on the land.

One of my current jobs is in exchange for training in low impact, strawbale/cob construction.

There are a few scraps of land I have my eye on, although the £100 per week price tag is off putting. So, over the next few weeks and months I’ll be creating the first draft of a business plan, and being brave enough to hawk the beautiful land owners in and around Hebden Bridge (an area not famed for low land prices or rents).

I’d like to acquire land, build a low impact gallery, animal shelters, construct geodesic domes for community spaces – all with the help of a dream team (all the above impossible without like-minded others).

All tips, comments, useful links, offers of land welcome.

So easy to make and each one is unique. The details can entertain the eye for minutes almost an hour!

I had an exhibition of pancakes once – I’m not sure people ‘got it’. I’m determined to maintain my exploration of the theme.

This year my family and I made pancakes in honour of the famous, mainly women as pancakes and international women collided. As we made them, thoughts, curiosity, images, words of each celebrity were evoked.

FEATURED PANCAKES : anti-clockwise from left

Keira Knightly: Perfectly formed / classic / with cheese

Jane Fonda #1: Made with multi grain flour & misshapen.

Helen Mirren:  I couldn’t think of another reason to buy squirty cream! Cream, strawberries only (slightly bruised) and Minstrals.

Jane Fonda #2 : With layers of fabulously healthy and fresh toppings / wild mushrooms, cress salad, strong cheese sprinkles

Lacking photographic evidence (sorry!) -  Yoko Ono, Gordon Brown & Yahoo Serious. I was unable to make Mickey Rourke as we ate all the crisps.

You can listen to him here

More mugs available: this one is £6 plus postage

The human experience of preparing to exhibit is a comical mixture of bravery, positive vision, humble peacefulness and a wobbly quality of fear. Is each canvas totally out of date once a new idea sets seed? Meanwhile, a practical arrow positions in my archers bow. The strange process of pricing and naming. Time to update my artists insurance too.

Some important details for those who wish to view this show:

Exhibition: Valentines and Other Vistas by Mrs. Alice Mill

At: 3 Wise Monkeys / Hanuman Thai Restaurant – 15 Water Street, Todmorden.

Open: Wednesdays to Sundays 4.30pm till 10.30pm

Preview: 6pm 10th February – nosh, nice people, tunes and art – all art lovers welcome

Ends: Exhibition on throughout February, I’ll be taking art down on 2nd March.

Days to go till I install works for my first solo show in fur’ages! (far too long). It’s been a joy to paint every day, develop intimate knowledge of particular brushes, to really explore colour. I’ve got cards and badges for sale PLUS a selection of works for £15 – an affordable way to own art and make an artist smile.

PREVIEW: 10th Feb 6pm – 3 WISE MONKEYS, TODMORDEN – Art Lovers Welcome – Free Thai Tapas

I also have one mug with a collage print on – so I’m running a competition and someone can claim said mug – free postage and all (UK only).

To enter – spread the word about my facebook group – and in 9.5 days time I’ll spin my randomiser. x

All ART LOVERS are  invited!
Thursday 10th PREVIEW night will feature yummy mushroom soup and buffet – Thai style – YUM!
3 Wise Monkeys, Todmorden.

I’ll be installing a £15 cluster of work – a guaranteed warm glow when you purchase one of these / support an artist.

Message me for more details if needed. handsonhat[at]gmail.com   x

MAP

View Larger Map

Once upon a time the branding of 6 eggs as ‘free-range‘ conjured images of chickens roaming as they pleased, no more over crowded, anxiety ridden, hen-pecked animals.

These days we know that reality could still be too many chickens clambering over each other, Let out for a mere hour or two each day. The phrase ‘free-range’ doesn’t strictly mean everything we hoped.

Fairtrade too. News filters through that it is nigh impossible to track each and every farm/business to maintain standards beyond the initial inspection. News filters that numerous farms and businesses fail to perpetuate our dream of a well paid, child-free, rights endowed labour force.

I expect the same goes for organic. A product label encourages consumers to relax and luxuriate in the divine comfort of the beautiful dream of a righteous and healthy world. Healthy – economically, environmentally and socially. I recently encountered a human resources company called ‘organic hr’. The labelling has connotations of fair, ethical, healthy approaches to their work. This may be spot on – but not strictly organic. (p.s. all the best to organic hr).

My recent dealings have witnessed the surge of local branding. Local retail, production, employment. Oh oh oh – the dream, I feel it. Don’t be surprised if I one day blog about the joys of my village shop, the charm of my local market town, the tastiness of the local watercress that my local green grocer sells.
A locally produced cheese may come from local farms, local cattle – but a branding is no guarantee the feed, equipment or employees are as local. Another instance – a local shop sells some locally fabricated products, but the shop may contain 70% of stock sourced from anywhere around the world (aka China). The shop is still branded glowingly by it’s and our aspirations.

Is it time for a branding equivalent to energy ratings? An honest survey that commerce, retail, production can not be clear cut. Or are we happy to sweep the details under the carpet? (It is after all sooo relaxing).

Many thanks to Creative Calderdale for organising a talk by Green and Blacks marketing whizz Mark Palmer.

Images from ‘Man with Castanets and Bones’ – Acrylic paint on canvas by Alice Mill