karen joyce
  • Home
  • Prints
  • Book arts
  • Exhibiting history
  • Blog
  • Contact

And ... relax

8/12/2013

0 Comments

 
Busy stretch ended (I refuse to sweat the small stuff, like nearly all the christmas shopping).  I suppose a trip to my parents didn't count as busy, except that I knew I should really have been preparing for the Volume fair at the amazing new Birmingham Library.  Instead I had a lovely couple of days enjoying somewhere else's christmas market (Bath instead of Manchester),
Picture
admiring the ceiling in Bath Abbey (unusually for a church building, it was much warmer in there than outside, which was very welcome)
Picture
and generally soaking up glowing autumn colour - the greyer the day, the more glowing the colours (no photos, always driving, and I've made the very wise decision, I think, not to combine driving with photography).

Then a mad day (though not half as mad as it needed to be) of sticking and wrapping and preparing before making it down to Birmingham with Gemma. As is becoming almost traditional for fairs in new places, we drove in a few exciting wrong directions before hitting on the right one, but we still got there with time to spare.  Birmingham's new library was brilliant.  I already liked the centre of Birmingham anyway, the little I've seen of it - everything seems to be clustered in a way that makes it absolutely crystal clear that yes, there can be no getting away from it, this is the centre - and the library is a flashily tasteful addition on the outside, with great facilities and amazing juxtapositions of shapes and colours on the inside. 
Driving across the embarrassingly tiny section of the centre to get to where we were staying (admittedly we were trying to do this during the rush hour) involved another interesting detour (all in all we saw a lot more of the A38 than we ever intended) and a few irritated drivers, but we managed.  And the fair?  Well, it could have been busier - it sometimes lacked buzz - but I've decided that bringing new people together with the niche corner of the world that is book arts, is an arcane skill requiring decades of practice (whatever, it seems irritatingly difficult), and of course the event was nevertheless full of lovely people and amazing work, and the staff couldn't have been more welcoming and helpful than they were.  All in all it was a brilliant couple of days.
0 Comments

    Hi there

    I make prints and book arts, though nowhere near as often as I'd like - no good reason, just an inability to get on with things.  I occasionally go on about landscape (with which I am mildly obsessed) and various of its elements, and I like to pass comment on exhibitions I visit.

    Archives

    April 2022
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    October 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    July 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Bath
    Book Arts
    Books
    Ceramics
    Doodles/sketching
    Exhibitions
    Handmade Books
    Hot Bed Press
    Landscape Etc
    Other People's Blogs
    Print And Printmaking
    Stories
    Stuff And Things
    Theatre

    RSS Feed