Top 5 Garden Pests in New Exhibition

The plates are finally out of the kiln and have completed a safe journey of 305 miles to Kestle Barton Gallery in Cornwall where they'll be part of the 'In Abbundance' exhibition from 2nd July - 29th August.

So if your in the area, pop in and see them, i'll be making a visit at the end of the exhibition while im camping in Cornwall later this summer.

Otherwise here they are.....

Garden Pest no.1 Viburnum Beetle
'Reduces foliage to lacework'

Garden Pest no.2 Slugs and Snails
When they crawl over copper their slime creates a toxic reaction which shocks the snail; 'Snails detest copper'

Garden Pest = no.3 Cushion Scale

A defoliating bug which excretes honey-dew producing a thick black sooty mould on leaves

Garden Pest = no.3 Chafer Grubs

Grubs hatch in soil of lawns which attract larger animals such as foxes, crows and badgers who dig up lawns to feast on the grubs

Garden Pest no.5 Harlequin Ladybird

Larger East Asian species, thought to be killing of native species

'Tent to overwinter indoors, making a nuisance of themselves'

Flower and Vegetable Show

I am currently working on a series of pieces for an exhibition at Kestle Barton Gallery in Cornwall. The exhibition is called In Abundance and is based on a tradition flower and vegetable show.

http://www.kestlebarton.co.uk

There were 6 categories you could submit work into and I chose Insect Life, but added a Katie touch by changing it to Insect Life and Death.

I'm currently in the final stages of making a series of 5 plates that commemorate the TOP 5 GARDEN PESTS of 2010, as stated by the Royal Horticultural Society, the plates share some of the weird and wonderful facts I discovered while researching and ways to deter these perilous pests...

for example - when a slug or snail crawls over copper, its slime reacts with the metal causing a toxic reaction and shocking the snail!

I'm also doing some illustrations inspired by delightful historic pesticide advertisements such as 'SLUG DEATH' "better than arsenic", but illustrating todays non-chemical methods of pest control.

Heres some bits of artwork for the plates... photos of the real things to follow when they're done. As long as they don't crack/explode/severely warp in the kiln (TOUCH WOOD!) they are in the glaze firing as I type.

The foxy is a personal fav (he's on the Chafer Grub plate (Garden Pest equal no.3), as larger animals like foxes and badgers and crows oh ah, did up the lawn to have a munch on them).

Silkworms Ink Illustrations

Also in my blogging absence I did a spot of illustration for Silkworms Ink, an online chapbook of poetry and creative writing.

I illustrated 2 poems for their 50th Chapbook, some rather (if I may say so myself) delightful pheasants and a ghostly mirror.

Check them out alongside the poems at http://www.silkwormsink.com/chapbook_50.htmland see how many pheasants you can spot!

Adu Dhabi Cakestands for Undergrowth Design

Been a while since I updated... in the meantime, in the month of March I was working on some cakestand bases for Tina Tsang of Undergrowth Design (who I work part time for normally) for a shop opening in Abu Dhabi.

Tina design the cakestands as makeshift ones to stand in place as her original designs wouldn't be complete in time for the shops opening... this is where I stepped in to make 15 bases quickly and cheaply. We then sprayed half of them gold ("very Abu Dhabi") and stuck vintage plates on the top.

Flickr

OH HAI!

Just got myself a flickr account, so you can see lodsa pictures of my work, also it taught me how to greet people in 'lol speak', so there you go.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katiespraggwork/

Fantastic Fantastical Feast

This Saturday was the last of 10 ceramic workshops I have been assisting Alan Stott with at Camden Arts Center. We have been working with 7 children aged 8-11 making objects in clay for a 'Dream Feast' on Saturday, after a bit of last minute finishing and sticking bits together with this amazing epoxy resin that comes as a sausage of putty that you kneed together, we layed the results of all the hard work out; there was cakes, gingerbread houses, fish shaped jelly, candy canes, weird and wonderful cutlery, napkins, a sizable host of dinosaurs, monsters and cyber things (of course), candelabras, volcanoes and last but certainly not least heads of the guests at the feast; all made from clay.

It all looked fantastic but my favorite was Mikey's skull spoon with a flexible vertebrae handle "I don't think i'll make all 42 vertebrae!"

Pictures coming soon.

I'm running my own ceramics workshops in the Summer holidays, where the children will be creating artifacts form their own imagined civilisation so if you know any 5-11 year olds in the North London area please let them know!

http://www.camdenartscentre.org/courses/?age=8101&id=8101

Wooden Sardines and thumbprints

The Open West Exhibition and Community project:

My ceramic pieces in the exhibition and the new piece of furniture I adapted and clad in cardboard... why don't you remember how painful something is the first time round?

The postcard propped up at the back tells Gertrude Kiwi's story that inspired the pieces....

View of the exhibition with my cabinet in the back, the boat hanging from the ceiling was beautiful, I think it was made from gold-leafed cardboard. Alan Goulbourne's piece is in the foreground, the artist I assisted with the community project.

I spent the first half of last week in Cheltenham helping Alan Goulbourne with his half of a community project run by The Open West (the exhibition I was part of).

His piece for the project, based in the Hester's Way estate, is an 8ft spherical 'Bait Ball' made from pieces of 2x1 wood. A bait ball is a panic and defense mechanism adopted by sardines in the face of a predator and Alan's pieces referenced a community being squeezed yet coming together, as the area in which the project is based was due for much needed regeneration yet plans have been cancelled since Asda is moving in down the road.

I helped Alan by adding on the smaller 'sardines' to the piece and passing him drills and screws through a small gap as he climbed inside to attach the top of the sculpture.

My favorite part of this experience was heading over the road to the youth center and chatting to and involving the staff and young people there in the project. We collected over 1000 4x5cm thumb-printed squares as a side project which with their help we constructed into one large piece.