Always be doing something cool

We've been working hard for the past couple of days for our Invergordon Off The Wall sculpture. Brainstorming, researching and putting together a few sketches and ideas for a meeting with the board tonight. Not wanting to give much away just now but lets just say we know a lot more about trees now...

Have also attached a few more images from another couple of our interviews with some of our chefs for the cookbook we are creating. We had a great evening with Father Reese where he entertained us with stories and made us one of his favourite meals - eggs on toast! Not the most difficult meal to make but just as valid as any other recipe.

We followed that up with visits to Barbaraville to meet the lovely Louisa and then Rhonda and her husband Sid. Great conversation and lots of laughs as well as great food (rice pudding and the cookie dough for Ice-cream sundae being standouts for me).

Both of us can't remember the last time we have enjoyed the research aspect of the job so much. Glad to say we still have more to do! - FIN

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The Twang - Ice Cream Sundae
Love It When I Feel Like This (2007)

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Imagination, is all I want from you

A few of you out there have been asking "what are the blog titles all about?" Well, some of you have worked out that they are all based on song titles or lyrics from songs.

To make things more interesting/exciting for you (as if our blog could be more interesting...) we have started to put links to as many of these songs we can find online. Check out some of our recent blogs. We will keep updating some of the older blogs too - might encourage some of you to delve into our history!

Music is pretty much essential to us in the studio, workshop or on site. Its a fuel for creativity... - FIN

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Belouis Some - Imagination
Some People (1985)

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Inside out and outside in you bring eyesight to the blind.

Been a long day yesterday and got back up North at about 10pm but it was worth it... Spent the day finishing our large wall pieces in a new optometrists showroom in Inverness (Goskirk Pettinger) and it was great fun. We ran into a few challenges last week but dealt with them and its looking pretty good now. 

Idea behind it began with a discovery in an old kids textbook of a description of sight and used the words "without light we would be lost" together with a couple of other statements we have included on the walls. The eye is an incredibly complex and beautiful part of the body and even something as seemingly simple as eye colour is pretty amazing. We took an iris and took a very thin vertical strip from the middle of this including the pupil and expanded it horizontally to create a series of stripes which made up our back wall. We also used a couple of sketches of lightbulbs together with rods and cones which we tied together with the stripes... we think it works and look forward to getting to see it when the shop is complete. 

In the meantime, here are a couple of images of the work as it was completed today. - FIN

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Placebo - Eyesight to the Blind

B Side of Nancy Boy (1997)

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Welcome: Daniel Ibled

Daniel IBLED est né à Saint Etienne le 6 juillet 1959.

Attiré depuis son enfance par le travail des volumes, il a effectué après ses études, une première formation d’ébéniste sculpteur, à l’académie Saint Luc de Tournai, en Belgique, qui l’a familiarisé avec le bois et surtout avec la technique des assemblages. Ensuite, tout en menant une recherche personnelle en sculpture, il a travaillé en restauration de meubles, puis il s'est orienté vers la restauration de sculptures. C’est son métier aujourd’hui. Formé à l’Institut Français de Restauration des Œuvres d’Art, il travaille pour les musées nationaux et à l’étranger où il assure des campagnes de restauration et de formation.

Ce parcours, un peu particulier, lui a permis l’approche d’une autre lecture possible d’une œuvre, de la réinventer à partir de ce qu’elle est devenue, avec son histoire et ses traumatismes en intégrant pleinement les traces de son passé, permettant ainsi la naissance d’une nouvelle œuvre à partir de l’ancienne. 

C’est cette même lecture parallèle qu’il utilise actuellement dans sa recherche artistique en recomposant des oiseaux, par un jeu d’assemblage de fragments de bois trouvés au hasard de ses voyages.

Daniel Ibled travaille le bois, matériau vivant par excellence, le laisse brut pour en préserver toute son histoire. Il parvient ainsi, par un détail - une cicatrice, une courbe, un nœud ou un défaut - à évoquer une tête, un corps, un plumage, une aile. Entre réalisme et abstraction, Daniel Ibled utilise comme support de travail, la réalité qu’il détourne en toute subjectivité.

Divers de part leurs origines, mais assemblés sous les mains de l’artiste, ces fragments de bois sont pour lui le point d’appel de son imagination. Une façon de leur redonner vie, alors qu’ils étaient voués à disparaître.

Selon les caprices de son imagination, Daniel Ibled fait naître tantôt une sculpture aux formes connues, tantôt une silhouette plus abstraite. Mais jamais il n’est dans une recherche ornithologique, toujours dans une démarche artistique et onirique.

   Daniel Ibled's website: http://daniel-ibled.com  

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...with cake for him and soup for me

Another couple of weeks have gone by and we have had some pretty cool things to do...

A photo shoot for a local distillery, designed a rather sweet book cover, completed another magazine, spent 3 days painting an interior of a new boutique optometrists in Inverness, looking at creative design solutions for signage and wayfinding for a few clients, meeting and interviewing some Gaelic speakers in Invergordon and had another meal with a fabulous elderly couple...Whew quite a lot really, not exactly taking things easy as we enter a new year. Will maybe try to blog about some of that in the next few days but in the meantime want to focus on the meal - we do like our food!

As the continued research into our work for Invergordon Off The Wall we met with the Lippoks in Tain. Their journey here was quite amazing. Paul was a conscripted German Paratrooper who was only in the army for 6 months before he was captured at Anzio towards the end of WWII. His journey took him via Casablanca, Texas, oklahoma, California, Panama, Southampton and Perth before ending up in Kildary as an 18 year old POW. At the end of the war and after being demobbed he stayed and is still here...

His wife Ehrentraut (like Paul himself) grew up in Silesia, Germany (now part of Poland) and was only a young girl during the war. When the war ended she suffered badly at the hands of the Russians enduring typhoid and starvation before escaping to West germany. She met Paul after posting an ad in a German Catholic newspaper - who needs match.com?!

They told us stories about growing up, life in Germany, life in the Highlands, family and faith all while cooking very traditional German food - chicken noodle soup and nuss torte (nut cake). A wonderful way to spend a morning and lunch.

Schönen Dank - FIN

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Carole King - Chicken Soup with Rice
Really Rosie (1975)

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The Unknown Waltz - Video

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Art Sanctuary Introducing: Lia Koster - Glass Artist

I am Very Very happy to make the very First Introduction of the Artists of 'The Enchanted Garden' this next Summer; June 29th - August 5th- 2012!

"Dwarrelaar" (2008)

LIA KOSTER is a glass artist that I immediately connected with - and all the artists who have been to 'Art Sanctuary's Enchanted Garden' will know why:) And for all who haven't been to Art Sanctuary yet - Welcome - Bienvenue - Welkom -
Please visit Lia Koster's website:

"Uit het donker in hetlicht" (Out of darkness into light).

"Onzichtbaar voor het oog" ('Invisible to the eye'). 

Photo by "De Beukenhof", Kluisbergen.

Lia Koster: "De glasobjecten van Lia Koster strelen de zintuigen. De overweldigende natuur is verbonden met tijdloze en universele verlangens, gevoelens en levensvragen. De ervaring van een nieuwe lente en de continuïteit van levensstromen en het ultieme verlangen naar zuiverheid zijn inspiratiebronnen waar zij nooit genoeg van krijgt. Het wonder dat leven heet, wordt vertaald in glasobjecten die sereniteit, kwetsbaarheid en vertedering uitstralen en tegelijk blaken van levenslust in allerlei vormen en hoedanigheden. Fascinatie voor levensbronnen is de basis voor glaskunst die vibreert door transparantie, reflectie en andere subtiele licht- en kleureffecten. Lia Koster zet haar verwondering over bijzondere levensvormen om in glaskunst die zintuiglijke waarnemingen stimuleert. Hoe verschillend de verschijningsvormen ook zijn, in haar glasobjecten speelt natuurbeleving steeds een belangrijke rol. Glas is het beeldmiddel bij uitstek. Ze vertaalt exotisch plantenleven en de wonderlijke dierenwereld in sprankelende glasobjecten die door hun natuurlijke uitstraling de herinnering aan het complexe en tijdrovende scheppingsproces verdringen. De objecten die onder meer zijn uitgevoerd in glas-in-lood toepassingen, verwijzen naar uiteenlopende levensbronnen die met elkaar gemeen hebben dat ze nieuwe impulsen geven aan de verwondering over de schoonheid van het leven.

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I guess I'm a toy that is broken

For those of you who follow our tweets we fired one out today with a collection of our found/broken vinyl toys that we have modified (where do we get the time for such nonsense...).

We feel that this particular one needs a bit more work and maybe a name. Any suggestions from out there? Not exactly a Moncchichi anymore... pencil leg, eyepatch, earring, sword etc.

Also, if you have any unwanted/broken toys then please contact us for our address and we can update and send them back to you... - FIN

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Keane - Broken Toy

Under The Iron Sea (2006)

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Time may change me, but I can't trace time

Happy New Year one and all! Hope 2012 is a good and blessed one for everyone out there.
In the true spirit of New Year we have made a few resolutions that we will endeavour to stick at (no promises...)

1. Get a new website!!! Having the blog is great but doesn't really work as a portfolio of our work

2. Keep the blog running and up to date (something we have improved on in the last few months)

3. Cut down our workload a bit and get some new screen-printing done

4. Spend some time outside the North - 2011 was very much a Highland Year (with a few exceptions)

5. Grow our own vegetables. DUFI Market Garden Produce anyone?! No Charlie Dimmock or goats though... -FIN

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David Bowie - Changes

Hunky Dory (1971)

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