I’m excited to announce that on June 26, The American Book Center (ABC) here in Amsterdam will be hosting The Urban Arts Festival: where design meets crafts! This will be a unique festival where design and crafts mingle, right in the centre of the city. On the day, the Spui square will be transformed into a huge outdoor atelier with designers, artisans, and crafters all making, creating, displaying & selling their work. There will also be lessons and workshops in the ABC Treehouse (Voetboogstraat 11, across the square) and right now, the ABC are inviting submissions from designers & artisans interested in participating.

It’s going to be a super fun day and I will to be there too, with a little something special to share! I will give you a clue: it has something to do with my upcoming book , Amsterdam: Made by Hand – but it’s not what you think. Hmm, intrigued?

If you would like more information or are interested in participating, please email the urban arts festival right here.  Be sure to include a short description of your work and an image. I will write more about the festival in the time to come, but for now I just wanted to let you know this much.

June In Amsterdam – it’s going to be FULL of the good stuff!

xx

PS do you like this poster above I just made? I got a bit carried away – I only meant to create a little image to go with this post, but then I got funky with fonts. oops.

I have not, but dear Amy has. Check out her awesome post about it, which includes beautiful images like the ones you see above. She also has a flickr set with more photographs from her visit. This place looks insane, it is now on my list of must-visit museums around the world (in case you’re wondering, it’s in Pennsylvania).

Just to give you an idea of what this place is all about, here is a blurb from the website which, if you are anything like me, will have your little handmade heart jumping out of it’s hidey hole. It reads:

“By 1897 handmade objects were being discarded in favor of new machine-made goods. Historian and archaeologist Henry Mercer (1856-1930) recognized the need to collect and preserve the outmoded material of daily life in America before it was swept away by the Industrial Revolution. Mercer gathered almost 30,000 items ranging from hand tools to horse-drawn vehicles and assembled this encyclopedic collection in a system of his own devising. To enhance the collection’s educational value, and to share it with the public, Mercer decided to design and build a museum to display the artifacts.”

Are you with me? Are you with me? I am flipping. out.

…between stars afloat in the night sky…

Now, I’m no poet so I’ll stop right there, but this lovely friend of mine is. Not only is she a poet, but an artist of the truest kind who surrounds herself with beautiful handmade creations, works in progress, and lots of interesting curiosities.

Are you ready to come and visit her corner of the world with me? She lives quite far away so I hope you’re up for a little adventure. Take my hand. All set? Okay, let’s go…

Welcome to the home studio of Kylie Johnson, creator of paper boat press. Kylie lives in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, in one of the most picturesque quiet corners of a city I’ve ever seen. Surrounded by huge native eucalyptus, wattle, ferns and palm trees, Kylie works on her clay creations, illustrations, and poetry in her studio which is an outdoor room overlooking the trees and a gorgeous old church.  I visited her a couple of months ago for the first time and already, I am missing being in her presence and her calm, inspiring space – which is why I wanted you to come with me today…

I could spend hours looking at Kylie’s creations – picking each piece up, turning it in my hands, and imagining a world that exists outside the one I know. Her book of poetry ‘count me the stars’ is filled with beautiful words, phrases, fragments of memories and dreams. I like to open it at a random page and digest the content while I continue with my thoughts.

Fancy a cup of tea and some homemade muffins out on the balcony? Kylie has just pulled a batch from the oven, they smell utterly delicious. Tea is on the table…

Kylie has lots of wonderful things happening this year – including the release of her second book of poetry published by murdoch books called ‘a once courageous heart’. I can’t wait to read it…

photograph courtesy of kylie johnson

It’s time to go. I know, I don’t want to leave either. But now that we have this post permanently in the (blog)house, we can come back again and again. Thank you for having us dear Kylie, I wish you all the best for the year ahead and I can’t wait to see you again, wherever that may be…

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The launch for Kylie’s book is next Friday, March 5th and if you live in or near brisbane, please go along and cheer her on for me. The rsvp date is this friday, february 26. Details are below…

I am going to linger in queensland for the rest of the week here in the (blog)house as I have lots I want to show you from my trip there last month. I hope you’ll join me…

xx

PS oh and I nearly forgot! Here is a little peek inside her living room, I love it. But I got so distracted with her studio and creations that I forgot to show you…

Cassandra’s  beautiful old home in New Zealand, as photographed by Matthew Williams.

Perhaps you are like me and are guilty of collecting fabrics upon fabrics which you want to make into a quilt but never find the time? Well, yesterday while I was reading Cassandra Ellis’ (from Haven Workroom)  beautiful blog, I was thrilled to find out that she is now taking orders for quilts made with your own personal collection of fabrics! It’s a wonderful idea, and Cassandra’s style and designs are stunning, she is one of the rare people I would give my pile of precious fabrics to without hesitation.

Read her original post about how she serendipitously came upon the idea here, and click here to find out about pricing (follow the link to ‘our goods’, ‘quilts’, then  ‘download pricelist’).

For those of you who are new to Cassandra’s work, let me introduce her to you. Back in 2002, Cassandra started a business called Haven Workroom in NZ. Then it was a gorgeous little store selling high-quality hand-made homewares (which sounds like my little indigo, but no doubt much, much nicer!). A little while ago, Cassandra packed her bags and moved to London and re-created Haven Workroom into an atelier making bespoke contemporary quilts as well as restoring and up-cycling vintage furniture. Cassandra’s aim is to keep artisan skills alive and relevant. Her quilts are contemporary and one-of-a-kind, made from vintage silks and cottons combining Indian, English, Asian and Eastern European textiles.

Take a look at her quilts right here.

The photos you see above and below are from Cassandra’s home back in New Zealand. I love her eclectic yet cohesive collection of homewares displayed throughout each space. It’s a home filled with soul…

Beautiful, non? Oui! But you know I was going to say that.

I don’t know about you but for me, this week’s posts about talented female artisans and their work spaces has been truly inspiring – first  it was Tracey Deep, then Harriet Goodall and now Cassandra Ellis of Haven Workroom. Be sure to check out all the links attached to each post as there is more inspiration to be had than what I have shown here.

Have a great weekend mes amis. See you on Monday!

xx

PS I am over the jetlag and flu now – yay! Thanks for all your well wishes.

You may recall that not so long ago I wrote about my love for making photograms during my uni days (click here to read the original post which features the beautiful photographic work of rowena dugdale). For those who don’t know, a photogram is making a print in a photo lab without using a camera.

Rowena reminded me in a recent comment that I said I’d try to find an example of one of my photograms for you when I went back to sydney. I happened to be rifling through one of my visual diaries the other day and found this, below. It is one of my original photograms which I made by exposing some text that was written on a sheet of acetate, tiny pebbles, and piece of sheer fabric over a self-portrait. I remember feeling some sense of exhilaration over the finished product.

photogram with print, untitled, Pia Jane Bijkerk 1996.

I love the tactility of making photograms, it’s a rather marvelous process and if you are a photo-making-enthusiast, I highly recommend the developing adventure. I’ve now realised how much my love for making photograms has influenced my work today – even though the digital world we now live in has mostly eliminated the hand touched aspect of photography, the physical contact I have with the image from beginning to end is still ever-present.

Incidentally, I found this feedback written in my diary from one of my university lecturers. Love the second sentence…