Saturday 7 January 2012

Guest blog by Lauren, Artist of the Week

Hello Shed Creatives!


It is certainly a pleasure to be featured Artist of the Week this week, although a bit strange to turn the spotlight to myself! As many of you know, as well as being a Shed Creative myself, I am also the Social Media Manager for the Shed, which basically means I work on the blog, represent us on Twitter and Facebook, and also put together the Newsletter, as well as keeping in touch with you all via email.


It's been really brilliant to start getting to know all the Shed Creatives over the past 4 months or so. I know some of us have had more correspondence than others, but I hope I'll have the chance to work closely with all of you in time. You're a talented lot, and it's wonderful to be part of a project that is really about celebrating, and recognising people's artistic and photographic skills. Chelsea always says how she feels like she has the best job in the world, especially when she is putting together a show, and gets to choose the work from such a massive range of fantastic images - and I totally agree. It is great to know that through my work at the Shed, I am promoting and supporting the work of photographers and artists I genuinely believe in and admire. 


As well as being a part of the Shed team, I am also a sculptor, as you'll have seen from my shameless self-promotion this week, here on the blog, as well as across our social media networks :-). I spent last year studying and making in Barcelona, and at the end of last summer returned to the UK, where I have a great studio down by the sea, and plenty of space to really explore and experiment with my work. My latest piece, The Old Man of the Sea, is in our Coast: the sea, the sea exhibition - hopefully those of you who have come down to the show noticed him suspended! He is a piece I'd had in mind for a long time, and really enjoyed making. For me working with metal is brilliant, I love the transformation of such a hard and unforgiving material as steel into something with soft lines and curves, that can appear almost fluid, and gently graceful. Playing with the materials is such a joy, metal, wood, plaster, ink......so that is where a lot of my work comes from. Enjoying and exploring and learning as I go. (Some more thoughts on welding a steel octopus here.)


And as you can see from the Shed gallery, I dabble in photography too - but currently don't have a good camera, so am limited to saving ideas on the camera on my phone, that I hope to return to with the right equipment at a later date!


Ok - that's all from me for now - but once again thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Shed Blog so far, and who has kept me informed of their news, exhibitions, ideas, etc. It's brilliant to hear from you and to get your work seen, so do keep me up to date! And thanks too, to all the Shed Creatives, who  make the Shed such a brilliant, creative community to be a part of. 


May 2012 be a fantastic year for all of you, and for the Shed Photography!


- Lauren


My blog - Welded Rockets
My Shed Profile - Lauren Fox
Follow me on Twitter @WeldedRockets

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