I've finished it!!!! WHOOP!

So after alot of blood, sweat, tears and Bacardi, Skolly is finished! I have posted them on my Big Cartel site http://madamemunkisskullemporium.bigcartel.com/product/skolly for anyone interested in a little festive gothica/ mexicana :)

 They're just a little over 5 inches in length and come as a pair! I really love these guys, they really make me smile :).

http://madamemunkisskullemporium.bigcartel.com/product/skolly

The Skolly - days are coming! (yep a shameless rip off of the coke song!)

It's always a terrifying moment packing the kiln, especially when mixing it in with kids' work, as they feel the idea of their work exploding is more appealing than I do! So the anticipation nearly kills me, I generally have to leave opening the door to my brilliant technician. Especially as I would be so impatient as to rush opening the door and either burn my own face off or ,worse still, everything would shattered!

So I rushed home on Friday night, rounded up the girls and another chain gang of art ensued. These little bad boys are nearly done! I will be putting them up on the Big Cartel site by Friday, hopefully. Whoop! Cue annoying Christmas song in the coke tune... "Skollydays are coming, skollydays are coming..."
http://madamemunkisskullemporium.bigcartel.com/

Tis the season to be skully, FAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAAAHHH!

Last night was a festive little "Art Club" me and Rene got our Christmas on, by creating some party favours for our friends. I have been getting a little too festive recently; planning Christmas outfits, ways to make our own bad Christmas jumpers, to wear out to the pub and to Faux Chrimbo (a rehearsal Christmas dinner, which usually ends in drunken debauchery or out and out warfare over board games!). I really can't wait to put on the Dean Martin, crack open the mulled wine and put the tree up. So during the journey to work, my little brain is working over time and planning little designs... and so the idea for Skolly was born. The design was hastily drawn on an opened envelope and thrust at a bleary eyed Rene. And here they are....

These cheeky little chaps have since multiplied, as I was Art-unfaithful to Rene this morning and made some more to go on the Big Cartel site (when they are painted up).
As before Rene has used her killer writing skills to document the evening, so I will leave you with her words. :) She is a clever ol' stick!

"God bless Tim Burton. I mean, yes, he shamelessly casts Helena Bonham Carter as the female lead in every movie he makes (I bet he sits at night, crying over the fact that he can’t turn back time and remake Beetlejuice without that bastard Winona Ryder) but he did, with the help of this dapper gentleman, justify a very skully (whisper it) Christmas.  

Faux Chrimbo has become a tradition over the last four or five years. A group of 10 or so friends get together and enjoy a turkey/veggie-alternative roast dinner at mine. It used to be my gay husband and I but now that we’re divorced, it turns out that I got custody of Faux Chrimbo.

I love Faux Chrimbo because it brings with it all the excitement of Christmas without pestiferous present-buying or pesky parents, with their tantrums and impromptu moonlight flits to the coast. This is just the ‘kids’ playing grown up by cooking a dinner and having a very jolly piss up when the table’s been cleared. It is the best thing about winter, I reckon.

This year, there shall be dodgy jumpers worn and the act of cooking has been thrown wide. I will be cooking the meat but the other jobs (even the roast potatoes) have been out-sourced, so that each guest will bring a component of the dinner. This excites me for several reasons. 1) I envisage a far less sweaty day than past years as I will not be running around doing last minute jobs. 2) Less washing up - I even bought disposable roasting trays, skank that I am. 3) we all cook differently, so it’ll be a fusion of styles and preferences and, although it’s all roast dinner, I think it’ll be all the better for everyone’s personal little flourishes.

It will be a relief to learn that I didn’t just segue from Jack Skellington to Christmas dinner without good cause. The reason he’s relevant is that last night, Fro and I got together to ‘make’. I had just come from an exhausting day at work. I had been in an excellent mood all day and had been dead motivated to do EVERYTHING but that meant working until 6pm (for a teacher, on a Friday, this is sacriledge) and using an arseload of energy on laughing, smiling and happily getting on with stuff. So when I finally got to Fro’s, via terrible traffic and the kebab shop for our dinner, I was incapable of coherent speech, much less creative thinking.

Fro had previously suggested making party favours for the Faux Chrimbo guests and had excitedly mocked up a little idea in her head, which she showed me. It involved holly leaves and skull berries… I was sold.

So we became a two-person production line. Fro made a prototype holly leaf (I seriously needed the guidance - my holly leaves always end up looking like remedial footwear) and we cut out 26 of those, then stuck them together in pairs. At this point, we realised that we could have made them as a pair to begin with, which would have saved us a job and made the pieces stronger (insert spaz lip here) but the end result was the same. Once we’d got the leaves how we wanted them, we rolled little balls of clay and Fro made them into little smiley skull faces, while I stuck them down.

We ended up with these little guys. I think they bear a passing resemblance to a certain Mr Skellington.

Fro plans to fire them, then paint the leaves green and the skulls red, so that they are all christmassy with a twist.

I think that they are very cute and very jolly-looking. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Burton himself wouldn’t sniff at having these bad boys on his christmas table.

Since it is christmas and all, if you would like to own your very own skullyberry christmas ornament, or if you know some morbid or latin soul who might appreciate a piece of original (custom-made if you so desire) artwork, TheFro sells her wares here.(http://madamemunkisskullemporium.bigcartel.com/)"

I shall post up images of the finished beasties once they are fired and painted, until then I shall be continuing to obsess about more ways to shoe-horn skulls into Christmas...Jingle Skulls? Mistleskulls? It's a bit sad really...  

http://madamemunkisskullemporium.bigcartel.com/

El Dia De Los Muertos

So today is the first day in the Mexican Dia De Los Muertos/ Day of The Dead Celebrations, where the good folks of Mexico celebrate Loved-ones passed. The beauty of this ceremony is all the brightly coloured flowers and the skulls, puppets and masks, alongside the joyful music. Mexican's kinda see life and death in a very different way to most...

"The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations kept skulls as trophies and displayed them during the ritual. The skulls were used to symbolize death and rebirth.
The skulls were used to honor the dead, whom the Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations believed came back to visit during the monthlong ritual.
Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake."
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/ent/dead/articles/dead-history.html#ixzz1cTiTjEyk

 

So anyway I thought now would be good time to give a Dia de los muertos shout-out to my Nanny June, who was a legend in the art of baking. We lost her earlier this year in a bit of a shock illness. But I am sure she would rather me remember her for making my 13th birthday cake with Dracula on and black desiccated coconut on the sides... awesome!

 

So last Friday we had Art Club and Rene, my Art-Partner in Crime wrote about it all in her diary and seeing as she is more eloquent than I ever could be, she has allowed me to rob her words!

 

"Last night was another drunken art night. The Coven descended on TheFro's where she was all set up with a big glass of plonk and her easel, painting... Chiquita or whatever her name ended up being, a beautiful skull in a festival of pinks, greens and golds.

Frida was made and fired months and months ago. I was dreading painting her. I had all these high-falutin ideas which I knew I could never carry off (leopard/paisley print skin being one) and I was anxious about messing her up.

I hate the painting part. I am not skilled with a brush and so I have a tendency to go as plain as possible, which annoys me as Fro sits there and splashes on colour and pattern to her merry heart's content. I sit there, tongue out, trying to maintain a clean white (never happens).

 Last night, I plonked myself down, cracked open a bottle of red and just started painting. I tried really hard not to think too much about it and, before I knew it, I had a very Mexican-looking Frida and a slight buzz from the wine. I liked how she turned out but I am a fool and forgot to take a photo.

Laura is even less confident than I am. She had a very pretty tile to paint. I think it was fired with Frida (our turn over is snail-paced; while Fro turns out beautiful canvases and electric ceramics constantly, it takes Laura and I six months to finish one project). Laura ended up going for a pretty red and green on the tile but managed to avoid going too Christmassy or Freddy Krueger-y. It'll look lovely hanging in her garden and she has plans to make a house number for her front door next. I think she caught the bug.

Once the paints were put away and the table cleared, that just left us with two jobs: chatting and polishing off the wine. We did both very well, I thought. We discussed Big Topics (current affairs, politics) and the usual stuff (dating, gossip) and had a very lovely time indeed.

Eventually, it was time to leave for home (via a drunken fast food run) and I left with the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that comes with a little creative diddling and a bit of quality time with The Coven. "

Such a lovely evening and beautifully written about! What fun though... Paint, gossip, a little Pearl Jam and wine... always a cracking combination! Photos to follow... until then I'm gonna go celebrate by having a little sing-song!

New Additions!

Here are the new babies! Don Juan, Consuela and Angelo. Made on Bank Holiday Monday, with my Art Buddy Serena. I don't want post up her efforts just yet, as they are brilliant (in finish and concept) and I think we need to behold the finished product.
These guys are in the unfired stage, and need to be fired in the kiln at 1100degrees! but don't worry these babies love it warm :)
Can't wait to get them fired, but it is always a scary process (for me, not them!) as some small air bubbles can cause them to crack! but more on the process later.
Ok, so I know I cannot show Serena's efforts with clay, but I can show you the fricking amazing pie she managed to knock up whilst we were working on the skulls! After a hard days-a-makin' we went to town on this bad boy (and yes the initials are G & S on top of the pie! we are so SAD!).

Pie is ALWAYS a good way to complete an art sesh!

Say hello to the Brady Bunch!

So these are my latest babies! Aurelio, Eduardo, Gus, Lolita and Flora. These guys have been made lovingly by myself, over several glasses of wine and gossip with the girls! What started out as a solitary obsession, developed into Saturday Art Club; a few friends around my kitchen table, making one hell of a mess and a whole lot of noise, in the form of chatter and singing along to Tori Amos or Pearl Jam, or some other equally fab 90s treat!

Some of the results of Saturday Art Club, with Liv & Steve (Top left and right), created by Serena. Josiah (top centre) and the Cheeky Quintuplets, made by me :).

Gus and Frida in their early stages, unpainted and unfired. I will do a little blog on the process at a later date (woooooo). But for now, thanks for allowing me to introduce to my little obsession. You can find some of these cheeky blighters, for sale, on my Big Cartel page. http://madamemunkisskullemporium.bigcartel.com