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New Craft Journey - Part 1

Posted by Sally Lees on

I recently applied for the Arts Council England Developing Proffessional Practice Grant and was accepted. My application was to learn how to hand engrave and to improve my enamelling skills. Enamelling being a skill I hadn't had the opportunity to explore in any depth during my career. I enlisted the expertise of a crafts women whose work I greatly admired - Jane Short and Jessica Turrell and embarked on a schedule of work tailored to me. Engraving isn't easy! Learning the principles took quite some time plus we had to do some of the instruction online due to Covid restrictions....

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Camden Council Business Award Plaques 2015

Posted by Sally Lees on

  Looking back to 2015  Making the Camden Cuncil Business Awards Looking back in time to a very busy year - 2015. Just before I made the collection of women's suffrage jewellery to accompany Mary Branson's 'New Dawn' light sculpture I was asked once again to make the Business Awards plaques for Camden Council. After the success of the hand printed aluminium plaues I made for Camden Business at their inaugural event in 2013 they asked me to make the plaques for the second Camden Business awards event in 2015. The first steps to achieving your goals on a commission...

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Postcards from the Pandemic - With tips for doing Zoom Demonstrations

Posted by Sally Lees on

Open Studios during a pandemic 2020 was distressing year for most people. Being held prisoner in your own home though not too uncomfortable was also disconcerting. At Cockpit we were luckier than most. After being at home for a couple of months we were able to go into the studio providing that we could socially distance whislt there. Complex timetables had to be drawn up between sharers to be able to esentially avoid contact with each other. We had planned to open up to the public for our open studios but unfortunately we were unable to do so due to...

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Flashback to 2017 - The Brooch is Back exhibition - Kew Garden inspired Brooches

Posted by Sally Lees on

I was inspired by the unusual plants at Kew to make a few brooches to capture the linear quality of some of the plants there.
With it's geometric repeating shapes the Jade vine is a beauty to behold and it's incredible turquoise colour is rare to see in England.

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New Studio - Still at Cockpit Arts!

Posted by Sally Lees on

2020 was a strange and sad year but it was also my 20th year at Cockpit Arts. I had planned to celebrate it at the Open Studios in June with Cava! Unortunately Covid 19 put a stop to that as it stopped countless other events. Instead Cockpit took the Open studios online with a lot of success but without the lovely atmosphere and interesting conversations with our clients.

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