Maker Faire UK 2013

This weekend is the UK Maker Faire, held at the Centre for Life in Newcastle upon Tyne.  This is the second time I've been (I went to the last one, in 2011), and it's great!  There's loads to see and do, and what I've got to show here is just a fraction, but I hope will give you a flavour of the day.

Starting outside the building, there was the fire breathing robot dragon back again:

This time accompanied by a robot horse, complete with (living) jockey:

There was the Noisy Toys tent:

It may not look much, but it was LOUD!

Action painting (i.e. firing paint at a screen out of a small cannon):

Laser cut dinosaurs:

And I have no idea what this is or what it's meant to do as I missed the advertised shows:

Indoors, there were of course the Daleks:

It wouldn't seem right without them!

There was a lot of 3D printing this year, but this was a bit different - a 3D printer made from Lego and printing pancakes:

Neon artist Sarah Blood was demonstrating shaping glass tubes:

And alongside other works, had a neon tube baked in a cake:

There were a lot of robots this year too, including, rather dodgily, some robot pole dancers:

As my sister pointed out, this manages to demean women and robots simultaneously, which is quite a feat.

Moving on, textile crafts were represented too, with a quilting group present:

And another robot, this time knitting:

Knitted innards:

And more robots:

This is a musical instrument, the AlphaSphere:

I'd expected it to be a sort of drum machine but it isn't - it sounds like a synthesiser.  The chap giving the demonstration was playing some pretty impressive tunes with it.

This on the large National Museum of Computing stand took me back:

The BBC Micro.  Anyone in the UK of a certain age and of a geeky turn of mind (such as me) will remember the Beeb fondly.  In the real world I have a Masters degree in computer based information systems and job in web development and management, and it all started learning to code one of these in the 1980s.

With apologies for the blurry photo, the Raspberry Pi:

The hope is that this will inspire a new generation to learn to love computers, the way the BBC Micro did for so many of us.

Before I get too misty-eyed, a range of terrific 3D-printed bits and bobs from Shapeways:

If you're wondering, the thing at the front is a miniature Strandbeest; I want one!

Another robot, and despite the work that's clearly been put into it, I found it really creepy:

A big challenge for the makers of robots is going to be to get us to accept them, I think.

And finally, an overview of just part of the Faire:

It was enormously good fun, and I can thoroughly recommend going to any held in your area.  I'm looking forward to the next UK one already!

Exhibition - wall-hangings

I've been giving a great deal of thought to my proposed exhibition, and I've decided that the heart of it will be three wall-hangings. These will work together a set, but also alone (should anyone want to buy one!). They'll be in goldwork, and I'd also like to do smaller or nué panels or pictures to accompany them, but I'm still a bit vague on the details for them.

I do, however, now have designs I'm happy with for the hangings. About a year ago, on a whim, I bought an old Spirograph from eBay. I'd had one as a kid but it's long gone, and I'd probably lost half the bits anyway. I messed about with it for a while, then moved onto other things.

I didn't entirely forget about it, though, and it occurred to me that the spiral shapes (why do I have this thing about spirals of one sort or another?) could look good in goldwork. The Spirograph spirals reminded me of chrysanthemums in Japanese prints, and I've been working on layouts inspired by them, though more abstract.

All three hanging designs are below. The positioning of the spirals on each one I did using Photoshop Elements, but the spirals themselves I drew by hand using the Spirograph set, scanned and resized. You can still see dots on the designs, which is where the pins went in the plastic wheels!

So, here they are:

Spirograph I:

Spirograph II:

Spirograph III:

All three will be 60 x 120cm.

I know the effect I want, but I need to make a decision on fabrics, so a bit of experimenting is in order.

Vote for me!

No, I'm not going to be standing in the general election, but you can still vote for me in the craft&design magazine Selected awards, to find the best designer-makers in the UK and Ireland in a variety of categories, including textiles. The public vote is open until 30 April, so if you'd like to vote for me, go to www.craftmaker.co.uk/rutholeary/ and follow the link at the bottom of the page. Given the incredible standard of the work in Selected I don't think I'll win, but I suppose you never know!

In a round-up of other news, Kate's Crow has been stretched onto a board and finished off neatly with a plain black backing; I'll be packing it off to Brian the blacksmith tomorrow. I've been working on designs for the centre of my proposed exhibition and am a lot happier with the way things are now working, and should have something to show you soon. That's the good news, though - the venue where I'd been hoping to hold the exhibition (I've had work there before, as part of an exhibition of textile artists in North East England) is either shutting or has already gone. This is a blow; I'm now going to have to try and find somewhere else. I've got a couple of places I thought I'd try, so I'll just have to see what they say and go on from there.

Announcing an exhibition... sort of

I'd intended to tell you about my new project today, but now I'm not sure what to say. Some of it remains the same: I intend having a small selling exhibition, and will make some new pieces, maybe a series of themed items, as part of it. The problem starts with what those pieces are to be.

I thought I knew, and have been working on designs for a while, but try as I might, I just can't get them in a state I'm happy with, and I'm going to give up on them (and no, I'm not going to tell you what they were - I don't want them to see the light of day in any form).

I haven't given up on the basic idea I had, and maybe some time in the future I'll find a way round the problem - I hope so, as there are some aspects of it I still like very much. But, not right now: I'm not going to spend a great deal of time and effort working on something I know just looks wrong.

So now what? I have a few ideas floating around in my head, though they all need a lot of work. I need to spend a few days scribbling and cursing, before I decide on an approach. But when I do, you'll be the first to know!