It has to be said that this is the longest it has ever taken me to bring my blog up-to-date. It is amazing how much I was hampered by not being able to reliably edit photographs and upload them due to the terrible internet connectivity…

Organised by the Crafts Council, Collect: The International Art Fair of Contemporary Objects celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. International galleries and eleven Project Space artists have exhibited under one roof, at The Saatchi Gallery in London.…

Waa!

My wonderful, indispensible, reliable, cheerful, friendly, unflappable workshop technician, Fiona, is leaving on Thursday. She's found a better-paid job with more promotional prospects and she'll be superb. The students will all miss her and they arranged a lunch for her today, which was great fun.…

By Saturday, I had the programme sorted: I wanted to hear the talk about "Mr Imagination" at 4pm, had to meet a friend for lunch at 1pm and knew that I wanted to see a bit more of the city and the amazing architecture of the place. 

One of the things I love about American city architecture is the way that…

Day 2 - Friday 2nd November

An early start for me today as I wanted to have a look around the area around the hotel, Chicago's "Magnificent Mile" of very expensive brand-name shops. The first people I encountered were these unlikely fellows: 

Chicago has a LOT of homelessness and I was particularly…

I'll get to the robots in a moment. First of all, my class at the SCC... There isn't much to say about the class at the SCC as we weren't really making projects, more exploring techniques through making samples and finding ways of problem-solving for processes which the people in the class used. As such, I have no photographs of work to show. What I do have is a photograph of all the people involved:

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As a bit of a precursor to an online exhibition I'm organising on Crafthaus about contemporary craft in Scotland, glass-artist Jeff Zimmer, an American who is representing Scotland at SOFA, has just posted images of the works he is exhibiting there. Hauntingly beautiful.

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Eindhoven is the fifth largest city in the Netherlands. Located in the south, it is the original home to the dutch electronics giant Phillips which opened its manufacturing in Eindhoven in 1891 causing an industrial boom. More recently it has become the capital of Dutchie (industrial) design. This has mostly to do with the success of the Design Academy which has attracted professionals from the field including…

Still not really settled since returning to Scotland. From getting in on Friday, I had to go to work for half a day and then headed off to again to Edinburgh, from where I've just returned, having enjoyed the festival madness there. In short, went to see the Yogyakarta Court Gamelan, which was phenomenal, the David Mach show at the City Art Gallery and wandered around the High Street and the West End Craft fair.

I also met with a friend of mine who works on the Tattoo and got my…

We recently had an opportunity to do some glass blowing with master glass artist Stephen Woodruff. We love adding skills to our repertoire. Corliss is making a drinking glass here. That glass on the end of the tube is cherry red molten hot. And yes, a glass studio is only slightly less hotter than hell, particularly in Southern California in July. But glass blowing is more fun than a barrel of monkeys...in hell.

All…