Tuesday, 9 March 2010

Moments of Domesticity

I was thinking today of all the tasks that go to make up my daily living, brought to the surface, no doubt by completing forms for car insurance. Let me explain: on said forms, I describe myself as an artist, whereas my husband describes me as a housewife. Now I hate that term, it implies someone is married to the house and that is their priority. If you saw my house, you would see within a few minutes that it is definitely NOT my priority. So I got to thinking about all the things that take up my time. The biggest portion goes to things that if I was rich, I would pay someone else to do. My role in the home is earthmother in addition to man about the house - there is nothing I don't do and it's pretty tiring. But I don't want to list all of that so I thought I'd post on more lighthearted aspects of my week.


First, unexpected visitors:
Whilst pegging out the washing, I had a feeling I was being watched. I heard a rustle in the bushes behind me, my heart quickened its pace, my mouth went dry...... and then these two ladies appeared.


I left them to wander around the garden thinking they'd find their way back home, but when I fetched the washing in, they came running up to me. I put them in the rabbit run (watched by 3 disgusted rabbits) and walked the streets knocking on doors and getting very funny looks. By the time I discovered where they were from, it was dark and the owner didn't know they'd gone missing (he only has 5 so you think he'd notice their absence).
They came back to visit me 2 days later - if they come again I'm tempted to adopt them, it brought back happy memories of keeping chooks.
For World Book Day, youngest pixie face was going to school dressed as a horse. We stayed up the night before painting and putting finishing touches to her costume. We got up early to assemble it and paint her face in case she wanted to remove her mask. We left for school:


And as soon as we got there, she whipped off her mask and hooves saying "I don't want to wear these". At these times, I wonder why I bother, but I refuse to let her go in a 'bought' costume. It was nice to see one other parent who obviously felt the same as me (only 2 of us!).
Finally, I'll sneak in a few pictures of my latest jewellery projects for those who are interested:

Some cornish sea glass earrings - you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to find two almost matching pieces of sea glass - how many shades of clear glass can there be?

I then had my first try with silver clay. Thank goodness I bought slow dry - It was dry within a minute! I wanted to make something organic looking, so pressed the shapes out between scrunched up silver foil. I made holes in it before it dried, but when it was fired, the holes had shrunk! So I ended up having to drill them - exactly what I wanted to avoid; silver clay forms pure silver and is rock hard when fired:

I really like this one & want to keep it, but I'm going to run out of fingers soon ( I'm sporting one of last week's spiral rings as I type).


These are a little proud of the finger, so I made a couple that would sit flatter:

I might treat them to a boiled egg.

5 comments:

Felted House said...

I really like those silver clay rings - the texture's great how did you get that?
I'm having a bit of a stress about juggling everything - it's the cooking and cleaning that take SO much time and seem to get us nowhere, the word 'housewife' should now be struck from general vocabulary and be replaced by something else, except one word doesn't cover all that we do - manager, chef, gardener, carer, designer, personal shopper, accountant.......I'm too tired to write down any more but I know there are LOTS. xx

tammykingdon said...

Absolutely - I've realised I spend the majority of time doing things I don't want to do. I know a lot of jobs NEED to be done whether I like them or not - but I've decided to try and redress the balance so that at least a few hours each day can be spent doing things I enjoy - it's got to be good for the soul hasn't it?

Cathy said...

I have been reading about silver clay somewhere else recently. Very nice textures. I suppose you could impress them with anything really like lace etc.

I love your daughter's costume. I think it looks very horse-like. My brother's partner always used to make their son's costumes for fancy dress and she put such thought and detail into it. Far nicer than the shop bought ones.

Love the chicks. Definitely keep them...haha.

tammykingdon said...

Thanks Cathy,
Apparently there's a trend of using silver clay to imprint a baby's fingerprint which is a really nice idea. I'm awaiting the hens' return...

maggie said...

The silver clay looks good. Lovely textures. It's a medium that I haven't played with yet. Yet !.

Kids eh ! luv 'em ! her outfit looks great.
And the chicks...maybe they'll leave some eggs behind next time.

We feed our bodies every day..so why not our soul / spirit also ?
xx