A year of Making Fridays: 2017

I’m starting 2018 with a creative break, spending as much of January as possible in the studio, getting my creative batteries recharged. So instead of the standard ‘year in review’, I’ve decided to do a “Making Friday year in review’ post, taking stock of what happened during my behind-the-scenes studio practice, which I like to call Making Friday (even if it doesn’t always happen on a Friday).

Here are some of the things I got up to in 2017:

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Ceramic oddities

I continued with my ceramics classes, but didn’t really find the same kind of focus that I did in 2016 , and I ended up making some really wierd things that I’m not really sure I like at all. Oh dear. I did like these two little beings, however.

But I do think that one of the important parts of the creative process is to be willing to just go along with the things that emerge – even if they’re not what you expected – because I find that second-guessing the work is the killer of creativity. So I’m embracing my year of making peculiar ceramics!

See some of the oddities here >> 

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Plants on Pink

Of course, with our Roof Garden textile print being all about succulent plants and the shadows that they make, my eye was tuned in this direction, so if you follow me on Instagram, you’re likely to have seen loads of these pics. But I had particular fun in the one afternoon, spilling soil onto pink paper, making some very interesting plant portraits.

Read more about Roof Garden here >>

See more shadowy plant pics here >>

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Making Friday makes the News

In the first part of the year, I was interviewed by Roberta Thatcher for the Sunday Times, where she asked all about how my Making Friday practice feeds into my business.

If you’d like to know more (and you have sharp eyes), you can read the article here >>

You can also read all about the concept of Making Friday practice here >>

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Fending off the Snooze

Confession time! I sometimes head off to my studio in Salt River, close the door, close my eyes, and take a nap. But it’s a power nap. It is! Promise!

Occasionally, it does seem to be a good choice, though. Find out what an effective studio snooze can do for you here >>

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Colab with MRP

And if you followed the link above, you’ll see how VERY effective that particular snooze was. The work I did in an afternoon formed the backbone of everything I made in a Heather Moore for MRP Home Colab which we launched in August at Decorex Joburg.

See what we made in the Colab with MRP Home >>

Watch a little video that MRP Home made in my studio >>

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Sunshine

Perhaps it was the gloomy political and social atmosphere this year, or maybe it was the Girard show I saw in 2016, but all year long, I found myself making suns and sunshines and happy faces.

Some suns took a minute to make, but the sun that took me the longest was this ongoing needlepoint project that I literally completed on the last day of 2017!

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Imaginary Friends

I’ve made a LOT of reverse paper dolls,  this year, as I love to see how things are altered by looking at them at a different scale. I must admit, it makes me wish I was doing fashion prints!

It’s also quite a fun thing to do with humans, like I did witha photo of Jenna McArthur >>

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The middle of the year had me pouring all my creative energies into a huge shop renovation, where we managed to double the size of our store!

See how the renovation turned out , and keep up with more recent pics on the #skinnylaminxshop tag on Instagram >>

 

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Misc Handwork

I’ve been making lots of hand-stitched pillows in the background, none of which have seen the light of day yet, but I hope to give them a proper focus in the Pillow Lab in 2018, so watch this space!

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Workshops

Jade Paton and I teamed up to teach a couple of macrame workshops in the Cape Town studio, and I was lucky enough to to travel and teach printing and pattern workshops with Ace Camps  in Portugal and India, and then another colour workshop with a bunch of bloggers in Paris too.

 

In 2018, I’ll be teaching in Swaziland with Ace Camps in April, but am also planning to do more workshops in South Africa this year, so sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know about these >>

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It was a really busy year, with loads of mega projects and opportunities, including loads of travel, a renovation, our first international fabric launch in Paris, and some great new team members.

The business grew a lot, our systems are strong and our team is outstanding, and although I never seem to feel I have enough studio time, I do believe that this year was the first time I’ve really started seeing a direct impact of Making Fridays in the business, and that’s super exciting.

I’m off to the studio now, and let’s see what another year of non-intentional studio work brings!