FEATURE - The Making of a 'Reliquary'

A few years ago Hubby and I were walking the Pilgrim Way back from our first visit to the The Slipper Chapel in Walsingham. At the side of the road we passed a discarded wheel hub. Having walked on I was suddenly struck by an idea for it, so popped back to pick it up. Having seen a few reliquaries of saints and the great catholic good in the Slipper Chapel, I thought I'd make one.

Once home, I primed and painted it a dark red base colour. I ordered ten miniature glass vials from E bay, Thinking they might make suitable receptacles for 'reliquary' objects, whatever they turned out to be. I created a long collage artwork out of painted wood off-cuts to form a suitable background support. Everything then hung about in my workshop draped in plastic, as other events interrupted the creative flow and I lost sight of how I intended to take it forward. So it stayed awaiting the return of time and inspiration, for what turned out to be a number of years.

Fast forward to the most recent lock down. Once we started our regular Art Club day, completing the Reliquary Project resurfaced. I decided what each of the ten vials would contain - things that in some way represented me, my interests and enthusiasms. These turned out to be:~

1) Writing - a poem written by me
2) DNA - beard shavings
3) Gay/Camp -a strip of cut gems in the colour of the gay rainbow flag.
4) Painting - a strip painted in gouache in a geometric design
5) Music - a playlist for my funeral *** (links at bottom of this post )
6) North Norfolk - filled with sand from Sheringham Beach
7) Churches & Architecture - a painting of a pointed arch window
8) Buddhism - a stick of incense
9) Dogen - a written extract from the Genjo Koan
10) Craft Making - a cabled string of yarn

I was surprised how quickly everything came together in the end. It was as if all that time elapsing had narrowed down all the options about how best to complete it. So now its mounted on its background and forms part of my shrine in the craft room / shrine space / spare room.

Reliquary Playlist *** ( with You Tube Links )

1) T Rex - 20th Century Boy 2) Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime 3) David Bowie - Aladdin Sane 4) A Certain Ratio - Flight 5) Elbow - One Day Like This 6) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Wonderful Life 7) Sparks - The Decline & Fall of Me 8) Cocteau Twins - Musette & Drums 9) Wild Beasts - End Come Too Soon 10) Strauss - "Beim Schlafengehen" Four Last Songs ( Jesse Norman )

COTTONWOOD HOME ~ We're Open!

So we are finally open. Whilst we've been anxious in advance of experience about whether our stock would sell, it would appear we need not have exercised our worry muscles quite so assertively. The 1st of June was a hot day in Sheringham where most of the visitors headed for the beach, passing our now infamous sinkhole. All the other retailers in our courtyard said it was a quiet day as a result, but for our first day we felt it went really well. Though we didn't know what to expect, it exceeded our cautious expectations.  

I took these photographs at the end of the day just before we closed. We really did have customers honest, these weren't taken on slow exposure to eradicate all sign of human life, its just I didn't want to appear intrusive or inappropriate.

We've had lots of local people coming in just to see what the shop looks like and they've been very encouraging. Now we actually have a shop it brings renewed impetus to our making. Even when the shop is quiet we can still be knitting or crocheting something. There is a sense of something having lifted now we are no longer making items in a vacuum.

Jnanasalin 'a crocheting'

Lovely flowers from family

An offering of sweets and biscuits for our customers

The back of our window display

Jnanasalin closing our very high Velux 

COTTONWOOD SHOP REFIT ~ 4th Week ~ Countdown to Opening

FIVE
Our last day of shop fitting. Fixing up our feature display unit, card shelves and rack for wrapping paper. In a way its a bit of a relief to be finishing all this prep side, so tomorrow we can get on with the real business of a retail shop fit ~ the stock

FOUR
It took three car trips to get all the stock into the shop. Once we'd unpacked a few boxes you could hardly move for discarded packaging. For day one of merchandising we've done very well, the basic blocking of the stock layout has been completed.



We are beginning to get a sense of what works and doesn't work on our shelving. Less is more being generally the case here. We aren't high end but we're not bargain basement either. So giving stock enough space will be important for us to maintain.

THREE
It's obvious today that apart from cushions and the stock we've bought in, we have no back up stock for some items that we've made. One of our middle of the night anxieties about this retail venture is being able to make items fast enough to keep up with sales without sacrificing quality. But first we need to get a sense for what sells and how quickly. Still loads to be done. A window display, price labelling, setting up the till, jewellery stands to be made up, etc etc etc.

TWO
I spent the morning putting in the window display using our 'gansey styled' cushion range. The photographs don't quite capture how good it looks. Meanwhile Jnanasalin was setting up all the stock on the till system. After dinner I went home to do work in the workshop on frames for some lovely prints we have. I'm not a hugely confident framer, but I am very pleased with the quality of the results.

ONE
Our last day before we open to the general public. Almost ready, just pricing and final tweaking, plus all those little things that support the running of a shop that don't surface until you are almost there, or actually open, and you realise you need a cleaning and tool kit etc. The pricing went quite smoothly, and brings that finishing touch to 'a shop'. We've done our best but not everything in the shop has the best sales position on this time around, but we'll get there.

It feels great to finally get everything that doesn't need to be there, not just off the floor, but returned to home. Its been quite testing to my equanimity when I'm in the workshop and realise the tool I need is in the shop, or vice versa. It goes without saying, that we're both very pleased with how the shop looks. We've had a lot of appreciative and encouraging comments in person and online. If we let go of our anxiety there is a certain excitable air that takes flight about how it all will go on the 1st June, my god that's tomorrow.

Everything packed & ready to go home

COTTONWOOD SHOP REFIT ~ 3rd Week ~ A Shop Taking Form

After making the shop fit for purpose, comes the shop fittings. Lets just say a lot of unpacking and assembling has gone on.  We've both passed our IKEA Assembly Proficiency Level 4, so we found these relatively straight forward. The Till Counter arrived, followed on successive days by shelving and our signage created and installed by Graphic Edge. The shop has limited space for storage, so we've bought IKEA storage units. Always impressed by the ingenious nature of flat pack assembly. These ones required no bolts or locking devices and were simply pressed together in a matter of minutes

Signage being installed

'The Monolith' is no more. After the agony entailed in my making it fast became redundant once we re-thought our floor layout. All the messy meters, switches and wires are now hidden behind a 7ft high hinged door that we made, covered in a piece of stunning Scion fabric that we picked up in Matlock Bath for less than a third the RRP. Result.

By the end of next week we'll be open for business. We're already a bit nervous about how the things we've made will all go down in Sheringham, but lets just wait and see.

COTTONWOOD SHOP REFIT ~ 2nd Week ~ Grafting Requires Persistence

Week Two started with us a few days ahead of the planned schedule. Painting the walls with Farrow & Ball Pavilion Grey No242 began to give a better feel for the shop as a space. The interior paintwork has a fiddly detailed door and window structure, proving quite a job and a half. Endeavouring to cover its dark green paintwork required two coats of undercoat before glossing could even commence. We laid laminate flooring in and under the window. Lighting strips were installed for us. All bar one of our orders placed in Harrogate arrived and they all look as good as we remembered. I made a cover to hide some rather ugly meters which is now referred to as 'The Monolith'. Its been hard graft after hard graft, with us sleep deprived but indominatable. We finished the week with a day of clearing up and cleaning as next week the shop fittings start arriving. Woo woo!

Blue masking removed from windows

Stage One

Stage Two

Stage Three

The Monolith

COTTONWOOD SHOP REFIT - 1st Week ~ The Removal of Ghastly Things

The refit of our new shop in The Courtyard, Sheringham is progressing well. We are ahead of our planned timescale. We started painting walls at the end of last week before the May Bank Holiday. After removing dozens of raw plugs, filling in the holes and removing a ghastly strip of wallpaper, we have spent ages getting the walls to be an even tone of white. Plus acquiring neck ache.

Colour swatch for new wall colour

ARTWORK ARCHIVE 2019 ~ Recent Work

It started out with just messing around with some old bits of distressed painted palletwood, but ended up with an interesting mixed media collage of wood with worked tin and air dried ceramic elements thrown in for good measure. This could well be the start of something.