my debut!

As part of Burslem Festival on bank holiday monday this week, Tone, our friend Cath and I played a short set at a strange little event at Ceramica as a fundraiser. It was my debut on the piano accordion in public proper (the most I had done until then was joining in a couple of sessions at the Greyhound in Penkhull with The Boat Band).

It was really lovely - and I felt really good about how well I played, especially considering that we had one 40 minute practice in total immediately before the gig! We played country blues/ jazz type stuff - Moondance, People Get Ready, Dear Mary, Dimming of the Day, and a Norah Jones number I can't think of the name of. We really enjoyed it. Unfortunately we are all so busy that we rarely get to play together, we do play very well. Thanks Tone and Cath for encouraging me.....

wedding

My step-sister got married last weekend. Tone was the official unofficial photographer. My Dad also acted semi-official and I took a few. Between us we got over 1000 shots!
Tone spent 5 hours yesterday editing about 100 to print as "proofs". What a marathon!

I took one of these pictures at Jude's hen walk at Ramshaw Rocks near Leek, Staffs.
The other one was taken by Tone - it's me in my bridesmaid frock dancing with Black Dog Molly who we got to dance at the wedding - it was fantastic.......

in action....

at Shugborough at Hallowe'en dance out in 2005. I have decided to use this photo for my blogger profile - Tone took it and I love it.

IRIS

Iris is the Research centre within the Faculty of Arts, Media and Design at Staffordshire University with a focus on:

• the initiation of conferencing, publishing, exhibiting and educational projects within the field of contemporary women’s’ photographic practice, and
• broadening access to the medium through books, exhibitions and educational activities.

Today was the launch of an exhibition curated by IRIS called Masquerade, at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. Masquerade brings together the work of 7 women photographers from Britain and the USA, and features all kinds of contemporary portraits. The show also compares photographs in Masquerade with paintings from the Museum's collections.

The show has already been in London and Birmingham. It is heartening to see an exhibition of national significance led by Staffordshire/ Stoke-on-Trent women and organisations.

There are some challenging pieces - one artist photographed her mother in her last months with Alzheimer's. The 6 portraits of women with moustaches are truly beautiful. Apparently when the exhibition was in the MAC in Brimingham there were complaints about these portraits including "disgusting". Why do openly hairy women offend people so much?

Masquerade is on until the 9th July. Get there if you can.