New Year Resolutions - A cautious plan for learning

A dream is not a plan, but every plan starts with a dream.

My New Year starts with a resolution.

I am going out of my comfort zone.

First step— making this a regular blog.

It is a look into what I do and how I do it. And just like that I talk about my dreams. 

My dream -(plan) to share my studio experience so I get to show you the wonderful people I meet and the ins and outs of my studio life. I am a bit apprehensive - too many too often turn blogging into unexamined reality where crazy meets stupid. So my every sentence would be attempt to stay away from alternative facts, examine my opinions and share success and failure with gumption and honest account of my shortcomings. 

This is a place to grow.

And I honestly believe that growth is possible only when we are honest.

This month is a good one for that- with Showcase looming in the third week of January it is always a scary way to open up my year. Showcase is an annual event at the RDS Dublin where creative industries showcase new and successful creations to community that supports and develops our practices – buyers, media and press, influencers, creative communities. It is also a great way to meet your mentors, folks that you love and a place to examine whether what you do is still relevant and meaningful. Because there are always a few new kids on the block.

Showcase, if you do it as you should, needs to come from a place of meticulous planning and coaxing of folk and institutions as far as an year in advance. So once you are there your success comes as a surprise to others but as a total relief to you. Full disclosure, I do not have the best habits for Showcase set up - I let my creativity take the better of me.  I fire a few invites the week before, print complex brochures the day on the show and build complicated set ups which leaves myself and my husband on none speaking terms with at least one of us is bleeding from clumsy DIY endeavors. To top all this my special needs girl is usually either in A&E or in hospital at the time. 

My best Showcase to date was the one I did not do it. I did not book a stand, I did not print new brochures, I did not create complex packaging solutions or displays. I just fired up an e-mail to my most precious buyers: '' could I meet them somewhere if they are coming''. Thankfully, they said yes. So the year I did not do it I met my buyers in the buyers lounge, had free coffee, courtesy of the unaware organisers and made twice the amount you pay to participate. 

And yet. I am there every year bar one. I won't lie to you- it is the event that scares me most. One year I thought I would not be able to pick myself up from the bottom of the stairs where I end up the day after it finishes. But I go with various success I overcome my fear of failure and go. The strength to do it comes from my hope that people would see my work for what it is- honest, uncompromising and always developing.  So I go and do it.  And the event that has given me most. I met British Museum at it. I met my best international buyer at it. I have made some of the most meaningful friendships at it. 

This year I am doing it. I am going for a minimalist display and bringing just four collections- two of the evergreen classics and my personal best achievement- the first Irish felt. Made from the fibres that create Irish tweed and inspired by Irish landscape this collection is personal to me. So with great fear and huge plans to change my practice I am getting ready for it. Keeping fingers crossed while I put finishing touches onto product and press pieces. I would put focus on spring cleaning my website as it needs to communicate my passion and effort in a more inviting manner. So check it out at

www.nikicollier.com

Hope it is a good show- I have invested so much in my creative work - I hope that people see that what I lack in planning I make up in hard work and imagination.

Here is to hope. And as we say: ''May we have a great show!''

Thank You, Moira Byron, I'll Take it From Here. Niki Collier

Who is/was Moira Byron?

Last week Sarah McKenna asked me who is Moira Byron?

I couldn't fit the answer in a sentence... I mean saying Moira Byron is who I could have presented myself as if my design life did not become reality. Come on! How pretentious does this sound?  I would have hated to hear something like this.

So I take the plunge- I am addmiting - Moira Byron was a figment of my imagination. I made her up! It was my way of  sharing what I wanted to be. Or become. A creative background, life embedded in the creative community, a grown up attitude to hard things and a relentless childish energy to everything else. That was Moira Byron.

Today I do not need Moira Byron. I squeezed my way into creating.  I make things that I love in a medium that is my religion, and many of the people I call my people  make beautiful and meaningful pieces in Ireland.

The irony is, I should have never worried to use my name. Since Social Media, we live with the illusion that everything is transparent nowadays... No such thing. Look at Laura Magahy, appointed as Chair of  DCCoI.  Last year she has set up a pottery business while still working as a chair of the board. Who knows she is to be fighting everybody's corner, not hers?

I am not starting a discussion about conflict of interest. Do you think there is a conflict of interest?  The reality is that most people do not know that Laura Magahy is the Chair of DCCoI. And even less know that she is behind (why the hide?) Aran St Pottery. Even with all publicity that she gets in both.

I like Moira Byron, I just do not need to hide behind her apron strings.

Still here is Moira Byron's story. And I used Hellena Boham Carter's image when thinking about her.

Moiré Byron

is a 37 year old writer of children books.  She has just published the fifth book from the ‘The Twinkle Town’’.The book is not only a success with kids but won the Little People Big Book Prize.  From the royalties on the book she has bought a mews that was re-possessed by the bank because the property investor could not finish it.  It is a beautiful shell on the outside and Moiré is lucky that she would be able to do it her own.  Moiré will live there with her three year old daughter Pearl.  Pearl is autistic.

Habits, hobbies  and hobbits : Moiré is absent minded disorganised and likes collecting people stories and objects that tell stories. 

Here are some of the objects that tell her stories: an old boot that she found on the river bench in of the Themes  when walking around celebrating getting pregnant;  a sari that a owner of an opium shop in Varanasi gave her as a present; a picture of her from her Russian lover in Prague, three bells that she bought while trekking in Nepal, sandals from Vietnam,  a big white mother of pearl shell from the time when she lived in Tunis and a blue masques that she stole from a girl that kissed her during the Venice festival.  Wherever she lives her house becomes a base for all her friends and there would be either a friend or a lover staying with her or babysitting for her.  She likes yoga but she hides it so that she would not look as one of those yuppie girls who think that doing yoga is going to make them a better person.

She goes to matinees, theatres, modern dances performances and book openings.  She loves her group in the Silk Quill Club in the Chester Beatty Library and thinks that they are one of her best and most valuable friends.

Moiré loves cooking and she is at the moment putting up a The Cook Who Travells: A Cookery Book for Those in the Know.  The book consists of all the small treats that she has encountered during her travels, all the recipes from small diners and old ladies that would willingly feed you, give you advice and mother you when you most needed. 

She is my nspiration for the Dragons & Divas Collection which was presented in Shanghai 2012 during Shanghai Fashion Week.