These days it seems like everyone’s twittering about Twitter, and in this new weekly column we delve behind the stories of some of our favourite Shropshire tweeters to find out more about them.
We start this week’s column with Carla Boulton, an artist and designer from Shrewsbury who twitters from @naughtymutt.
Having been inspired by her art teacher at Bridgnorth Endowed School in the 1980s, Carla decided she wanted to work in the creative industries and says she can’t imagine a life without art.
She now creates commissions for a diverse client list ranging from local organisations like WiRE to international businesses, as well as grass-roots projects which have recently included painting murals with local schoolchildren.
“I love art education work and have just spent a week at Sundorne Infant School with 150 children,” says Carla.
“We’ve been painting murals based on the work of Claude Monet, which was very uplifting and great fun to do!”
Carla uses Twitter to promote her work and and through the site she’s become involved in an international art exhibition for which she’ll be shipping a painting to the USA for a show later this year.
Fellow creative Denise Evans from Market Drayton, whose main business is @evanjisugaring, also takes commissions for her wonderful work with stained glass.
“I was originally a secondary school teacher,” explains Denise. “And left when I had spent some time as a department head. My main focus was on textiles and art, but I soon became interested in metal and glass.
“I opened a workshop offering skills in crafts like fused glass and clay, but then a friend introduced me to stained glass and, over a couple of years, taught me both the copper foil technique and the art of leaded stained glass.”
Denise says that most of her commissions are for front door panels or lamps, but she’s been approached for designs of judo wrestlers and cats, among other things!
“I’ve also asked produced a panel for Norton-in-Hales School in Market Drayton, which the pupils had designed themselves. I enjoy teaching the skill to others, and in fact my partner Rick is now very proficient!”
Although Denise has only been tweeting for a few weeks, she believes it’s important for Shropshire businesses, particularly those which are rural, to tap into new ways of communicating and networking.
It’s an opinion shared by jewellery maker Jules Cox, who runs @artclayworkshop in Shrewsbury.
Jules is a self-taught jewellery artist who has been creating beautiful pieces of jewellery and teaching techniques for the past nine years.
Her main focus is on mixed media design, incorporating Polymer and Art Clay Silver, but Jules says she also enjoys making felt jewellery, off-loom weaving, bead embroidering and knitting, as well as running Art Clay workshops.
“Some of my jewellery has been featured on the This Morning programme and I was commissioned by Charlotte Church to make some Swarovski pieces for her to wear. One client even wore a sterling choker I made to parliament!
Jules says she’s still fairly new to Twitter but has already received a lot of interest about her new workshops through the site, and believes it’s an important tool for local businesses to reach a wider audience.
Her new collection of Art Clay Silver jewellery will be available in the Gallery in Aberystwyth Arts Centre very shortly.
By Lara Page
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