Recovering from Illness with Art.

 Press Release:

Silver Shell Jewellery

Recovering from Illness with Art.

Silver Shell Jewellery is the new business of designer / maker Kirsteen Lyons-Benson BA (Hons) born out of a desperate year of illness and lockdown it’s finding the shine in life again. www.silvershell.art

“I know my story is be no means unique. So many people have had a really unthinkable year. My family and I all caught corona in early March and I nursed the while household and worked hard while unwell. I was also volunteering on a helpline and listening to terrified old ladies locked in and unable to get food or help. The stress and illness took hold and I got long covid and have been unwell for a year. The government have been worse than useless restrictions and fear making future hope and recovery harder to achieve.

I am a textile designer and crated fabric designs for a studio in Europe but it is a shrinking industry and lockdowns have made it much worse, two billion pounds worth of fashion has been cancelled from Bangladesh alone this year. I was lost for a future.

I grew up in a craft pottery and my mum and I used to have a pottery together, my mum stated a new pottery in the garage during lockdown it has been her project keeping her creating and hopeful. I stated making pottery again and really enjoying it when I was strong enough. I remembered all my clay and modelling skills I have developed since a child. I also remembered that I had heard there was a clay made of silver you could sculpt into jewellery instead of more traditional methods. I have wanted to try it years ago but time had not permitted. Well the one thing you have while recovering from illness is time.

I watched some you tube tutorials and ordered some materials, I made simple things and experiments, some broke, some melted! I watched more tutorials I tried again, some worked. It became my passion, little bright objects emerging from the flames made me happy and hopeful about the future again.

The lockdown has been painful for so many people and I’m so glad it is ending. I hope my jewellery gives others the same feelings of renewed hope that designing and making it has given me.” Kirsteen

About Silver Shell Jewellery:

One off, original, contemporary silver jewellery. Handmade by Artist and designer Kirsteen Lyons-Benson BA (Hons).

Every piece is a little artwork, they are not made by machine, they are hand made by me one at a time. They are each given my love and create and attention.

These pieces are made by sculpting “metal clay” which is metal and a tiny amount of organic material, then I heat the hardened clay (with a blowtorch) to burn away the organic material leaving only silver metal behind. I then hand polish this to a shine. Hand made products from natural materials will always have slight differences one to another. I think this is part of the charm but it’s possible your jewellery will not be identical to the one photographed.

I have been creating art all my life, starting out with clay in my parents pottery when I was four years old, I have spent a lifetime learning to sculpt and paint and design. I create these pieces because I love to, I hope you enjoy owning them as much as I enjoy making them.

“When you make something unique you advance the culture, it’s not like owning something mass produced, that’s just repeating what came before, you own a little piece of the future. Art is life, art is peace, art is purpose, it’s worthwhile to support that in all of us.”

About Kirsteen the artist and designer:

Kirsteen Lyons-Benson is the child of two artists who met at Glasgow art school in the sixties, got married, and fled the city to a remote Scottish island, to live on a beach, in a tent, with two kittens and a chest of drawers!

Growing up in a craft pottery, and later a cottage in the woods, Kirsteen planned to rebel, and have central heating and breakdown cover when she grew up!

Grow up she did, and studied textile design, not fine art (more rebellion). She did very well at university winning two prestigious competitions and getting a job with a wallpaper manufacturer straight out of uni, it was new product development, so she went from there to other innovation companies and tried all sorts of middle class ideas out, including paying a mortgage, and working in PR, but soon found her parents were correct - they are very overrated ideas.

Kirsteen tried selling paintings on-line, London markets, starting and running a craft fair, starting a gallery and pottery, starting and running a face painting business, and finally returned to textile design to freelance from home, and be mum to a daughter and a son. Throughout this she has always taught art and created her own paintings.

After designing fashion fabrics for for a few years, she made the switch back to interior fabrics and wallpaper and signed with a design house in Europe.

For two years she created a drawing every day, just for the art of it, practice, effective relief from parenting and simply because it makes her happy. So many people were inspired, uplifted and delighted and wrote to her telling her that her art project had made them return to art, that she wanted to carry the movement forward somehow, the idea for her book stated there.

After the book Jewellery became the passion of the future for Kirsteen. Her love for style, fashion, nature, clay and shine all came together in a perfect art form. All her previous artforms and experience inform her jewellery design and creation, in a wholly unique blend.

She has now fully come to terms with her hippy origins and feels she belongs in middle class suburban England like a Bengal tiger belongs on a water slide! For this reason Kirsteen spent two winters travelling Spain and Portugal in a series of beat up camper vans with her kids and blogging about it. All her underfunded and ill-planned adventures have widened her experience and raised her courage, but most of all taught her the world has a bright and hopeful face as well as a dark one, and that face of hope can be reflected in the art in our lives, what is more it should be for all our sakes.

More artwork can be found at:

www.kirsteen.art

www.unquit.art

Kirsteen

Silver Shell Jewellery

#art #peace #live #create #aesthetic #happiness #purpose #kirsteenart #jewellery #silver #shell #silvershell

Artists website www.kirsteen.art

I have launched a new website to view, like, share and buy my art!

See it here:
https://www.kirsteen.art

Original artwork by Kirsteen Lyons-Benson (BA Hons)
Mixed media on paper.

Kirsteen Lyons is the child of two artists who met at Glasgow art school in the sixties, got married, and fled the city to a remote Scottish island, to live on a beach, in a tent, with two kittens and a chest of drawers.

Growing up in a craft pottery, and later a cottage in the woods, Kirsteen planned to rebel, and have central heating and breakdown cover when she grew up!

Grow up she did, and studied textile design, not fine art (more rebellion). She did very well at university winning two prestigious competitions and getting a job with Muraspec (a wallpaper manufacturer) straight out of uni, it was new product development, so she went from there to other innovation companies,
and tried all sorts of middle class ideas out, including paying a mortgage, and working in PR, but soon found her parents were correct - they are very overrated ideas.

Kirsteen tried selling paintings on line, London markets, starting and running a craft fair, starting a gallery and pottery, starting and running a face painting business, and finally returned to textile design to freelance from home, and be mum to a daughter and a son.

After designing fashion fabrics for Amanda Kelly Design Studios for a few years, she has recently made the switch back to interior fabrics and wallpaper and signed with an established and prestigious studio in Europe.

She has now fully come to terms with her hippy origins and feels she belongs in middle class suburban England like a Bengal tiger belongs on a water slide! For this reason Kirsteen spent the last two years travelling Spain, France and Portugal on a camper van!

Kirsteen creates original paintings inspired by nature and travel. She has painted and designed all her life, at no time is she more herself than with brush in hand, or a sticky juice carton and shoes belonging to her kids! 😂💙🎨✏️

Contact info:
Kirsteen Lyons (BA Hons)
+44 7799201417
kirsteenann@gmail.com
Facebook:
https://m.facebook.com/KirsteenBenson
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/artdreamsgallery

Youtube:
https://m.youtube.com/user/kirsteenartwork/videos

Blogs:

Art:
http://createadrawingaday.blogspot.co.uk

Textile design:
http://enchantedtextiledesign.blogspot.co.uk

Read about my travel and some artwork:
http://feelcreaterepeat.blogspot.com

Kids art projects:
http://artistmummy.blogspot.co.uk

KIRSTEEN LYONS BA (HONS) CV

KIRSTEEN LYONS BA (HONS)

Recent Freelance:

Currently founding: Art Dreams Gallery. An online gallery bringing together the work of four professional artists to sell original paintings and some prints. https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtDreamsGallery

2013 to present. Freelance as Enchanted Textile Design. Creating high quality design for a series of textile studioes in New York, London and Europe. Currently designing furnishing fabrics which are sold to clients throughout Europe. http://enchantedtextiledesign.blogspot.com

2006 to 2009 Started and ran Bagsythat pottery and Gallery in Tilgate Park, Crawley. A small pottery and Gallery providing handmade ceramics, teaching, painting and children's activities.

2008 to 2013 Started, ran and eventually sold Crawley Craft Fair. A vibrant community event and a viable small business. (I also advised on the founding of Crawley Book Fair.)

2008 to 2013 Started and ran Butterfly Facepainting. Butterfly Facepainting was a successful and creative Facepainting business with up to four facepainters freelancing under my management.

Competitions:

2001 First prize-winner of an industrial competition for Morton Yong & Borland. This was a prize for the best of Madras lace design and involved one week’s work placement gaining first-hand experience of designing Madras lace converting it into a suitable format for the computerised loom and seeing it woven. I was also involved in preparations for a trade fair the company were attending.

2001 Joint first prize-winner of an industrial competition for Muraspec, (a textile wall coverings design and manufacturer). The judges of this competition said I had won for the relevance and applicability of my response to the brief as well as the high standard of work, commenting “There are people out there making good livings with far inferior products”.

Qualifications:

1999-2002 BA (Hons) Textile Design 2(1). Involving; print, weave, knit, marketing, finance, management, coloration Technology, print technology, visual studies, professional practice, CAD and the design process. Also being entered into the Royal Society of Arts textile competition.

A level art, A level photography, Several GCSE's.

Work history:

2007 to 2008 teaching English as a second language at Greenfields English language school.

2006 Freelance Graphic design and fine art. Selling paintings online and at fairs.

2004-2005 Graphic Design and PR. Star Syringe. This involved web updates, Newsletters, brochures and press articles. During my time at Star Syringe I instigated many press articles including national radio interviews and national newspapers. I was also instrumental in winning several award for the Business including the Sussex Business awards and Best international Company at the Stivies. (International Bussiness awards baced in the US, This put us on US TV.) See www.starsyringe.com for more detail.

2003 Freelance Murals and wedding stationary.

2002 Associate, Product development. Muraspec. (Kent) This involved lending my textiles knowledge to the team, research, planning, lab work and CAD design for 3D weave.

1996-1999 Art and drama teacher at Greenfields school, (Sussex). In addition to teaching lessons this involved assisting with school plays, attending moderation meetings, parents’ evenings, planning lessons, keeping admin, supervision duties around the school, writing reports and communicating with parents about the progress their children made.

1996-2001 Theatre Design and production. (Sussex) I have designed and created; costumes, props, scenery and backdrops for several theatre productions as well as acting, coaching and directing.

1998-1999 Commissions to paint murals. (Sussex and Kent).

2001 Work placement with The Printed Stitch Studio Design Consultants. (Galashiels) During my time in Printed Stitch, I worked on two main design projects. The first was compiling ideas to employ textile art in a shopping mall in Edinburgh. I’d also worked on designing their new promotion mail and business card.

Volunteer Work:

2014 and 2015 Executive director of Saint Hill Arts Festival.

Vacation Work:

1997 Director of exhibitions for St Hill arts festival, (Sussex). This position involved receiving the artists and their work, acting as their hostess throughout the festival and seeing that the artwork was hung in a suitable space to the artist’s specifications.

1996 Director of the Children's Project for St Hill arts festival, (Sussex). This involved the advanced planning of a week’s activities in the arts for children of all ages, ordering relevant materials, and recruiting a voluntary staff to assist. In addition to these responsibilities, I personally delivered many of the activities.

1995 Summer school, (Sussex). Organising and delivering one week of art activities for 7 to 16 year-olds. Under the umbrella of the school where the summer school was taking place I was responsible for planning, ordering materials and delivering the activities.

Exhibitions:

1999 and 2000 Exhibitions of oil paintings with two other artists, (East Grinstead Art Centre).

2002 Exhibition at the Lighthouse Design Centre, (Glasgow).

2002 Degree show exhibition (Galashiels)

2002 New Designers, Islington exhibition centre (London)

2002 Now Gallery of contemporary art

2006 East Grinstead Arts Center

2007 East Grinstead Arts Center.

2008 Crawley Library Exhibition Space.

Other:

1992-1995 Wirral Youth Theatre member.

1993-1995 Wirral Youth Service Travel Panel rep. At monthly meetings myself and some other youth reps from the Liverpool area reviewed suggestions from the various youth groups in the district. Funding and assistance was allocated largely on our recommendations.

2000 Class rep. Textile Design, Heriot-Watt University.

2001-2002 Member of the Textile Design Society Heriot-Watt University.

2001 Photographic commission for hotel website, (Jedburgh).

Email for references:

kirsteenann@gmail.com

Portugal: Ideas and Impressions.

Portugal: Impressions and ideas.

I'm sitting in the main street in Quarteira, in The Algarve, in Portugal. Is a little scruffy. A Christmas fair has been running on and off for a few days and they have put read carpet all down the street, which is now rather dirty! A busker is singing a mix of the usual busker hits, like, “American Pie” and something I assume is Portuguese, but it's a really hard language to pick up and I learned more Spanish, Italian and German in 24 hours than I have Portuguese in a month - sorry.

A few moments ago a man walked by with a bucket of half alive octopus. There are lots of bikes and scooters, cars are hard to afford here. Portugal is pretty poor and pretty sparsely populated. Lots of people don't have jobs, however many of them are not unemployed, they live off small plots of family owned land, growing most of their food and bartering a bit more. Even in the town lots of bits of verge or unused land has been adopted by householders and turned into stretches of vegetable garden.

There are many empty show and decaying buildings but also little friendly business almost always kept very clean, even if their stuff is a bit old and scuffed it is usually wiped, maintained and polished. It shows a short of self respect which is typical of the almost poverty of many here. They don't act down on their luck, they act happy, friendly, community minded - without much wealth. Up the street a young woman and a weathered old lady have been dancing to the busker while minding empty stalls, at the end of the song they embrace and go back to work, see what I mean?

There are also many empty apartment buildings - I saw this in Spain too. Row upon row of holiday flats empty nine months of the year. I may a man who owned one and worked in London, he moved to Portugal but before that had owned it ten years and spent one month total in it. I did last them on my bike, and passed the building sites throwing up more and think, can't we share them out somehow? I'm not socialist, I do think you should benefit from hard work but surely a system could be worked out to learn them out to displaced families or something? I don't know but it seems so sad that people are sleeping in the doorways of 100 empty little fully functional apartments!

The coast and the countryside, the history and the wildlife are wonderful here, feasting on being surrounded by so much differentness.

Love, Kirsteen

Some things I like about Portugal so far:

It's cheap. First class train tickets for a trip half way down the country for us all were under €100! Really nice food is also cheap.

They bend over backwards to make kids welcome, including there mess, noise and fussy eating habits, grumpy screaming, sandy kids seem to be made just as welcome as clean cute well behaved ones!

It's beautiful, do a google image search!

It's warm.

The pace of life seems pretty relaxed, clearly if you are trying to get work done this is frustrating, but over all it's nice to be chilled and embrace the three hour lunch/siesta.

Some things I'm struggling with:

Portuguese is really hard, and frankly, unlike my husband, I'm naturally very bad at languages anyway - I do try hard.

The driving, they hardly signal at all and park everywhere, I saw a car parked on a roundabout with one wheel on the pavement! You have to make damn sure they are planning to stop at a crossing before you cross.

The smoking, you can smoke inside lots of places and bothers my daughter a lot.

We go tomorrow!

Tomorrow we go to Portsmouth and Monday we sail to Spain. I have loved seeing all my friends and family all summer, thank you everyone who looked after us. ❤️

The Campervan is all fixed up, it nolonger leaks a pond onto the dashboard when it rains! The electrics are nolonger ready to explode at the least provocation, it has no oil leak, when you put on full beam all the lights don't go off! 😂 It also has new oil and breaks and tyres have been checked. I short, it all works and is not eccentric.

We have lots of plans and have done lots of reading, we spent last winter in a flat in Spain. We field tested the van with a trip to Birmingham, (to see my daughter's dad) but we are now going to live in it full time and travel. We have never done this before, work and study must all be on the road! We will be on our own and must rely on each other and make friends as we go. We must learn more Spanish, and Portuguese as fast as we can, we must deal with culture differences and everyday living where you don't speak the local language.

We have picked out museums, galleries, beaches, bridges, caves and castles that we want to see, we will also need, showers, laundrettes, supermarkets and wifi!

I have been pacing round my brother's house fiddling with things and not getting any real work done.

Tim has done a brilliant job of becoming a tutor by skype not a tutor face to face and that means more future adventures are possible as well as this one.

So we go in search of life, to throw ourselves into some unfamiliar problems and joys, we go seeking education, experience, and to make chooses with our lives rather than plod the path in front!

I leave you with some of the quotes that inspired us when this whole idea was just a map on our bedroom wall!

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” – Saint Augustine

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime". Mark Twain

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Henry David Thoreau 

"Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain."

Jack Kerouac

"There must be wide spaces in which to think, strange music to hear, odd costumes to see, and the elements to battle against. Money, nice cars, good food and a 'good job' mean nothing to me when compared to being able to possess the thought that there is a surprise over the horizon." L Ron Hubbard

 

Impression of boats, By Kirsteen Lyons BA (Hons)

Impression of boats, By Kirsteen Lyons BA (Hons)
Mixed media on canvas. Original painting.

#artdreamsgallery
#kirsteenlyonsartist

I'm painting big canvases again! Paintings by Kirsteen Lyons BA (Hons)

I'm so enjoying the freedom of painting big canvases again. I have put down the controls of design and picked up the freedom of fine art! You done need to think about how people will use them that will use them to be happy! You just five in and "art puke" all over the place!!! So liberating!!! I'm so excited about me new project with these, I'm just waiting for some things to go live and I'll tell you all.

These are mixed media on canvas, original paintings by Kirsteen Lyons.

#artdreamsgallery
#kirsteenlyonsart
#kirsteenlyonsartist

Seventeen days to go!

Last night was stormy, rain beat the flowers down and wind rocked the campervan. Inside it was warm and quiet, three cuties slept in the soft light of a string of fairy lights. One was awake! My daughter tells me it is 17 days until we set off for a tour of Spain and Portugal that will last over five months. A pilgrimage in search of education, wildlife, adventure, culture and a lot of ice cream. My daughter has recently made the jump from reading when I tell her to, to reading for fun, and I couldn't be prouder, but there is more to be learned out there in the world, I want to set an example of participating in life, even better throwing yourself at it, but some nights that seems hard. My husband is feeling it too, he came home with enough plasters and antiseptic cream to supply a war zone! Getting nervous dear? Here we go! The kids can read my blog when they are older and go "Oh! They got scared sometimes!"

We may return through France, then we will explore Scotland. My van is ready and my new headlights look spanking! I know that apart from the 24 hours on the ferry I can potter around the coast as slowly as I like but I've never driven this far and I've only spent a handful of hours driving overseas. On the flip side, I've taken to watching videos of beautiful Portuguese coastline and food and thinking, come on 17 days get done!

I'm looking forward to sun silvered palm trees, wide spaces, new people, new words, mountains and medieval towns with castles. I'm not looking forward to missing my family (although my mum is hanging out in a Chateau in France right now) missing the play dates for Jasmine and trying to get the kids to eat strange food, or searching for chicken nuggets in exotic places!

We are also trying to solve the problems of working and travelling. Tim has done splendidly at changing his tutoring from face-to-face to skype. I have a little slot in the van for my art and have to try to paint (as I have a very promising new outlet for my fine art) and design textiles as we go. Tim needs wifi for his lessons. I need time and a flat table. I have to post work to my studio from places along the way. Fortunately for me, my design studio think my travel is inspiring for my design and are very happy to be helpful. 

I'm so very lucky I can fill my life with these self-chosen challenges, I'm not tied to a sick relative, committed to supporting family in a collapsed economy country, or simply not allowed to be an adventurous woman by culture or law. My circumstances and my healthy family are a gift of vast wealth. I'm going to have adequate imagination and courage to take advantage.  

Wish us a smooth crossing to Spain, but you can bet your bottom dollar we will be ok either way!

Are you cut out for institutions, or otherwise? Where to otherwise?

Are you cut out for institutions, or otherwise? Where to otherwise?

I was recently given a survey to answer about one of my old schools, when asked about the experience I wrote it was “By far the least painful school I had attended”. That is nothing less than the truth. I have met plenty of people who loved school, but it was not for me. I felt stupid because I only excelled at all the skills they did not measure. I was articulate, social, a good leader, creative, confident among adults and older kids, fair mind, determined and hard working, organised and entrepreneurial, I was pretty poor at English, French, Maths, Sport, History, Geography and Science!!! I am also one of these people who goes grey and pukes if made to sit tests and exams. Friends at uni (which was an institution I loved) used to ask me “Why do you nearly faint in the line to go into an exam when you always get an “A” and are better prepared than any of us?” Well getting “A”s in design related subjects was something I could do at last, but I still felt like I was back at school!

My daughter started out ok with school but gradually turned the colour of her grey school skirt and I realized we would have to change something.

So here we go off to Spain and Portugal in a ford van. We have been half living in the van and half in my mum's house and it's worked ok. I took it to Birmingham and we had to live in it fully, it worked ok. Everyone asks: How will you live in such a small space? But hopefully we will live in big forests, open meadows, wide beaches, and sleep in the van. When we drive up to the Ashdown Forest everyone piles of of the van and disappears into the trees. I have to round up me happy, rosy, good-tired kids to get them to get in the van and sleep. If you think about it quite a lot of your house used to store your stuff. Anyway I will let you know how it works long term in practice. Wish us luck.

How will we live in that small space when it rains all day? No idea!! Wish me luck with that!! Spain has the lowest rainfall in Europe but it still rains, mostly on the mountains. My kids and I used to go crazy in a five bedroom house when it rained all day! I cannot imagine what it will be like in a van. Art, games, stories, reading, then murder daddy with the camping  potty I guess!!?

I've driven my van around all Summer, not to mention Birmingham and back and I'm getting pretty good at parking and reversing the big vehicle. It broke a couple of times, oil leak and the turbo pipe came off, but being a ford transit we could get normal parts and a normal mechanic to fix it. My time with classic vans is so over!!!

Then the electrics started playing up, headlights not working on full beam, radio going off at random, I began to fear that the headlights would go off all together when driving at night! I got the mechanic to look and apparently I had set the bar on what to worry about way to low! I should have been worrying that it might catch fire at any moment!!! I assure you that it is fixed and safe now!!

I have worked out what it is that is good for us about our change in lifestyle, it continuously stretches our compliance. Get the van and you have to learn to drive it, then you have to learn how to convert it to a campervan, then you have to learn to live in it. Even the kids, Jasmine has to learn to live in a bedroom approximately the size of the hutch we used to have guinea pigs in! My husband describes middle class life as find a rut and volunteer to get in it! Well we are out and some of it is a bit crazy but some of it is good.

My kids are growing up such individuals, who knows what they will be, but I am sure it will be something of their own, not an institution's creation.

We leave end of September, boat to Spain then around the coast of Spain and Portugal to Malaga or something, an adventure is by definition not set in stone.

Picture from the front page of the still empty travel sketchbook I made myself. Yes I will share every page of you like?

Hugs, Kirsteen