47. Taste

I was nudged in the direction of Visionaire, and came across issue 47. Taste. It's a collaboration between flavorists, contemporary artists,chefs and photographers. The tastes offered are pretty conceptual, covering themes like 'Mother', 'Guilty', and 'Life'. The flavours are combined with artwork that interprets the theme, and the whole thing is generally packaged fairly nicely.  

Interesting idea.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Yesterday we took a day trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Summer showed up unexpectedly, and I had a lovely day flouncing about the grounds and getting mild sunstroke. The Henry Moore sculptures looked very much like an extension of the landscape, rising up gently over the grassy slopes. I was introduced to Jaume Plensa, and spent some time looking round the indoor exhibition rooms containing his work. Aside from being a brief escape from the sun, the sculptures really were strange and intriguing to look at.

 I was transfixed by these sculptures! I couldn't get over how much they looked like projections. 

Very nice day out, would be especially nice on a crisp, cold wintery
day too.

The BBC & Me

Through some stroke of bizaire luck, i've managed to land myself with a few weeks worth of work experience with the BBC. I will be helping the art director dress and prepare the graphics for the set of a new children's tv show being filmed. I'm two days in and i ache all over. today i spent six hours doing graffiti in a school stairwell, my arms feel like lead. I have a feeling that by the end of the week (let alone the month) i'm going to be utterly exhausted. Blogging (and life) may have to be put on hold for a few days whilst i get used to my new 6am start to the day and 7pm home time. It feels good to be doing something again.

Salts Mill

Yesterday my Mum and I took the train to the little village of Saltaire. The whole village was built to house the factory workers of Salts Mill in 1853. We went to visit the mill which is now a gallery, but had a stroll round outside too. All the streets were named after the mill-owner, Titus Salt's children. It was such a bizarrely quaint place, it felt like a model.

Inside the mill we had a good long nosey at the main gallery, which was filled with David Hockney paintings on the walls, and books and art supplies on the tables. The rooms were vast. I loved the high ceilings and the brickwork and wooden beams. We spent all day wondering from floor to floor examining all the arty books, stopping for regular 

tea breaks. 

It all got a bit much for some people clearly. We found this gentleman fast asleep, quietly snoring quite happily in a corner of the gallery. Lovely day out.

Pina

Seeing this little gem later on today, unfortunately it won't be being shown in 3D, but hopefully it'll be worth the visit.

Pretty Potholes

Peter Dungey makes the potholes on British roads far nicer by planting mini gardens, while Juliana Santacruz Herrera patches up the potholes on the streets in Paris. What a nice idea.

See more here.

Kunsthaus Tacheles

In the old Jewish quarter of Berlin stands the ex-Nazi prison, now known as The Kunsthaus Tacheles (Yiddish for 'Straight Talking'). The building was close to demolition in the early 90s, but artists from the area convinced those in charge that it was an historic landmark that should be saved. Since then it has housed hundreds of artists and performers, and become a creative space for art to thrive. We scouted it out on Friday morning, and sadly arrived before all the five floors were open. We got to have a walk round inside though, and amongst the graffitied walls and broken windows, lay little studios with artwork spilling out into the corridors. There was an exciting atmosphere surrounding the building, it had a real buzz to it. The lease to the building ran out in 2008, so the future of Tacheles is yet unknown, it would be such a shame for it to go.

The Guardian have a good tour video here.

Exhibition Space

Yesterday morning i went to the Art Cafe and put my exhibition pieces up. It was a nice morning of white paint, dodgy ladders and coffee. Looking forward to seeing everyone else's work up.

Exhibition opens on the 11th November.

Super K Sonic Booooum

Odd title non? This Friday i will hopefully be attending the opening of a rather spectacular exhibition of that title. This large installation consists of a 22 meter long ‘river’ of water running through a tunnel lined with thousands of silver balloons (photomultiplier tubes). Members of the public embark on a boat, pulled through the tunnel on a submerged track using a pulley system, with sound and lighting effects, and with an expert particle physicist navigator as a guide. On the journey they learn of neutrinos, their role in the Universe and how scientists detect them. (I pulled that straight off the website for the exhibition because there's no way i could have explained that as coherently). 

Have a look at the website, because you'll get a better understanding of what it's about, i still haven't cracked it yet, but i'm excited about the white suits, boat and gold balloons. 

http://www.superksonic.com/

Painstakingly Lovely

Agency: DSG Dialog Solutions, Germany

Creation: Christian Wilfer, Alexandra Lier

Director’s Names: Takeuchi Taijin, Peter Göltenboth
Production Company: BIG FISH
Production Designer: Serban Rotariu

Makes me want to give stop frame another go, however i'm pretty sure i don't have the patience.

ReConnected

Finally, after nearly a month, i am back online. Cause for celebration and rejoicing all round. Unfortunately, i thought i'd have a huge amount to get blogging on, but having been away from it for so long, i've lost touch a bit and need to get re-inspired fast. I'm heading home for the weekend to get some work done for the exhibition, have a birthday lunch with Rachel and earn some well needed cash at work on Saturday night. I'll use the weekend to reconnect with the blogging world and hopefully get some good ideas going for next week. For now, have a glance at the venue where i will be exhibited, the Nexus Art Cafe.

It feels very good to be back online :]

Have a nice weekend.

A Little White Lie...

...Will ALWAYS come back and make life difficult for you. A while ago I submitted some work for an exhibition held at the Nexus Art Cafe. The theme was on family and i had a piece from first year that i thought fitted that theme quite well, so i sent a few pictures of it. Here's where i made my large error, i told Mrs Art Cafe that i had done two pieces (i did intend to do a 2nd one at some point, but uni and flu and birthdays and everything got in the way). I then promptly forgot all about the exhibition until last night. I checked my emails and sure enough there was a nice congratulatory email from Mrs A Cafe saying i should bring my two pieces over for installation in just under a month. 

One Month.

It seems a long time but this month i have a large project for uni to do, which is lagging somewhat currently and needs a big part of my concentration going into it. It also seems all my friends were born this month and i have many birthdays to remember and buy for, along with New York planning and maybe a few meals here and there to keep me functioning. I fear this month may fly by rather rapidly and i was very tempted to turn down the exhibition offer. Sadly i think it's too good an opportunity to be missed.

(a little sneak peak at the work)

Hello lots of sewing! Goodbye Fingers!

PaperGirl

Paper Girl is an art project that originated in Berlin, and is being held in Manchester this autumn, for the UKs first outing. Artists donate work to be rolled up and distributed in the style of American paper-boys, by bike. Each piece of the publication holds a random choice of 4 images by the represented artists and is printed on various papers e.g. news print. This means that no two rolls are the same, and you could be receiving original art, photographs, prints or text.

The organisers say that, "Giving the work out by bike means that there is no time for any stereotypes when choosing recipients of the pieces. You have to react fast and spontaneously. Chance plays its part."

The original Papergirl in Berlin via OhComely

The Papergirl Manchester exhibition will be held at Soup Kitchen from 1st October to 21st October in association with Manchester Free for Arts Festival 2010. The exhibition launch is on the 30th September at 7pm, i might see if i can wangle myself an invitation.

See more about PaperGirl Manchester here.

Missing You?

Have you ever been on a train, or in a cafe or anywhere really, and struck up conversation with someone, even if it was only a sentence or two exchanged, and later wished you had found out their name? There's this website called Craigslist, where people post little messages in the 'missed connections' section, to those who they wish they could bump into again. Illustrator Sophie Blackall picks through theses messages and illustrates the ones she finds the most interesting, the ones with most story potential. 

In an interview she said, "I'm always wondering what's going on inside people's heads, and 'missed connections' posts give me the opportunity. I'm sure other people are drawn to them for the same reasons, but i think on some subliminal level there's a vague desire to recognise ourselves as the person missed." 

Can you imagine finding a 'missed connections' post that was meant for you?

**Guest Post **Rachel**

Hi I’m Rachel, Zoey has mentioned me a couple of times, she likes to pick my fruit. Anyway I was invited to do a guest blog and to lose my blogging virginity. A few days ago, I decided it would be a good idea to document all of my artwork that is worthy of keeping. 

I hope to diversify and improve as I continue, recently I've developed a liking for harbour paintings since my holiday in cornwall.

Well it was short and sweet , there is my first blog. Thanks Zo Bo.

Graphite Design

A little something for you to gawp unattractively at. Artist Dalton Ghetti carves minuscule works of art into the lead of sharpened pencils. I would like this kind of patience and accuracy please.

Reinventing Letterpress

I bought a book a week or so, it's the sort of book i'd consider to be a 'treat'. The sort that, if it were edible, it would be gooey fudge. It's called 'Reinventing Letterpress' and you can tell just from fondling the front cover that it's going to be lovely inside. I've been so busy doing seemingly nothing for the last week or so, i haven't had the chance to sit down and have a proper look through it. I'm making it my bedtime reading tonight. It's nice to know that having fallen out of favour for some time, letterpress is making a comeback. 

Prefab who?

Whilst on my travels up north and east a bit, i came across a screen print twice in the same evening. Once in the living room of some people we were visiting, and then again about an hour later in the restaurant we went to eat at. I asked about it and found out it was from a shop called Electrik Sheep, which was just down the road. I did a bit of snooping around once i got home, and found out the artist goes under the name of Prefab77. This particular piece can be bought either as a print on paper, or for £150 on leather with gold ink. I'd absolutely love one of the leather ones to hang in a frame on my bedroom wall, there's a space just the right size. Don't know if i can bring myself to spend that much money, although i do really love it.

Beautiful Type

by Jessica Hische

                            

wish i had the patience...