Potato and parsnip printed Christmas Cards

This Christmas at Site Gallery we've been running a series of Christmas Card and Decoration Making Workshops on Saturdays. I decide to impliment potato printing (along with collaging and stamping), since sourcing a life changing book, by Helen R. Haddad, published 1981 'Potato Printing' (as recently featured by Present and Correct).

Here's some snaps of the workshop and the cards I proceeded to make at home after a little experimentation during the workshops!

Little wonky robin is my only Christmas Card design this year. I ran out of potatoes and switched to a parsnip which I must say worked fine.

Take a look back at past Christmas designs I made if you like:

2011 - Watercolour squirrels & robins scene

2010 - Lino cut Robin prints

2009 - Repeat watercolour Christmas pattern for cards, advent calendar and tags

2008 - Re-interpreted Victorian Christmas Cards - Handpainted

For every minute you are angry...

...you lose sixty seconds of happinness.

A visit to Brighton Biennial - 20 October 2012

- Shipping Container on the beach
First we viewed Urban Exploration in a snug shipping container on the beach. Powerful photographs of international spaces and structures captured by daring photographers, abseiling, sneaking through tiny tunnels, scaling shards, to share superlative perspectives of places we know, from off-limits angles. Or places we wouldn't come close to knowing otherwise.

- Edmund Clark
Edmund Clark is a photographer I have admired for a few years thanks to my good friend Fiona for tipping me off on the brilliant photo book Still Life Killing Time.

Here in Brighton, Clark exhibits Control Order House, a photo series as well handled as many of his other works capturing lives during - and post-  incarceration. This house of intense control, under full time scrutiny, unbeknown to neighbours, an anonymous existence of sorts. This house is used to detain people without judicial process under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. "Revealing the identity of the controlled person or the location of the house would be an offence."

I've worked with him on two occasions, once interviewing him on his work about Guantanamo prisoners, and later commissioning Clark for a photo essay for Article Magazine. The resulting photographs commemorated scenes from the Falklands war, Clark scattered and photographed broken toy soldiers on a surface of appropriated background photographs of Mount Longdon. An subtle arrangement which made for a moving reimagining of loss and destruction.

- My Brighton Biennial highlight was Omer Fast's 5000 Feet is Best.  I get keenly wrapped up in skipped narratives, and overlayed stories, other stories, other stories, back to the main story - not sure what is the main story. In this case a former drone operator is interviewed by Omer Fast. He's telling how he controlled unmanned planes and had them fire at targets - people and militia in Afghanistan and Pakistan - from a Las Vegas Desert base. But there are all these other stories of other people that he keeps telling, and some are harrowing, others compelling - good stories. Stories that are good and easy to tell again. Somehow the confusion sheds light on the workings of a drone operators mind full of skewed distant realities.

The project’s title refers to the‘optimum’ firing position of the drone plane.

I reluctantly share it here, if you can see it in Brighton then don't watch it online. Our encounter with the film was appropriately dark, so dark someone tripped over me and grabbed my head for rebalance.


5,000 Feet is the Best from Commonwealth Projects on Vimeo.


Finally worth a solid mention, Fabrica has The Beautiful Horizon, a long-term collaboration between young Brazilians living on the streets of Belo Horizonte with artists Julian Germain, Patricia Azevedo, Murilo Godoy.

Photography is the mediating tool between the artists and the street children, and extends to us as the viewer. Fabrica have a sensitive and fascinating presentation of this vast archive of photographs all taken in Belo Horizonte by young people growing older, each granted a camera and taught to use it. Suspician turns to friendship as the artists build trust with the children over years and gain an insight into lives played out in a poor, disadvantaged location. From death, joy, escapism, confusion, to contentedness, all of which can be read in the people, faces and situations portrayed in the photographs. 
 
Photography is the route through which we gather up their stories, and through which the young people can take pride in using this medium to tell us how things are for them. Editing out the moments of life, they are photographers, quite simply.

Before leaving Fabrica I also bought Julian Germain's book, For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

'I met Charles Albert Lucien Snelling on a Saturday in April, 1992.

He lived in a typical two up two down terraced house amongst many other two up two down terraced houses… It was yellow and orange. In that respect it was totally different from every other house on the street. Charlie was a simple, gentle, man. He loved flowers and the names of flowers. He loved colour and surrounded himself with colour. He loved his wife. Without ever trying or intending to, he showed me that the most important things in life cost nothing at all. He was my antidote to modern living.'

Julian Germain

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See my archived post on Brighton Photo Biennial in 2010

12 MONTHS OF NEON LOVE Book Design

This summer I designed a book for artists Victoria Lucas and Richard William Wheater for their project,

12 MONTHS OF NEON LOVE.

Pages reveal a selection of the most beautiful, compelling images of neon artworks, which changed monthly to read lines extracted from songs (all containing the word love) for a short time blazing gloriously over the industrial town of Wakefield. The book has four essays which explore the various outcomes of the project.

I'm delighted to have designed this book for Victoria and Richard, a difficult task to reduce down to the final collection of images, and to communicate the affecting and profound nature of this year long public art commission. I hope I did their wonderful project justice.

Special thanks to my good friend Jon Cannon for his time and assistance on the production - there's a gorgeous frame pattern on the inside page for which I am indebted to him!

You may buy a copy from Site Gallery - here 


12 MONTHS OF NEON LOVE 
Victoria Lucas and Richard William Wheater

This limited edition book includes full colour images of the installed neon lyrics, in addition to documentation from behind the scenes and essays from Victoria Lucas and Richard William Wheater. Each copy is numbered and signed.

12 Months of Neon Love is a collaboration between Victoria Lucas and Richard William Wheater, and began on St Valentines day 2011. The project is formed using a sequence of twelve lyrical statements, borrowed from well-known songs that feature the many configurations of love. Presented over a year in large red neon text, twelve expressions are visually re-presented to an unsuspecting audience going about their everyday lives on the roof of Neon Workshops in Wakefield.

Budapest - a choice of photographs, set #3 (Electricity)

At the Hungarian Electrical Engineering Museum, meet a security guard downstairs who sends you into the museum to meet an old man in a lab coat, busy entering data on an old PC, he'll take your entry fee. Then he'll demonstrate generators and motors from the 19th Century, speaking only Hungarian to describe the effects and voltages, and he'll tell you to stand back, preparing you only mildly for the noisiest of cracking electrical currents. It's the dream science lab distanced from the protected learning in schools at present - thrilling. They also have an extensive display of light bulbs through the ages, switches, the earliest washing machine and some beautiful neons outside. And don't miss the amazing electrotechnical posters hanging in the stairwell.

It also has the world’s largest supply of electricity-consumption meters.

I liked these light switches even more when I noticed they were all, 

for some reason, labelled 'tart'

 All photographs taken by me on my second Pentax Spotmatic II

Budapest - a choice of photographs, set #2

Batty

Emperor Tamarin loves banana

Flamingo city

 All photographs taken by me on my second Pentax Spotmatic II

Budapest - a choice of photographs, set #1

 

Smudge

 

Pest

 

 Margaret

  

   All photographs taken by me on my second Pentax Spotmatic II

Festival of the Mind

Professor Leonard Eastham with primate skeletons in view, image copyright University of Sheffield.

Currently in Sheffield Festival of the Mind has taken hold, whipping up the lesser seen activities and ideas of University of Sheffield, from it's world renowned thinkers to its youngest academics, its labs and its archives, with the artistic and creative thinkers and makers of the same city. FOTM extends from its own temporary Spiegeltent in which screenings, parties and cultural debates are unfolding, to cross city venues, woodland walks and a temporary tourist office housed in a shipping container dropped proudly in front of the streamlined 'entrance to the city'. This perhaps is my highlight, as a self appointed Sheffield Publicity Department ambassador. It's dream tourism in exactly the spirit required, by any city. 

All in all, people are doing some good for the city of Sheffield this week in making something of the minds it houses and supports, minds which may occupy scientific departments, artists studios or neither - or both.  These minds are persistent in their work, busy seeing and questioning, playing tricks, revealing solutions and curiosities and posing more questions. We might not usually get to see evidence of this work, to visit the rejuevinated Alfred Denny Museum of 1905 tucked away inside the university, including prehistoric fish, ichthyosaurs, an array of decorative caterpillars, to engage with computer stimulations of heart activity as an exhibit in a virtual art gallery. Thanks to Vanessa Toulmin of FOTM for pursuing the curious in all of this work and making things more tangible, and for placing great weight upon the incredible artistic temperament of Sheffield, coaxing out creativity and showmanship otherwise shied away from by the academic insitution. Or, otherwise unnoticed despite being within our reach.

Article Magazine produced the FOTM Magazine 'Misc.'. Sitting nicely alongside the festival programme, interviews with contributors, previews and reviews and general thoughtfulness around the festival. I wrote on Computer Love, the virtual art gallery - it's free entry, click here to go! - and I interviewed Guy Brown in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield.

Here's a snippet:

The process of curation will be selective and specific to a theme, some works will be unable to materialise as something remotely solid, and commissioned purely for Computer Love. Cherry-picked out of laboratories / artist studios, placed strategically in this online gallery which specialises in visual phenomena. Flooding our eyes and brains with impossible colours and incomprehensible feats of construction with pixels and coding, the Computer Love aspiration is apt for an increasingly perceptive, impatient audience which knows the sensation of disbelief all too well...
Please pick up a copy around Sheffield this week. It's bright yellow. A bit like this:  

A return visit

Summer Spotmatics

   

Summer snaps 2012 from Barcelona

On my last visit to Barcelona I sadly lost my Pentax Spotmatic II. This new set marks my first return to BCN with a new (exactly the same) model in tow,though it has a slightly different character! And, there were similarly sunny skies. 

Take a look at the preceding set of pictures.

There were some remarkable architectural shows at MACBA, plus Martin Parr 'Souvenir' exhibition at the Centre de Cultura lulled me into a revision of what it means to document a trip, how I might alter a moment or frame a situation differently in order to fully celebrate the 'holiday'. I also considered what it means to lose something of sentimental value on a trip, and in the particular case of a camera with memories it secures through photographs - how I returned to subconsciously recreate something of that previous experience. This time without any material loss!

Plates with patterns and pictures

 

Plates designed for a recent competition! This provided the happy motivation for reviving my interest in plate artwork - like these designs last year, now I'm exploring turning these plates into reality. I'm pleased with the fancy cuff made of fruit segments.

                                      

Designing plate rim patterns is a satisfying exercise, and lets face it this edging is more important than the central design when it's hidden under your dinner. All edgings and designs are hand drawn, scanned in and digitally coloured.

We are open!

New menu board for Site Canteen at Site Gallery, Sheffield

Broken interests

 

Visible Words from Invisible People

Neon Workshops, Wakefield (until 19 May 2012)

The homeless of Wakefield recently worked with Neon artist Richard Wheater to produce a stunning series of neon pieces to shout about their predicaments. I went along to the opening amidst Wakefield Art Walk.  And it would be struggle to glaze over the broken hearted and down-and-out statements emblazoned in glass and bright gas when they're relocated to the town centre of Wakefield - not to sell a product but to vocalise unheard voices to commuters, locals and the otherwise engaged.

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I also nipped across to the Hepworth Wakefield and caught a night commandeered by the Hepworth's Youth Panel including gigs, a silent disco with wall drawing, and a late night peaceful viewing of the scultural collections. 

Surreally, the headphones to accompany Ben Rivers' Slow Action, were accidentally tuned to the wavelength of the Silent Disco downstairs. So I watched whilst listening to Beyonce.

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Thinking in terms of the Broken...  

Keep an eye out for Article magazine issue 'Broken' - coming soon

Spring Clean and other news of Sheffield

Cripes. That's a long time to not say anything. Despite the fancy Faram Au Fait blog re-branding (thanks to Victor Simao of Random Object) I have been unable to do justice to the glorious gingham, et al).

I'm busy working hard at Site Gallery and Article Magazine - which leads me to point out some highlights:

• Stocking crockery by Sheffield based illustrator Sarah Abbott in the Site Gallery shop is a dream

• Working with Jeremiah Day and learning more about the shadows of political struggle cast over lives in Berlin, particularly from the perspective of a US born artist now living in my favourite concrete city besides Sheffield.

• Reading OWT Creative's latest zine 'Trial and Error' is inspiring for anyone making and failing. Often disasters or little trips along the way lead you to make something far more interesting.

• Talking to Mass Observation about everything they do, all of which is brilliant - thinking about shops, what they could and should look like and should definitely sell, like this '132kv PL16' single colour ofset print >>>>

• Otherwise, I'm about to have some slide photographs enlarged and will share these - they're from last summer, and as the weather has improved they're appropriate again!

Excitedly I announce via Article Magazine the news of the next issue launch - April 18 2012...

BROKEN

 

"ARTICLE magazine is back, with a new issue available on April the 18th! With a £5 cover price, the magazine will be available nationally. You can order subscriptions now and receive a gift.

The new issue of Article will take on what it means for something to be ‘Broken’. It’s timely. Watch the news, read the papers, listen to people talk in the pub: The whole world is going to shit, and no-one is really doing anything about it, apparently.

Through a range of features and design we will explore the obsession with abandoned buildings, the failings of city centre planning, the rhetoric of Broken Britain, and what the recession actually means for art. Our interviews with artists and designers ask why people don’t study repair instead of design and what it means to break something intentionally... read more

 

Image courtesy of Garry Martin, Hyper Real at Backlit Nottingham

Pete McKee's Pub Scrawl leaves an impression on Sheffield

This is a new addition to the Sheffield cultural calendar no doubt for the foreseeable future. Sheffielder Pete McKee (of Month of Sundays gallery in Sharrowvale) launched an art extravaganza of a simple but as yet untried format; assigning 10 artists to 10 pubs, and letting them takeover. Creatively re-thinking and communicating ideas and each of their artistic identities in relation to the social space/boozer they're assigned. One night only.

I went along to see the majority and wrote about it for Culture Vulture! 

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