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