Timetable For Easter.

I've also written myself a little Easter timetable, so I manage to keep on top of things whilst I'm home for a bit and around my birthday! :)

I don't want to be as behind as I was when I came back after christmas for a previous project!

Interim Crit. 2.

I had a bit of a flop with the last Don't Panic Poster, and was a big disappointment to Matt at this crit as I'd had so much on and so much to do for other deadlines, that I hadn't done much drawing, just re-search.

My main focus now is The 'Pocketful Illustration Magazine' submission - Deadline 15th April.

The title for the submission is 'I did It my way', with Matt I discussed my initial thoughts and what you would most likely associate with this saying:

- Things people do as a collective.

- Going against social norms.

- Art movements/Music

- Organic/Things having their own ways of existing.

- Who do people idolise? Who do I idolise?

Then relating these ideas for the title to my work, 'my life as a create process':

MY WAY = Pattern

From this, Matt told me to look at Walnut Wallpaper:

A wallpaper company providing us with 'the best new wallpaper designs, as well as interesting vintage offerings'. All the wallpapers are very modern and 'now' and thus are very good examples for me to go by. One featured artists who they just featured on the website was Aimee Wilder, a Graphic designer from Brooklyn, for her design of robot wallpaper...

Aimee Wilder...'Robots'

http://www.walnutwallpaper.com/

Another website I looked at was the 'Peep Show Collective'...

A multi-disciplinary collective focusing on illustration, animation and art direction, I focused on the Illustration section...A personal favourite was Andrew Rae.

The other Idea I had was to link the title to the idea of putting together Aspirational Images, and thought of the title as 'The Human Experience.' - Such as, trial and error, problem solving, knowing to much and needing these experiences.

Matt made me think about people such as Katherine Hamnett, who brought about this idea of slogan t-shirts:

Matt also told me about New Future Graphic:

They are a multi-disciplinary studio in London. Below is work they did for Coca-Cola...Their work is all for clients and all have messages and meaning to communicate, which is a good example for what I need to do.

Slogans I've thought about are:

- 'I'd rather be anything but ordinary'

- 'Be excepting'

- 'Wait in line till we all get happy'

- 'Slow down'

- 'Care: Don't care too much'

- 'Money and Happiness'

These are all slogans that I want to use within my work over the length of this project.

Ideas For Pattern:

Whilst thinking about pattern, I also thought about 'doing it my way' and going against norms, so through-out about the idea of how pattern is recieved today, really neat, clean and measured. My idea was to go against it and do lots of hand drawn pattern, which is all continuous line, so it wouldn't look very neat, but it would add personality to it.

Client Brief with Big Issue - 1st Meeting.

So today before we headed out on OutReach, we sat down and had a meeting with Claire, one of the ladies that works in the office and discussed ways to execute this idea of working with the vendors closely and putting on some sort of exhibition for the public, as well as the vendors.

It was important to discuss what we wanted as well as what the vendors would want to get involved with. In-fact I had a conversation with one vendor who clearly stated if it was something photography based he would not be getting involved. Thinking and considering the group of people you are working for is the most important thing of all. Their needs and circumstances.

Ideas for where to have the exhibition are generally 'Leeds College Of Art', if this is appropriate, (must talk to college about it) and Claire from the office mentioned 'The Common Place', where exhibitions like this have been held before.

Speaking to David Collins I discussed how it was hard to put illustration to a brief as sensitive as this, and ways to approach it differently, without using film or photography, but after thinking about it I just think it needs to be quite calming and neutral, not giving to much away, which I think Illustration would therefore be too much which is how Amber and I came to the idea we have now. We spoke to Claire about our Idea of using the laser cutter in college using possibly thick white card turning photos and drawings of photos into silhouettes of the vendors and then to give the vendors the option to write something about who they are or anything they would like to share with the local community about being homeless, which Claire really liked the idea of.

Our starting point was to research the vendors:

- Do they want to be involved?

- Do they want to take their own photos?

- Or even want to be in photos we take?

We asked the vendors if they'd be interested in being a part of it whilst doing an OutReach, doing this on an Outreach, found that about a little less than half would be happy to be involved, Claire even discussed with us whether we wanted to ask the vendors themselves if they had any work they would like to exhibit - One of them wanted to.

What we do next is now to take a camera out and get photos we would like to turn into images/silhouettes. At the same time we need to get an exhibition space and sort a date for it.

'On The Wall' - Chat.

This afternoon, I visited 'On The Wall', to have a chat with Simon, who used to be on our course a few years ago. Very nice chap, I've been into the shop before, so I had some idea of the prints that were sold, but it always seems to be changing.

We had a general chat, but also asked him what sort of work he was looking to sell prints of in the shop. He explained that if they don't sell any prints then they still pay you for them, which seemed like a pretty good deal, the only thing that was a bit of a bummer is that they don't sell original prints.

Simon described the work that he didn't really want, and this was photoshop images and digital work really. I asked if he'd be interested in Laser cuts and he said yes, but he also showed us a couple of prints from the 12 artists he's got them from at that time and from one he showed us of photographed tapes, said it was just taken from someones sketchbook.

It's exciting, but we are going to be sent a brief from Simon soon...

The Caravan Gallery.

With the idea of putting on an exhibition being part of one of my client briefs, and also wanting to learn how to go about organising/getting a space to exhibit in. I've been looking into project spaces that already exist and ways people exhibit as some research...

From speaking to Christian he told me about The Caravan Gallery, in which, unusually work is exhibited in a mobile caravan.

http://www.thecaravangallery.co.uk/scripts/openExtra.asp?extra=31

The Caravan Gallery is a mobile exhibition venue and visual arts project run by artists Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale who are on a mission to record the ordinary and extraordinary details of life in 21st century Britain. Eager to examine clichés and cultural trends, they are particularly drawn to absurd anomalies and curious juxtapositions, typical of places in transition and in the process of reinventing themselves as regeneration fever sweeps the land.

The Caravan Gallery, a diminutive mustard model (circa 1969), with white walls and beech floor on the inside (like a ‘real’ gallery), provides the perfect setting for an evolving exhibition of photographs made in response to places visited; at any one venue, location-specific work arising from a previous research visit is exhibited alongside other material from the Caravan Gallery archive.

The Caravan Gallery : Early Days

In 2000, members of Art Space Portsmouth were invited to submit proposals for 'an outdoor installation along the seafront' for Portsmouth City Council's 'Summer Arts Across Portsmouth' season.

Jan Williams put forward an idea that involved using a caravan as the focus of her ongoing investigations into British leisure, landscape and lifestyle. Having got the go-ahead for the project, Williams and co-collaborator Chris Teasdale set about finding a suitable caravan; a small-ad led them to Hayling Island where they found just the thing - a tiny mustard (on one side) egg-shaped 4 berth 'Europe' model. They couldn't resist.

Prior to its conversion into a gallery, the caravan enjoyed a brief incarnation as a small but effective gin palace in London - this was at the opening of an exhibition called '3 in the Park' ( John Dargan, Jo Roberts, Jan Williams ) at The Pump House Gallery,Battersea Park.

Williams, Teasdale and friends went on to transform the caravan into a clean functional gallery space by gutting and rebuilding the (rather tatty) interior; brown velour curtains, floral upholstery and a small wood-effect table were retained in the reception area as a mark of respect to the gallery's 1969 origins.

This is good re-search into different ways to put on exhibitions, this was also my idea for business and enterprise which after doing SWOT analysis and lots of re-search into what would draw a crowd, something new and different like this, really attracts a crowd and a wider audience.

Wanting to put on an exhibition, I know this sort of thing would not be suitable for some circumstances of putting on an exhibition, like our project with The Big Issue In The North, but as an exhibition I will put on in the future I would like to do something like this. Even the I Love West Leeds festival would be a good opportunity to put on an exhibition in one of the sheds, which has been done before!

I Love West Leeds Opportunies.

Thought the other post was a little on the large size, so I've broken it up, just for you...

Whilst at Armly Mills, I was also aware that someone that works closely with the group is Jane, who organsies the I Love West Leeds festival, of which Christian encouraged me to get in touch and ask about using a shed she has at the festival to put on some sort of live drawing event. Whilst there I managed to have a chat with her and she spoke about what goes on with the sheds, what people have done in the past and that it's aimed at families with young children. So in the past people have held cinema viewings in the sheds, creative painting in the shed and also one year knitted a shed! It was amazing and is situated within the museum, so naturally Chris and I went to check it out!...

All hand knitted!

Here, we see Chris enjoying herself!

Put together of many different knitted tiles...

...and even complete with foliage and nature!

From this, the discussion also spread to a project Jane is working on for the I Love West Leeds Festival called 'Hippos'. Chris had already heard a little bit about it, but for me it was interesting to sit and listen to what Jane wanted from it, Chris is running the project and I'm along side to help her. I think there will be lots of help needed though! Basically Jane wants 500 3D hippos to be put together! Possibly moulding them out of clay and then to cast them making moulds, to then re-create the hippo 500 times! They are for children to decorate, but need to be of a size so that it can be completed throughout one lesson.

A fun but seemingly scary brief?!?

Chris and I spoke about it on walking back to college after being at Armly Mills, and discussed things that would need to be thought about:

- Firstly, where to actually store 500 hippos whilst they are all being made!?

- What is the right number order/how to get the hippos made quickly, efficiently and effectively in the time there is? Some sort of strategy and time efficient way to produce them?

- What material would be best to make them from? Thinking about them 'breaking' or 'chipping' somehow.

- How to actually put a hippo together, using clay and other materials? Think a trip to ceramics might be useful.

Armly Mills.

Today I went to Armly Mills to join the Community Arts/Museum project which started on March the 8th. Working with 2 artists, Kevin a painter and 'maker' and also Shari Baker who works in photography and as a film artist. The work shops take place at Armly Mills Museum, It's an intergenerational project and so the people Im working alongside are older, to then produce something to go into the city museum.

Thought it would be a good step in getting involved with a live community brief, which should then prepare me even more for my client brief with The Big Issue In The North, which I in-fact have a meeting about with the people at the office on friday.

Both Kevin and Shari are such lovely people, and so turning up didn't feel too daunting at all, in fact quite nice, as they both seemed very enthusiastic and happy to see someone coming along. On first arrival I really did have no idea what this project was for and just understood that it was a community brief, and would be people of all ages. Turns out, that at the moment it's me, Chris and some very lovely much older people, who have lots of interesting and endearing stories to tell.

When I first got there Shari sat me down and explained her ideas and aspirations for the project at hand. I also spoke to her about what I do in college and who I am as a creative I guess, she is very interested in film and so I mentioned that I was doing a video elective and planning to do surrealist dream sequences using black and white and old filming techniques. She was great to talk to and said she'd be interested in seeing the film when it's finished.

She then told me that Kevin had managed to get hold of this very old projector, so we then discussed the quality of stop-motion and old film techniques, which was nice.

The project is based on part of a larger government funded scheme, which is about promoting recycling and this eco-friendly lifestyle. The project is called Artivism, and guided by Kevin and Shari, they want everyone who comes to approach the brief through using memories.

Hopes for this project are to, through the sessions I will now be attending each week (minus two weeks in easter), make these paper mache heads/structures, from these we will tell a story, and then from this to all come together as a group and putting together one big piece to me exhibited in the museum. Although Shari wants this to be projected, or the video she captures and photos she gets from each session combined to make a film then projected onto the 3D work.

She also mentioned that if I had any ideas, or contributions I wanted to add, to speak up and they'd be more than welcome.

So today I spent the two hours (which went ever so quickly), putting together a paper mache head, I think the idea was that the character that we form, is some sort of representative of someone or something/maybe a feeling you've had throughout your life. I didn't really think about this much as there wasn't much that came to mind, maybe except toys when I was younger. As I worked and gave it ears, it became 'Hey Arthur' from a television program I watched when I was younger!

It was the most fun I've had in ages, really calming, relaxed and felt good to be doing something messy that didn't have pressure behind it and a need to please someone and be really impressive, the character was for ourselves really. It was also really nice to be amongst people I'm not normally amongst, although I know that I've become 100% more confident in working and entering unknown areas, from working with people in my Send And Receive project.

I think that Chris has realised from what she produced today, that her vocation in life is to work with the Muppets!

So I've got homework already, which is pretty exciting! For next monday I need to email Shari a photo of a memory or time in my life when I was really young. Also apply a meaning and story to my paper mache piece, give the 'thing' some sort of life story or position in society, so as to, over the coming weeks, with kevin make some sort of box, or structure for the head to have a place. I also need to email Shari a fact about myself that no one really knows.