Delivered Shared Earth to Wolverhampton Art Gallery

My piece for the Open West Midlands 08 Exhibition had to be delivered to the gallery this week ready for installation by them on Monday and Tuesday next week, I had a window of Thursday, Friday or today Saturday and decided as I don't know the parking areas, roads and one way system around the gallery the weekend option was best rather than trying to negotiate through busy weekday traffic in the city centre. I'm recovering from an elbow injury and so this plan didn't effect my usual game of cricket.

Normally when I go to Wolverhampton I jump on the Metro tram at Snow Hill station in Birmingham and this takes me right into the heart of Wolverhampton. A tip for you if your driving into the city: you can get Free City Centre Parking for a limited time at the Sainsbury's store providing you spend £5 in the store. So a quick shop for something your going to buy somewhere anyway and just enough time to get the business done. I found that out one day when I got lost, took a wrong turn and thought the Sainsbury's car park would be a good area to consult my map and get my bearings.

Both these options were no good because I had to carry a piece of glass almost a metre square so I therefore wanted to get as close as possible, with the aide of an illegal parking space and a very nice traffic warden and a bit of smooth talking I managed to work it just right. It makes me feel so good.

After the delivery I had to drive about 20 miles through the Black Country (Tipton, Dudley, Oldbury) and then across to the West of Birmingham to Kings Norton. The stretch of road between Wolverhampton (Birmingham Road) and Birmingham (this end is the Wolverhampton) is notorious for traffic lights about every 50 yards which means that you are in single line traffic because the 2nd lane is used by drivers who are turning right. From Kings Norton I went another 20 miles across the city of Birmingham to Sutton Coldfield and relaxed watching my son play cricket.

A nice sirprise, Aston Business School purchase one of my pictures.

Aston Business School in Birmingham whom in the past have purchased some of my work have had a copy of Shared Earth on loan for about 3 months and the picture was due to come down this week. As I was driving towards Aston I got a phone call from the the installers from Arts and Business who organised the show to say that as they were unscrewing the first fixings from the wall they were told to stop because the Business School are going to purchase it.

Now I know selling my work and making a living is the name of the game but this has caused a few problems because this was the copy of the photograph that is going into the Open West Midlands 08 show, so there has been some frantic activity replacing the art work and delivering on time to the Wolverhampton Gallery. First the glass has to be produced hopefully giving the printers enough time to print the image on the glass, simple enough, but its all a question of slotting into machine times. for example I have to wait for the glass makers to be processing 6mm sheet glass and join that batch and then ofcourse it has to be toughened.

At least my art work is photography and a new copy can be produced, imagine what fun I would have if it was an oil painting, anyway everybody pulled out the stops and I’m off to Wolverhampton in the morning.

"Shared Earth" has been selected for this years Open West Midlands 08 Exhibition

Shared Earth

Open West Midlands is a biennial collaboration between Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Wolverhampton Art Gallery (whom host this years show), the Open allows artists in the region to show their work at these prestigious venues. My photograph was selected from 750 entries by artists from the Birmingham, West Midlands, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Herefordshire areas

The exhibition covers exhibits in 2D, 3D, Time Based, and Digital work in any medium with the independent selection panel covering all art forms, the photograph applicants were chosen by the celebrated photographer Richard Billingham

What a difference a day makes:

The problem with the washing machine was nothing more than the waste pipe coming away from the piping that takes the water down to the drain.

I went to the dentist first thing in the morning and had the tooth taken out, unbelievably I never experienced any pain at all, I was expecting an ache when the effect of the anaesthetic subsided but again not in the slightest.

and once again the pictures are formatting correct as you can see from this picture from the New Photography On Screen exhibion


Solihull College Fine Art Degree Show 2008 Birmingham Institute of Art and Design BA (Hons) Fine Art Degree Show

Its that time of the year when every night there's a degree show of some kind on first I went to the show at Solihull, I graduated here and its good to see friends who have passed through the college. I was very impressed with the work this year it showed a great deal of thought in the concepts. Very good.

I'm fascinated by the way students work develops over the three years of study painters show installations or sculpture and of course there is no better example of this change or evolution of an art practise than myself because when I joined I came from a background in watercolours and pencil drawing and came out the other end as a photographer.

So then onto the City of Birmingham show: This is massive in comparison to Solihull you realise this first as you have to fight your way through the masses congregated on the street outside then inside there are so many students and artwork on every wall and in every space its great fun but little chance to speak to the artist.


I'm not going to change and go looking for burnt out caravans

walking my 3 dogs through the park on Wednesday morning I got very excited when I saw black smoke coming from Slade Lane but it was something of a false alarm as it was only a caravan that had been set alight. The fire had only just been started and at that stage the flames had engulfed the van making it so hot that you couldn't pass it on the road. For once I didn't have my camera with me, I'm always taking shots in the park and nature reserve in particular I look out for a heron on the lake at the other end of the park but I recently gave up trying to get any decent shots because at the moment he is hiding behind the heavy summer coverage of leaves. I was in no rush to get the camera because caravans are made of fibre glass, wood, a very small amount of aluminium and a steel chassis that is generally covered in so much ash and therefore there is nothing worth taking a photo off.


When I returned with the camera I hoped there might be the odd markings amongst the mess perhaps the aluminium would produce a different angle on the metal but there was nothing really exciting to report, this was the first time that I had taken photos while the vehicle is still burning and its not a great experience with the smoke getting in your eyes.


Slade Lane has produced a few burnt cars for me as its an ideal dumping area. Its about 200 yards from any houses and separates the park and nature reserve from the waste ground fields. It used to be a short cut off the beaten track between Priory Road in Yardley Wood and Baldwins Lane in the Hall Green district of Birmingham, there's a ford across a stream of a river. The road was closed off to traffic a few years ago creating a dead end which attracts people dumping anything from building rubbish, furniture and thankfully the odd car.

Problems with Blogging

This hasn't been the best of days for me.

I have had a tooth that needs to be taken out and for about 2 months I have tried to juggle appointments and work so that I can get it fixed, today I'm in loads of pain but there is still no sign of a window in my diary to go to the dentist and then recover.

The washing machine broke coming to a halt with an almighty noise then flooding the kitchen floor.

Then finally worst of all I'm trying to upload my pictures to the blog but for some strange reason they aren't formatting correct, I have never had a this problem before and I can't understand why it should happen now. The files I am loading are the same size as my previous successful posts. Unfortunately a job that would take 5 minutes has taken about 2 hours.

More photos from the show.

This is like a Flickr site with all the photos, I've got one of those too. My Flickr Site

Preview Show for "New Photography on Screen" Exhibition New Generation Arts Festival Thursday 12 May

TV Screens turned on and with just a few teething problems we managed to get the technology working as one. Its been a very hectic period for art shows, with all the degree events etc everybody I spoke to seemed to be knackered and had an overload of Art so we didn't know if anybody would turn up or how many, but in the end we had a great turn out.

Because the art was displayed on plasma and LCD screens and the Custard Factory gallery has a glass roof we didn't want a sunny summer evening, obviously we wanted the images to be seen at their best. but I had a conflict of interests because I wanted light for my photographs. I was so involved in networking and talking about my work I forgot to take some shots until it was getting late, However, I think the conditions added some atmosphere to the pictures.

Burnt Out Car in Scribbers Lane Hall Green Birmingham

Walking the dogs this morning I came across my latest beautiful photo model, so the dogs had a very quick run out then I dashed home for my camera. Incidentally, this is the exact location I found the first car that got me involved in this art form about 4 years ago.

When I returned and inspected the surfaces of the Vauxhall I was very disappointed, it seemed there was no markings worth recording. The fire brigade had not attended this fire and therefore the wreck was completely burnt out with no scorch marks on paintwork and because the firemen had not power hosed the fire all the metal was coated with a thick often crusty ash.

Then suddenly the surfaces began to appear I'm not sure why but it could be because of a change in the light caused by a dark cloud cover. In the end I finished up taking a total of 400 photos which is 400 more than I thought at one stage.

Apart from photographing the cars I'm always fascinated by the reaction of people who walk past, this lady was very interested.

Both her and dog looked to old to walk any distance but I found that not only had they come a long way but their walk was going to take them another 2 miles, so never presume.

New Photography On Screen Exhibition- Almost ready

My job to sweep the floor, it only took me 2 hours. We are almost ready for the big switch on, tidy a few wires, turn the laptops and screens on make sure everything is in sync and open the doors.

The show runs daily between June 10-20. 10am to 5pm

Venue
Custard Factory
GALLERYALLERY,
Gibb Street,
Digbeth,
Birmingham
B9 4AA

Not the quietest of weeks to start my blog

A busy time to be starting a blog, It all started on Monday and looking at what was ahead I never thought I would get everything done in a week. Somehow I have got to Sunday a week later and while I will be working into the early hours again its almost finished.

Amongst other things this week I have:

- Gutted out my kitchen ready for the builders to start installing a new one.

Travelled up and down the motorway with a 320 mile round trip from Birmingham to Exeter. Experienced a blow out while I had my foot down in the outside lane of the motorway and then found out that the spare wheel I had carried around in my boot for 3 years was too big. I therefore had to take time out visiting scrap yards for a suitable wheel.

I'm involved in the "New Photography on Screen" Exhibition which is a part of the Birmingham City University, New Generation Arts Festival at the Custard Factory, Birmingham. I decided to develop some new images for the show and eventually finished with a submission of 63 photographs, after all the hours of Photoshop development my eyes are square.

An as yet "Untitled" new picture.

Do you know what it is yet? Have a look at my website www.johngarghan.co.uk I promise you will never look at them (it) in the same way again.

Because the theme of the festival is Digital Utopia the work is being displayed on LCD and Plasma TV screens. We therefore installed the equipment and images on Friday 6th June, this gives us plenty of time to sort out any inevitable problems.


At least I didn't have to get a load of printing done and hump framed pictures to be installed

I also managed to photo two burnt out cars what a week