Something Different – My attempt at Sculpture

A friend reminded me of some sculptor a Chess Set Comprising of Pieces Made of Coke Cans and Bottles that I did a few years ago and asked why it isn’t still on my website. I removed it along with other work because I wanted to focus on my art practise today – the dumped scrapped and burnt cars.

After I saw a funny video on You Tube were the Coca Cola HGV driver sabotages the Pepsi lorry so that he can deliver first I thought of a Chess Set, Coca Cola against Pepsi.

Cola Wars

This piece was accepted for a few open exhibitions noticeably the “Art Official” show at the Light House Media Centre, Wolverhampton in November 2004. When it’s on show people can’t resist moving the pieces around. I dabbled a bit with sculpture without being totally at home working in a 3rd dimension and sadly I found it hard to follow up this thought provoking work. It was a bit like following up “the” album or a Number One hit record, and I know how Thunderclap Newman feel, showing my age there. How about Chesney Hawkes “The One and Only” or one of the best one hit wonders 4 Non Blondes “What's Up” or even New Radicals “You Get What You Give”


One thing I like about this work is when the exhibition is over I don’t have to take it down with care wrap it in cotton wool which of course I do with my photographs on glass (even toughened glass breaks) I don’t even have to go and pick it up I just tell them to dump it in the skip.

Birmingham ArtsFest Weekend

Nice to meet a few “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” readers amongst the big crowds at the ArtFest last weekend. This year the visual arts gallery show “Artspace” was situated in the Banqueting Suite at the Council House in Victoria Square. This was an ideal venue which allowed everyone room to walk around and view the work on show. Having learnt lessons from previous year’s events the organisation was superb although you can never legislate for the weather.

The rain falls, is anybody going to come to ArtsFest 08? What’s the forecast for Saturday and Sunday?

The rain seemed to draw people indoors to the gallery; perhaps they had left home without a look at the forecast or even popped into the preview show on the way home from work in the city.

After the show closed on Friday evening we went outside (in the rain) for the Light Night show. The spectacular display transformed the civic buildings with lights and images, it was so good I forgot I was drenched.

Drenched or not we headed off down to Aston University to the Birmingham Beer Festival, being a Guinness drinker I haven’t a clue about Real Ale but I can guarantee a good pint of the black stuff in any real ale pub because they look after the beer so well, on this occasion I had my mate Chris with me, he certainly knows his stuff and pointed me in the direction of some good stouts.

On Saturday the sun arrived, in fact it was too hot (we are never happy are we) and after the rain the night before it got quite muggy. The great thing about an event like this is you get chance to network with other artists, some new contacts and friends from previous events.

Of course I always have a camera to hand and click anything that moves and sometimes they don’t have to move

Andrew Bainbridge

David Pollard

David experiments with photographing objects trapped in ice and takes the pictures while the ice melts. He’s also got some great work from his extensive travels. Diverting from art for a moment David explains about his passion for fishing and the one that got away “this was the distance between his eyes”

Nick Williams

I met Wolverhampton based Nick at last year’s event and I we bumped into one and other through the year. I don’t know if Nick has a website, I did a search on Google but there is a load of Nick Williams around the world.

www.particlearticle.co.uk

Claire and Amy are sisters who make and I quote “Imaginary winged creatures created from abandoned, reclaimed and recycled objects". I was relieved to see that they are not in competition with me to discover dumped burnt cars because there work is far more delicate as they use pins, buttons, pen nibs etc, and nothing bigger than a light bulb.


Taking photos of exhibitions and my work hanging on the wall is very important for me it gives me a reference for my career as a working artist.


Its also part of a process that hopefully will illustrate my work as an art piece, I have found that when I explain my work to people somehow they miss that “look and feel” effect factor and its not until its seen on the wall does this become apparent. So there will be more On The Wall pictures on my website in future.



Hopefully by being a little bit creative with the gallery photos I can make these pictures less boring and repetative.

Birmingham ArtsFest 12-14th September

I’m getting my work together for the annual Birmingham ArtsFest weekend, for once I’m able to take the pictures from my own stock and not have to worry about will the printers deliver on time.

There is so much going on in the festival from all genres of live music from groups and artists such as
Baska (contemporary acoustic folk pop band) think I’ll give them a miss,
City of Birmingham Young Voices. Ditto
And loads of bands in the The Kerrang Unsigned Stage, that’s more like it.

Myself and other visual artists are in ArtSpace at the Council House in Victoria Square do come along and make yourself known.

The BBCs Test Match Special Flickr Site

As a keen cricketer and listener to the Test Match Special radio commentary I also click on the TMS Flickr site.

Aggers and Eric Clapton

Now you would expect that an organisation such as the BBC would employ someone to do this job who can actually take a descent photo and who has at least a beginner’s ability in Photoshop Elements. There is really no excuse for a consistent poor quality image especially as the BCC are linking to this Flickr/blog from the main News-Sport pages.

Comedian Mark Steel joins Jonathan Agnew at Edgbaston

They could (and probably will) in their defence say that the light conditions are not ideal. for example the contrast with shadow light in the studio and the bright summer sunshine outside through the large window create havoc but in this picture taken outside on the cricket ground the same heavy shadow applies.

Mark Pougatch interviews James Anderson in front of the Lords Pavilion

You don’t need expensive equipment in fact I have seen some great images produced from camera phones and cheap disposable cameras. I felt sufficiently annoyed about this site and I have sent an email of complaint. I’ll keep you posted “if” I get a reply.

Gremlins have hit again
Sorry to say that I'm having problems formatting the post in Blogger again. I thought I had found a work around after my previous problems. the links to the pictures just wont do what I want them to do. I dont think that I can add the offending images to You Will Never Look At Them In The Same Way Again because they are not available to download in the Flickr site, I do think that it is rediculous setting restrictions like that in Flickr because if you really wanted a copy of a pic there is a fiddley way by changing screen res and using a bog standard keyboard screen grab.

Lisa Marie Thompson’s Hands On Exhibit

When the development event was over I popped up stairs to the gallery to have a look at the Solihull Artists Forums “Hands On” exhibition and take some photos so that I can add them to the website. At first when I saw this work by Lisa Marie Thompson I thought what has a picture of Britney Spears got to do with Hands? And then I found out that the image is made of raised pieces like Braille, very clever.

The exhibition runs until 27th September.

Artist Development Day

We had an artist development day at Solihull Arts Complex, I wasn’t quite sure what it was all about but I decided to go because it was facilitated by the local artist Eva Bennett and Tessa Hills and that’s reason enough and I wasn’t disappointed.

Problem: Aimee Green the Artist Development Officer wants to support local artists and groups but she doesn’t know what we need. Indeed in the past she has organised events such as “Working Internationally” and the attendance has been poor; so is that what we need? It has also become apparent that perhaps we artists don’t know what’s available or the questions to ask: so it’s a communication Problem!

During the day we asked and answered loads of questions without knowing it, by being creative. This involved various exercises of making things to illustrate a scenario for instance I can now explain my art practise with the aid of an old jam jar filled with pieces of glass.

1. ) My work is printed on toughened glass.
2. ) Like the small glass and mirror particles the view changes with the moving daylight

and a whole lot more
By focusing on the jam jar (it was clean and no longer had jam in) it seemed a very powerful means of achieving the communication and extracting more information.

another piece of my creative endeavours

At the end of the day many questions had been answered and Tessa introduced us to a book called “The Artist Way” by Julia Cameron a Course in Discovering your Creative Self. I bought it on the net via Book Butler the cheapest book site I know of, costing less than £5 I can’t go wrong all I need now some time to read it.

My New Fine Art Images on Flickr

I have produced many new pictures during the summer months; sadly these are from my stock photos not from any new “burn outs” I am trying to find a window in my busy schedule so that I can completely update my website www.johngarghan.co.uk this has been on going for about a month. So yesterday I decided to put the new work onto my Flickr site.

A Thousand Blossoms

The Flickr site generally displays my range of photographs covering subjects including friends, cricket, my dogs and a few of my Fine Art pictures.

Iridescent Formations

Open West Midlands Exhibition Open Night

The exhibition has been running through the summer at the Wolverhampton Museum and Art Gallery in Lichfield St and I went along for the open evening. It was good to look at the art and discuss with the other artists their pieces on show. I do like to hear artists explaining the concepts behind their work, often you can understand people saying “my 5 year old could do that” and then your told the context and it all takes on a new level. I’m sure people look at my work in a different way once they understand its beginnings.


There are several other shows on in the gallery at the moment; one I noticed records in photographs the troubles in Northern Ireland

and I just couldn’t resist taking some shots of this image.

I travelled over to Wolverhampton on public transport so that I could have a drink in one (or two) of the excellent pubs in the area or even and on the tram route back to Birminghams Snow Hill station.

White Rose at Bilston

Number one on my list was the White Rose at Bilston where they serve an excellent pint of Guinness. However, when I cam out of the art gallery the rain was very heavy and just walking a short distance to the tram I got soaked so I didn’t really feel in the mood to get off again and go for a drink I ended up staying on the tram.