| A combination of a full moon, and car park lights turned the kids playground into an ideal setting for some night time photographs to use for my 365 project. | ||
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| Just as I started to take some shots of the playground a couple of young lads turned up and promptly parked their bikes between me and subject after I had spent some time carefully looking for the best shot. Somehow I felt uncomfortable and thought perhaps there might be some confrontation even thinking my camera is at risk, although I am used to this exposure when I’m photographing the burnt out cars. I find the best form of defence is to engage people and explain what I’m doing and why so that they take some interest in this strange man with his camera. | ||
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| They didn’t seem that interested in what I was doing and I heard one mutter something that “Miss so and so would say that was great” I presume Miss was a teacher. I enquired if they had seen any Burnt Out Cars on the park knowing they would say no because the burn outs are few and far between at the moment. I also pass the park regular and look across the open space to were in days gone by I would see the rusting wrecks - Happy Days. But to my great surprise yes there had been a dumped car over in the overgrown area far from the main road, so that’s why I missed it. | ||
| I was half annoyed and half very relieved, annoyed because I had missed it but relieved because torching cars still goes on in the area and who knows I might see a revival. | ||
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| The lads were playing football using great light conditions and the walls of the play area (to save them having to keep fetching the ball) and once they forgot about me and my camera they began expressing themselves with trick shots backwards and forwards over the wall, and aiming for the basketball basket. | ||
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| Returning home I evaluated that perhaps although they had this apparent couldn’t care about art strut about them, they did put my business card with a picture of my artwork in their pocket. |
Friday 27 November 2009
Theres Hope For The Future Availability Of Models For My Artwork
Tuesday 10 November 2009
Artwork Delivered for the Exhibition at Aston University Business School
| Saturday Morning I delivered 2 art pieces for the Arts and Business Visual exhibition at the Aston Business School. Normally I deliver the work a few days before the installation date to The Framers in the Custard Factory and that’s all I have to do, they install the exhibition and next time I see it is at the private view a few weeks later. However, this time the printing of one of the pieces was held up because the inks in the printer have been changed, that’s not just replacing a cartridge with the same cartridge, no, in January 2009 Action Graphics invested in a major upgrade to the inks for the machine that prints my images onto glass. |
| The quality of the work produced with the new ink is outstanding but each photograph that hasn’t been printed previously with the inks has to go through a calibration process to match the output with my original file, this process can take the best part of a day |
| There’s some good news if you purchased one of my photographs before 2009 because that would be printed using a unique process that will never be repeated |
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| Martin The Man Responsible For Printing My Photos on Glass |
| Anyway all this extra work for Martin who prints my images onto glass for me has meant that deliver took a little longer. Because I didn’t want to rush this important process I arranged to take the work direct to the venue. |
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| And there alongside the new work was Shared Earth which the Business School purchased last year, I have never seen the piece in situ at the University so it gave me the opportunity to record the work on the wall. |
| You can see all the work in the exhibition here via the Visual website |
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Networking at the Fire Station Open Day
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| The local fire station at Billesley recently had an Open Day and so I popped along not so much to queue to sit in the cockpit of a fire engine or have a beefburger (even though they smelt delicious) or ice cream but to do my own public relations. There were fire crews from all over the South of Birmingham attending so a great opportunity to talk collectively about the trends in the dumped burnt out car scene in the city and introduce myself and my art practice. | ||||
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| There has been a massive decline in dumped burnt out cars here in Birmingham which is a great success story for the local council and the brigade but it does nothing for the state of the local culture and art scene not to mention my livelihood. I’m sure I can’t blame this crisis on the credit crunch, no its far more intentional, conceived and controlled by the authorities than that. I have been actively involved in sourcing burnt out cars for my art practice for about 5 years and in the beginning I could drive around selected areas over a weekend or Monday morning and find a burnt car. Today I would find nothing because: | ||||
The major benefit from the fast clean up has been hiding the results of vandalism from the vandals and therefore they have forgotten about doing the activity, they are no longer reminded of their conquests and it is therefore not in their consciousness and routine. | ||||
| At this point I should point out that I notice I’m getting my terminology mixed up – a benefit for the community and environment is no good to me, but I’m sure you understand | ||||
| My visit to the open day was aimed as a fact finding mission and a chance to make face to face contact and introduce myself to the people I speak to on the phone, to reassure them that this person who telephones them at 5am to 7:30am asking for details of burnt out cars is not some kind of nutter. I am also very aware that they do a very important and dangerous job and the last thing I want to do is get in the way. There are also various legal issues for me to consider primarily with data protection and because of the nature of the vandalism: crime, forensics and insurance claims. | ||||
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| I fell foul of the law one day in Kings Heath when I began climbing all over this vehicle only to be told that it was a scene of crime, my argument to police officer as he considered arresting me was that there wasn’t even high res tape let alone a sign around the vehicle, never the less in my eagerness to get snapping I should considered the situation more. | ||||
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| Here’s a resulting photograph from that car. | ||||
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| Even though the firestation is transformed into a theme park for the day there was still a contingency should someone dial 999 and sure enough as I was leaving the sirens started and a couple of appliances left with blue lights and sirens in full flow. | ||||
Monday 27 July 2009
In Search Of That Elusive Burnt Out Car In The Wilds Of Deepest Warwickshire
I was at the cricket club last night having a few pints after watching and photographing the first team when the second team came back to the clubhouse they told me about a dumped car that was in a ditch not far from were they had been playing at Ansley near Nuneaton.
Its been so long time since I found a burnt out car (February I think) so I wasn’t bothered about travelling about 50 miles for the chance of some pictures. I spent ages trying to find the burn out going off the beaten track up some beautiful country lanes, in fact I might go back there to take some scenic photos one day but I wasn’t prepaid to waste the space on my cameras media card, also it had started to rain and the light was deteriorating (and this is Summer).
I asked a few people and one woman told me that when she first saw the crash she thought it was her brothers but was relived to find it wasn’t. Eventually I saw a lorry parked at the bottom of a hill on a sharp bend and there in the ditch was a Citroen saloon car. Unfortunately it hadn’t caught fire.
It was hard to see how anyone had survived the crash: there was no sign of bodies, no sign even of blood stains but at the same time it was impossible to see how the occupants had got out, Furthermore from my experience of attending burnt out cars I know that the emergency services would hack into the panels to get people from crumpled wreck, but there was no sign of any struggle.
There was no smell of petrol which was a good job because the battery was still connected and damaged bare wires and lights would have ignited the fumes. And ha presto there’s my burnt out car.
The owner of the lorry was a scrap metal dealer and was interested in a few components he dragged the car up the ditch but in so doing buried the end of his tow rope underneath a from there we couldn’t push it back.
Monday 13 July 2009
Backwards and Forwards to Rowans Gallery Brackley
Last week I went to Rowans Gallery to replenish the stock of my work there. It’s a journey of about 40 miles down the M40 and about 10 miles through the beautiful English countryside to Brackley. I often expect to see Jenson Button driving some very expensive sports car (that is anything but a Ferrari) or indeed formula 1 racing cars in the streets of the town it is after all the home of the Brawn racing team. www.brawngp.com
While I was there I met Elaine Coe who was the featured artist in the window, I persuaded her to pose for a picture with her great artwork.
No sooner had I got home than I had a phone call from the owner Sally Eaton with news that more artwork was required as she had sold my previous delivery, this week we had one of our artist meetings so I went there armed with pictures.
If your in the Northamptonshire/ Oxfordshire area Rowans gallery is well worth a visit because there is a cross section of great artwork from artists who practice in all art disciplines and mediums.
| Rowans Gallery |
| Unit 1 Market House Courtyard |
| Brackley |
| Northants |
| NN13 7AB |
| Website: www.rowansgallery.co.uk |
Tuesday 7 July 2009
Usted nunca Mira de la misma manera, de Nuevo | I didn’t expect a Spanish inquisition
I’m considering two versions of You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again along with my usual English version how about a Spanish version
Estoy considerando dos versiones de Nunca Vea de la misma manera, de nuevo junto con mi habitual Inglés versión acerca de cómo una versión en español
and indeed why stop there how about French
J'envisage de deux versions de You Will Never regarder de la même façon avec mon habitude en anglais sur la façon dont une version espagnole
or even Mandarin
我考慮了兩個版本的你永遠看他們以同樣的方式再連同我通常英文版本如何西班牙文本
I know your impressed but I haven’t been on a crash course of languages far from it because that would be a waste of time, like most English people I find it impossible to grasp any foreign language. It amazes me how someone like the England football manager Fabio Capello within weeks of taking on the job dispenses with the need for a translator and is fluent when talking to reporters.
A few months ago I came across a blog noquedanblogs.com that regularly posts different and interesting photographs
And also video
http://noquedanblogs.com/video/no-hibi-carneiro/
if this link doesn’t work try YouTube
I had a good look on the site but couldn’t figure out what it was about or what country it originated from, I continued following the blog because it is visual and then I came across Google Translate not only was I able to read the blog but I was able to send them a message just to say I appreciate their work.
And then I got thinking surely people will appreciate I have taken the trouble to speak to them in their mother tongue and this has really worked well with my Flickr site when I comment on some ones photos I first find out were they are and then use translate to input two versions. The vibes (hate that would but it works) I get have been really good and it seems give me an edge. noquedanblogs.com have also started to include an English version with each photograph.
However, it looks like Google are being too clever (for me) and spoiling my USP because I read they are developing software that will look at text on a webpage and then translate it for you depending on your location. Although what happens when say a Greek person living in the UK wants to read a Greek site, but wants it in their mother tongue?
On a final note and returning to Fabio Capello I notice most if not all of the footballers from around the world take on and learn English however, as I also follow US Major League Baseball I notice this is the exception with the imports from the Spanish speaking countries in that game. Perhaps they trust their translators more and haven’t heard about the Italian Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri who sacked his translator when he was told that his translations bore no relation the managers original message, he was making up his own version.
Wednesday 1 July 2009
Great news from the Bourneville BA Visual Arts Degree Show 2009.
I went along to the Birmingham University degree show at Bourneville last week and enjoyed some high quality work; I think I enjoyed it more because I had a friend Nita Walters giving me a guided tour.
My Guide gives some scale to this piece
Now this is very helpful because the show is spread out over several building extensions and floors, but it was great to have someone contextualize each piece of work, I am not a great one for interpreting artist statements and I find this spoils my enjoyment of art, I really hate it when the artist does not want you to know what its all about. I find its very important for me to spell out the detail of my work and this aspect was discussed at length during my “Artist Talk” at my exhibition “You Will Never Look at Them In The Same Way Again” at the Solihull Gallery back in February this year. But I’m sticking to my guns.
This is Nita’s work she managed to get these old TVs from the excellent recycling site http://www.uk.freecycle.org/
Her statement reads
“As an artist, my interests lie within the relationship between my own personal experiences of neighbourhood and that of my neighbours. My experimental audiovisual pieces tie into the perception of place, memory, personal boundaries and its psychological effect on the self.
Although my current work is bordering on social documentary and anecdote, the act of obtaining interviews through personal intervention is as important as the work itself as I attempt to translate my experiences from my own artistic standpoint within an installation context.
My interventions have led me to collecting digital subjective anecdotal accounts from strangers who pass me from person to person. From these interviews I translate the essence of feeling regarding my experiences of this process through audio and various media. The act of obtaining these interviews has affected how I see my neighbourhood and its openness to exploration within communities that I see as becoming more and more disparate at street level.”
I received a text message to say she achieved a First and also gained the Emma Jessie Phipps award for Outstanding Studentship
Here's some more work from the show and a link to the website
Interesting work about a film, this photograph is positioned in such a way that the viewer cant stand back further to focus it.
Nita has a break on furniture made from cardboard
Still on the cardboard theme as you can imagine there is something going on in there
and sometimes your not sure if objects are part of the show or not
Thursday 25 June 2009
Tanya Raabe - Who’s Who Defining the Faces of an Arts Movement
Colin Hambrook - Tanya Raabe - David King
Currently showing at the Solihull Arts Gallery is an exhibition featuring the work of Tanya Raabe a collection of portraits of other disabled artists.
For Once Its Not a Thursday Night
I was very pleased to see that the Artist Talk as part of the show was scheduled this time for a Monday night, everything seems to be arranged for Thursdays in the local art world and its impossible for me to attend. Every exhibition private view or preview is on a Thursday, events such as the very good Creative Networks monthly networking night was moved from Wednesday to Thursday (because of the football on TV). I’m a member of the Solihull Artists Forum but I rarely attend a meeting because its on a Thursday (and generally in competition with something else that night). Even my own artist talk at the gallery was on a Thursday
So you can imagine my delight when a flyer arrived notifying me its on a Monday (I didn’t believe it so I had to read again) I sent a email and joked with Aimee Green the Arts Development Officer at Solihull, she said it was on Monday just to accommodate me. Yep. So Monday comes and as I’m changing clothes I lean down to pick up some trousers and I felt my back go! Ouch! I thought not tonight of all nights. Anyway with the aide of a few pain killers I made it.
Julie McNamara
I was very glad I made it Tanya gave a great introduction to the artists of the Disability Art Movement.
Mat Fraser
The show Who’s Who Defining the Faces of an Arts Movement continues at the Solihull Arts complex until 4 July
Wednesday 24 June 2009
Solihull College Fine Art Degree Show
My own art practice has been a little quiet during the last couple of months a victim of the credit crunch it seems, more about this and my theories why in future posts but for now I might as well talk about other artists work. I went to two degree shows last week and saw some impressive work, more to follow about the Birmingham University show but for now my visit to the Solihull College BA (Hons) Fine Art Degree Show “Nineteen Degrees
As I completed my degree at Solihull College I like to support their Fine Art BA (Hons) Show but this year I couldn’t make the Preview Night but I found it better to visit the show away from the crowds
First body of work that caught my eye and impressed was by Alex Lydon. The work has to be viewed with the 3D glasses,
so it’s virtual impossible to photograph accurately in short it highlights the fact that: “photographs are generally seen to convey factual visual information where paintings are not”.
Its been a long 6 years for John Henry Thomas who eventually finished the BA which he chose to do part time, (a full time commitment is 3 years) he deserves some kind of award on top of his degree for lasting the pace, it must be horrible seeing students finish who began the course after you started.
Johns work has always featured animals and illustrated his excellent drawing skills although his canvas has increased in size by about 2000%
Emily Forder work is related to Obsessive Compulsion her installation contained many tablet bottles, smells of medication and the walls were covered with a representation of the human digestive system.
I decided I wouldn’t go in the Fine Art studio this year until the Degree Show but I had to go there once and I saw Rebekah Fearn working on her instillation, I avoided asking what’s it all about? Because I wanted to wait for the show, none the less that peep was enough to make me look forward to seeing it completed. It represents a ‘womb-like’ space, a place of nostalgia providing security and comfort.
I had no idea what this work by Hannah Raithby-Allin was about until I read the brochure – it deals with Conformity and the way society expects conformity even with children going to school aged 4. simple and effective.
Helen Rand who’s work focuses on with the illness and recovery from cancer told me she had almost completed her work for the show when she was allotted a larger area and so it was a race against time to complete more paintings.
Solihull College BA traditionally have a larger selection of painters than the other shows and here are two great artists to follow that tradition.
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Mark Skirving
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Jenny Mann
Saturday 13 June 2009
Cure Leukaemia Art Auction Just Giving Page
Just been told that the Just Giving page has been launched you can see the latest total and also make a donation.
The page is live until 30 September 2009
Thursday 21 May 2009
the Cure Leukaemia Art Auction
Last night I was at the Cure Leukaemia Art Auction in Birmingham. First of all the hard facts the local artists raised £13,000 towards the charity.
My contribution to the event was “Cavernous Deep” a photograph printed on glass. Here the successful bidder Gavin Buckley (right) is joined by Fine Art auctioneer Martin Lambert from Humberts (Cotswold) Ltd. Gavin has known my work for some time in his role at Arts and Business. I was selected for the AandB project Visual a few years ago and Gavin is the Director. So he knows all about my art practice and about this particular piece. He was a very determined bidder.
I was trying to take photographs and listen to the bidding and I could hear and see Martin acknowledging bidders around the room. My stress levels were really high as the starting bid was offered to the floor, because you don’t want it to have come down, but it didn’t and continued on a steady curve upwards.
The Cure Leukaemia Appeal is a multi-million pound project launched in 2004 to create a world class centre of excellence for clinical leukaemia research at University Hospital Birmingham. You can download a copy of the brochure from
www.artauctionbirmingham.co.uk
and more information from
www.cureleukaemia.co.uk
Of course this was a great networking event with all the local arts business and creative industry folk. So a quick mention for some of my artist friends who I spoke to last night.
Chris Keenan
www.primeobjective.co.uk
To source my photography I go few miles down the road but Chris travels the World and goes up mountains and balances on glaciers to produce his brilliant images. He told me on the trip that produced the image of the “The Franz Joseph Glacier”, New Zealand he had been guided up the glacier took some photographs then when he had finished his film he turned a corner to find a scene to die for. Now that’s another aspect if Chris was using digital media then he could delete one of the lesser shots. Not surprisingly his image of the glacier is featured on the front of the brochure www.artauctionbirmingham.co.uk
Another artist who uses traditional film methods is Dan Burwood
www.danburwood.co.uk
I love the set that he produced in Cuba. I have bumped into Dan a few times this year because he was involved with schools project based around my exhibition at Solihull in Jan/Feb/March this year. For once Dans bicycle wasn’t to be seen chained to a lamppost outside the venue.
And finally Ross Jones,
www.ross-jones.co.uk
I remember deciding that I wanted to draw because I was fascinated by artists whom could produce accurate pictures that somehow evolved and took shape on paper. My first adult art learning lessons were in a drawing class, I loved it and found hard move on into other media –it had to be a drawing. So I’m naturally drawn to Ross work. I must get the pencils out and get back simple draftsmanship.
So there it is do have a look at the sites and enjoy some high quality art work
Thursday 14 May 2009
Cure Leukemia Art Auction Tuesday 19th May 2009
I have been asked to donate a piece of my artwork for the Cure Leukaemia Art Auction which takes place at Wragge & Co's Banking Hall in Birmingham on Tuesday 19th May.
Cure Leukaemia is a charity based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, supporting the treatment of and research into Leukaemia and the patient environment. The Centre for Clinical Haematology is unique in bringing both of these things together and was opened in 2006.
This is the second time I have been involved in this charity event and on the first occasion my picture “Shared Earth” raised £650. One couple was very determined not to be out bid for a unique print of mine.
Once again I have donated a unique piece for the auction its a large copy of the image “Cavernous Deep” this particular image was printed using a machine that has since broken down and has been scraped and the new printing process uses different inks. making it even more unique I now use a different type of glass. Its going to be interesting to see if the credit crunch will effect the bidding and final auction price.
| You can download a copy of the brochure from |
| www.artauctionbirmingham.co.uk |
| and more information from |
| www.cureleukaemia.co.uk |
Sorry just a test
Hi Folks
Haven't blogged in the month of May because I’m having trouble publishing a post I just get a error message that will mean something to someone but not me, in an effort to find out what is the problem heres a very short almost “Hello World” or even Twitter like post.
Last night I actually made it along to the Birmingham Bloggers Meet it was a double first for me:
1) It was the first time i have managed to make it they have this great idea to rotate the day (so Wednesday this month and guess what Thursday next) so that anyone who cant make such and such a day isn’t left out- a great idea. but each event has coincided with something else for me.
2) even though I am a Guinness drinker and I frequent the various pubs in Digbeth it was the first time I have been in the Spotted Dog (Alcester St and Warwick St) shame on me, it wont be the last.
Sunday 26 April 2009
Sculpture Mark Tilley Fires His Kiln
A fellow member of the Solihull Artist Forum is Mark Tilley he is a sculpture and this week he has been firing his kiln on the back lawn of his home in Knowle. On Tuesday morning he began the process to flash up at 9.00am and reached a maximum temperature of 1250deg Celsius about 5pm. The kiln is then allowed to cool. While on a workshop Mark discovered how to build and then run his own kiln and he has been using it since 2003, obviously there is so much more control and satisfaction, using this kiln than the mass produced electric oven models that merely involving flicking a switch. 
Mark has to nurture the process during the day constantly checking the temperature as the heat increases up through a constant line on the graph. Mark was behind his original planned timescale (finish by 2:30pm) because there had to be more consideration for early morning damp in the kiln and therefore he kept the heat lower than normal for about 90 minutes.
At some time during the day the gas bottles have to be changed I stood well back and was considering videoing this aspect but Mark was too quick for me and had begun before I got a good vantage point. It took two minutes from start to finish and for some reason the temperature in the kiln dropped less than normal, a sunny day does make the work very pleasant in the garden but it’s not going to affect the extreme temperatures inside the kiln.
When the kiln was able to be left un assisted Mark showed me his garden workshop/studio.
This is used for storage which he says is fine until he wants to find something – I think everyone has that dilemma with storage
Thursday morning the kiln was opened
A small group of artists had gathered to see what surprises the firing had provided.
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Two tiles had stuck together but Mark assures us that with care they can be separated.
This piece will go into an exhibition at the Solihull Arts Complex later in the year.
