www Solihull Artist Forum

It’s been a very busy week, so much so that I forgot all about “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again”. The extra workload also meant that my three dogs have had shortened walks, they don’t seem that bothered 2 are a little off colour at moment and the third one hates going out in the rain, and we have certainly had loads of rain. She has something of a sixth sense that tells her that it’s raining outside so she then goes hiding when I pick up her lead.

The Bank Holiday weekend naturally interrupted work, and family and life in general have inevitably interrupted “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again”

So here goes with a catch up.

Main project of the week has been building a website for the Solihull Artist Forum, it proved to be more difficult than I first anticipated because there are 18 plus artists each with different styles of work with a mixture of textures and colours and art disciplines, it was therefore like designing 18 different websites within one. I decided to make the site plain, white and bland so that there is nothing to confuse the different art work colours and shapes.

The Solihull Artist Forum is for all professional artists living or connected to the Midland borough, we have regular meetings and at moment we have a group exhibition “Hands On”

Venue:
Solihull Arts Complex
Library Square
Touchwood
Homer Road
Solihull

The show runs until the 27th September

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