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

http://38-degrees.co.uk/

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

 

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RBSA| Royal Birmingham Society of Artists

I went to the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists gallery on Sunday evening. For a private view of the exhibition “Candidates”, this show is for artists hoping to be elected as Associates or Associates hoping to be elected as Members of the Society.

3 artists from the Solihull Artists Forum are exhibiting in the show Usha Khosla, Frances Townley and Jan Gay, I took the opportunity to take some photographs for the SAF website www.solihullartists.co.uk

Frances Townley 

Click for Frances pages on the Solihull Artist Forum website

Jan Gay

Click for Jans pages on the Solihull Artist Forum website

I had problems photographing Jans work because the work was up high I’m not tall enough to take the shot at the direct angle, the photos I took seemed at a funny angle

I spoke to Usha early in the evening but I lost contact with her so there’s no photograph of here with her work and as her work was displayed in glass cabinets I decided to wait for another time when I can do it justice. Have a look at her website for now.

As you can imagine the standard was very high, I was introduced to Margaret Fairhead who produces these beautiful textiles she is applying for Membership.

I was impressed with the diverse styles of painting and in particular this painting by John Shakespeare

Title: Handing in,
Media: Oil,
Price: £850,
Artist: John Shakespeare
Have a look at Johns work at www.jshakart.co.uk

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I Shall Not Be Exhibiting At Birmingham Artfest 2009

In September I blogged about the Birmingham ArtsFest Weekend and about the great experience I had exhibiting there. ArtFest takes over the city centre with music events and visual arts exhibitions, workshops and demonstrations.

I particularly like the way the event takes over the council buildings, on the Friday afternoon the buildings are used for conducting council business and as the meetings are finishing the artists take over installing their work on the walls, During the weekend the buildings take on a new atmosphere inviting citizens in to chambers and hallowed rooms that very few would normally see and then its all over by 5pm on Sunday afternoon. Large crowds of people descend on the city and generally there’s that late summer sunshine outside to set the scene off just right. Additionally its great to network with other artists and compare notes.

So why am I not going this September? Last night I began my application to apply for a space and I found that this year there is a payable fee for the stand of either £130 or £200 depending on the size of the space, in the past there has been a payable commission on sales, although I don’t think any of the artist achieved great sales. The council has decided that if they can get the commission fee up front this will guarantee the income.

At last years event the famous credit crunch was just beginning to impact and there was very few sales taken. On the RBSA stand they were selling off small items for boot sale prices, but generally in the Art Space area there were no sales on the day. Lots of interest from people looking at the work but no one seemed to have the odd £300 to spend on artwork in their pockets.

Artfest to me should be a platform for all forms of art. Alongside the small affordable craft pieces there should for example be extra large canvases that would never sell in this environment. A commercial success should not be the criteria and all forms of art should be available to the visitors. Birmingham City Council should be doing everything possible to promote the small businesses that make up the arts sector in the city and not imposing an unrealistic charge for this event

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Probably the best car I have ever photographed. Ever!

A second car was burnt out today in the same park that I found the car on Friday see the previous post, it often happens like this and then there will be nothing for months because those responsible have been sent to prison or juvenile detention centres. This car was dumped on the other side of the park as if they had used the back entrance, however on Friday they had broken a heavy duty gate lock to enter the park so of course they knew it would be easy to get in through there, and once in side they had some fun across the grass

This was one of the best cars that I had ever seen in terms of markings although the proof of the pudding is how they look when I get them home on the pc and start looking for that distinctive landscape quality. Each side of the car was covered in so many colours it was so good I didn’t know where to start. Again the sunlight was great, very strong and in just the right position relevant to the car. I moved around the car changing the angle in all directions.

The front and back of the car was quite poor and the normally good areas such as the roof and wings were no good at all, the roof had no markings just a kind of pink dusty texture which doesn’t translate very well into the finished image.

I couldn’t find out anything about the origin of the car, I know it was a Nissan because there was a small badge on the ground but because it was so far from the paths across the park nobody came close by and so there was no conversations with anybody. Apart that is from a group of youngsters who were shouting abuse from a distance, I never know if its best to engage with them or ignore them. Two police officers appeared after they saw me pouring water over the car (must of thought I was mad) but they won’t tell you anything even if they know.

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Unexpected Ghosts In The Photograph

I’m currently involved in the 365 project on my Flickr website, I’m committed to taking a photograph of anything and posting it on Flickr everyday of 2009. The main reason for this pressure is to make sure I’m constantly taking photographs keeping up to speed with using my SLR and at the same time I might find another subject to base my art practise on after all I can’t work with burnt out cars forever can I?

This morning I found myself walking my dog Sally around Cannon Hill Park I took a few photographs and then driving home I took some more, at that stage all of them could be a promising contender for Flickr Photo No 38/365 but when I got home and loaded them on the PC none of them looked that good, a tree in the wrong place or the light had suddenly changed as I took the shot. No real problem at this stage because I still had 13 hours of 7^th February left and I had planned a very full day so I was confident.

I started playing around with the images in Photoshop, this picture I cropped tight into the bandstand (so this copy is about a third size of the original) but I still wasn’t happy with the tone definition, they would be poor because I was about 300 yards away from the bandstand, but while I was trying to enhance the values I noticed a white shadow in the corner and the figure on the bench.

So off I went down to Canon Hill Park to photograph the snowman.

click on a photo to see a larger version

With the lunchtime sunshine and a few people in the picture I had a great time. Here’s the shot that’s on my Flickr site for today.

38/365 “Waiting for the Band”

The Burnt Out 4 x 4 and a cast of 1000s at Earlswood

Two burnt out cars to photograph in a week no wonder I have been grinning from ear to ear and singing happy songs all weekend. This year the dumped cars have been very thin on the ground with only five up to last weekend, its not a real problem because I have only just released my new catalogue (soon to be uploaded onto my website – now that’s putting the pressure on) and I have many many stock photos. But, its great to have the opportunity to get some fresh metal to work on.

Friday morning my brother saw this 4 x 4 while taking a short cut through the back roads of Earlswood on the way home from work. Earlswood is due south of the city boundary of Birmingham and famous locally for some excellent fishing at Earlswood Lakes. After heavy rain during the night I had to negotiate the flooded country roads and then stand in cold mud while I took the photographs. I decided not to let Sally the dog out of my car because the mixture of the mud and the remains of the fire all over the area did not make a good recipe for my car being clean on the journey home. Sally was not pleased.

The timing of the find was superb because it was very bright and sunny certainly one of the best days for taking close up often macro photos, I can also use the strong sunlight directed at different angles on the metal to produce some very creative effects.

As I was working the events of the burn out began to unfold: this chap lives on a canal boat and parks his car here just off the canal bridge at the entrance to the field, at 3pm on Thursday the farmer came running and shouting to the boat to get him to move his car which was right next to burning car 4 x 4 he managed to pull Ford Escort clear without any damage, being very selfish it’s a pity because I would have had 3 cars in one week which therefore would of set a new record for me.

The farmer who had been delivering a lorry load of manure to his field was then trapped in the field by the 4 x 4, fire engines and police vehicles.

I couldn’t at first understand why the burn out had these slash marks all over until I was told that the fire was originally up close to the gate and they got a tractor to move it. The fire had also damaged the box associated with the communications aerial in the field and after the battery power was used up the signal went down in the early evening.

All afternoon we played musical cars as this little picturesque country lane got more and more congested.

First I parked up – to take my photos

Then boat man to go home,

Then the man to inspect the aerial.

Then the police came to try and find some vehicle identification (no luck)

Then a visitor to the caravan site over the bridge.

Backwards and forwards came the farmer with his muck lorry, I don’t know what smelt worse the manure or the fumes from his diesel engine.

It was chaos. And don’t forget the traffic taking the short cut along the lane and even the joggers take no prisoners along the country lanes.

After about 3 hours of taking shots the recovery truck arrived but before they took my beautiful model away I managed to get some final pictures.

The lads took a break while I finished off.

I had taken as much as I could from the vehicle and by now the light was deteriorating

Photographing the Ford Escort Day 2

It is very unusual to find a car still there on a second day, but of course I will always pop along somewhat half heartedly just to put some closure on the car. But there it was untouched.

By now I have many (and I would say more than enough) photographs of the car and anything new would be generated by:

Change in the weather. (perhaps overnight frost on the metal)

Heavy overnight rain (creates puddles on the roofs, changes the surface colour)

Damage by bored kids (they create great bumps on the bonnet giving an effect of a mountainous landscape)

Different sunlight from previous day.

The sunlight proved to be the major difference from yesterdays cloudy dark sky to period of no more than an hour of golden Autumn sunlight.

I carried on experimenting from yesterday and even tried some flash photography once the small amount of sunlight dipped. It is difficult to extract anything different after a good long session on the first day, within 24 hours the metal becomes too rusty and its hard to transform the pictures into anything but a rusty surface and of course the aim of my finished images is to alter them far away from their originating base line.

There was no day 3 the car was still on the park until late in the afternoon but a typical November day with dank light and fine misty rain would not facilitate any sharp quality photographs.

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.

Towcester Open Art 08 or Birmingham Artsfest08

Sadly I had to pull my application for the Towester Open08 Exhibition. The annual Birmingham Artsfest runs the same weekend and although I toyed with idea of attending both I think it would be unrealistic. My mainly reason is because the ArtsFest event is so big with the whole spectrum of the arts featuring throughout the weekend of Friday 12th to Sunday 14th September there are so many artists, bands, dance troupes and of course the general public converging in Birmingham City centre that it’s a logistical nightmare for the small team of organisers and because of this there will be the inevitable slip in the timetable. So I anticipate delays of some kind while I am setting up my work on the Friday afternoon or taking it down on Sunday evening, last year the installation wasn’t completed until about 6 hours after the planned time slot, I got blocked in the car park and had to delay taking my work from the Council House because of a storm. If I have to travel 50 miles away to the Towcester and be there for narrow time slots I just know something is going to go wrong. Sad because I really wanted to support the Towcester event after a great experience last year, but Artsfest is not one to miss.

Changing the habits of nearly a lifetime

I was in Birmingham City centre today and to kill time between appointments I popped into Waterstones book store, when I came out I realised that I only looked at photography books and didn’t go anywhere near the computer books.

Also I think this is the first month since about 1983 that I didn’t pick up a copy of Personnel Computer World magazine and instead bought a photography monthly instead. First off I went for Digital Photographer but I will probably chop around until I find the one that looks right. So 6 years after leaving the computer industry the change is complete.

Rhubarb Photo Festival in Birmingham

Saturday I attended the internationally renowned Rhubarb Festival which this year took place at Aston Business School. Now if you’re a regular on my blog you know the Aston Business School have bought some of my work so its something of a lucky building for me, that’s taking superstition too far but you know what I mean.

In brief what it’s all about (move to next paragraph if you know):
the organisers of a festival get all the top buyers, movers and shakers of the photo industry in to one room, these reviewers are gallery owners, agents, magazine photo editors etc etc. from all over the World. We as photographers select who we want to see and book a time slot with them to show our portfolio of work, this selection process is achieved by looking at the reviewers profile which might state “I’m looking for documentary photographyusing film not digital” (therefore this reviewer would not be interested in my work). With further assistance of links to websites you can be extremely accurate in targeting who you want to sit down with and show them your portfolio to. Its important that you get this process correct because time is precious in this situation, and as you have to pay to enter the review you want to maximise your investment. Having done your research you have 20 minutes with each selected reviewer to show your portfolio and talk about it.

One of my reviewers Fred Baldwin Chairman of Fotofest, Houston, USA

The reviewers tell it like it is bad or good they are professionals in a hard business, suggesting anything from printing processes to taking the work forward with new approaches to the image making. In the main I had a very successful day and made some great contacts and in generally had a good response to my work.

I am extremely fortunate because living in Birmingham I didn’t have to c atch a plane or incur hotel costs; I spoke to several UK photographers whom had to start the day at 4am and others from the USA and Europe. Me, I rolled out of bed at 8am to arrive by 8:45 but that’s not to say I had a good nights sleep. No I was too nervous for that. Being a local was handy when it comes to sourcing free car parking although it wasn’t any advantage for finding somewhere for lunch because the facilities at the venue were reasonable, well done Aston Business School.

As well as the festival, Rhubarb provide mentoring to photographers, again I’m lucky living on their doorstep, because I have attended countless workshops that have prepared me for situations like the festival. Perhaps the biggest value of all was a two day workshop about assembling and packaging my portfolio, many of the reviewers complimented me on the presentation, it stands to reason if there’s nothing bad to distract then they are more focused on the images.

Rhonda Wilson MBE , Creative Director of Rhubarb popped over for a chat

In the evening we had a Portfolio Promenade were each artist sets out work for sale on a table 4ft square. So there you are lined up with loads of other photographers and invited guests file past looking at the work, it also gave us photographers a chance to network and discuss work, techniques and marketing experiences. Have a look at their sites: Richard Foot, John Maclean, Joe Ford, Michael Marten, Kelly Hill, Richard Fear, Kurt Tong and Jon Tonks.

This lady (sitting down) flew in from the USA that morning, her work was amazing really detailed close shots of wild animals, each time I tried to have a chat with her she was talking to someone and I never got around to finding out her name or get a business card.

Harry Palmer the driving force behind the The Worlds First Dedicated Eccentric Newspaper "The Eccentric City" cycled across Birmingham to have his photo taken by me.

About 9pm we finished and made our way across the courtyard for a few drinks I got home about 11:30pm I was so tired that I pulled up outside me house too exhausted to get out the car, and then I realised I still had to take my 3 dogs for a walk.

Jewellery Quarter Arts and Designer Crafts Festival

Because of the trials and tribulations that I have experienced during the last few weeks with posting to the blog, I'm just updating some that have been missed in that time. This post should have been posted on:
Saturday 5th July 2008

I booked a stall at the Arts and Designer Crafts Festival at St Paul’s Square in the famous Birmingham Jewellery Quarter.

I have never done a market stall before but I have often thought about using this method to promote my art work to generate sales, clicks on my website and interest, normally I play cricket on Saturdays but an injury to my elbow seems to be stretching out for the whole season and this gives me the opportunity to test the water.

I spent a great deal of time leading up to Saturday making display stands for the work and portfolio books to illustrate all the images that I now offer so you can imagine my disappointment when I woke early on the morning to find heavy rain falling and a look on the weather forecast www made me think is it worth going. If I can keep dry can I keep my photos dry and with a forecast like this is anybody going to turn up.


The event was scheduled between 10am and 4pm and you notice from the trusted BBC Weather page that 4 o’clock is when the rain and showers would break up to give a reasonable dry early evening.

Suddenly there was a complete change in the weather, the rain stopped and the sun came out, so I pack everything into the car and away I go. There was a very gusty wind so I decided not to put the work on glass onto the stands (the very stands that I had spent so much time building) I decided just to spread them out flat on the table.

Glad I had my little compact camera on hand to take shots of the people who came to my stand.


It was great to see some old friends that I haven’t seen for some time.

This is Brod we go back a long long way to when we were just out of school in the 60s working at the fan engineering company Alldays and Onions in Small Heath, while I supplemented my apprentice wage of £2.50 a week as a DJ in night clubs, Brod was playing drums in various bands, I’m very thankful to him for getting me in to the then obscure Tamla Motown, Atlantic and Stax sound. From time to time we bump into one and other. Brod if your reading this send us an email and we can get together for a pint.


This is Asma (with glasses) with here two boys and her sister. Asma was on the same Fine Art Degree course as me at Solihull College. She now has a day job and with a family too its hard for her to do art. I wish she was still producing the lovely paintings that she did, of course she can always go back to it some day. Who am I to speak some say (including my son) that I should still do the old paintings I did before I did my degree.

The Strange Ways Ladies

Tuesday 1st July

A few years ago I was involved in a training programme organised by Creative Alliance, this course took us through making a living as an artist and everything I do is an extension of what I learnt on the course. The artists where split up into groups: Photographers, Visual Artists and another group whom came under the great banner heading of "Off the Wall" whose work involved sculpture and installation etc.

Artists from the "Off The Wall" stream have joined together for projects and are known collectively as Strange Ways individually they are: Angel Stripe, Annette Bowery, Avril Elward, Elena Cassidy-Smith, Fung Ye Tsang, Harmeet Chagger-Khan, Helen Grundy and Sharon Walford.

Their shared objective or Mission Statement says it all: "We are interested in engaging and attracting new audiences who may not encounter art on a daily basis for cultural, social or geographic reasons. We are linked by a common philosophy rather than common types of artwork. This gives us a coherent identity but ensures our work is diverse and interesting."

They had a show last week at the Edge in Cheapside, Digbeth. Birmingham. and I wanted to go along first of all because I like their thought provoking work but also they had the launch and preview on a Tuesday night instead of Thursday like every art event that happens in this city, and Thursday is one night in the week I cant make.

There were lots of people there whom because I cant make Thursday nights I don't make contact with that often it was good to see Annie Loughrin from Creative Alliance, Noel Dunne who told me how his recovery is going after the weekend at Glastonbury and Harry Palmer the driving force behind the The Worlds First Dedicated Eccentric Newspaper "The Eccentric City". With features on A Postman's Diary, The Moon Walking Club, The Wolverhampton Hermit and the Art of Pregnancy a few jottings about some idiot taking photographs of dumped burnt out car wrecks shouldn't be out of place with Cycling Ireland Without a Map and others. Watch this space and look out for your copy.

"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.