Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Exit poster

Large Banksy film posters are all over the tube in London. Someone's
putting alot of money behind this film.

I've gone to heaven

The Specials win an award at the NME awards.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Matt W Moore



Colourful discovery - Matt W Moore.

I just love this page on his website MWMGraphics - which covers you in waves of colour.

MWM : CRYSTALS & LASERS
Since.Upian Gallery - ROJO Artspace Network
211 Rue Saint Maur - Paris, France

From his site:
"An ambitious creative spirit, MWM (Matt W. Moore) has traveled to Paris for one month to prepare, from scratch, for his first Paris Solo-Exhibition. He arrived with no art, no supplies, and no firm plan for this new series of canvas paintings. The ideas for the artworks have actualized while processing time spent absorbing French Culture, exploring the City Of Lights, the vibrant colors, the exaggerated geometry, and the diverse architecture and fashion of Paris.

These paintings were created entirely with spray paint, one of Matt's favorite mediums. But the designs are very clean, and appear almost digital in their precise details and craft. An honest, analog attempt to achieve the same depth and abstract geometry of his digital "Vectorfunk" style. The goal with each work is to have the viewers eye fall into the piece and get lost in the optical illusions, trying to figure out what is up, down, left, and right."

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Geeking out with Futura 2000

ALIEN ASSAULT RIFLES COURTESY OF LENNY MCGURR & LEGO. from tabatha mcgurr on Vimeo.



This reminds me that I really need to make that felt At-At.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Made



A little christmas present I made for someone special - a Helvetica 'S'

Thursday, February 11, 2010

The Journey Home

I love this journey home for so many reasons.

For Lee in the clouds x

Monday, February 08, 2010

Good Creative Business Advice

I read this and thought that this was great advice, even though it is clearly about ceramics, it can definitely be applied to a lot of my fellow creatives.

It's from Whitney Smith's blog, who creates the most beautiful ceramics which you can buy on Etsy. She tells it like it is, which is great, because sometimes you need to know you're not always going to get nice customers and your work won't always come out perfectly.

"received an email the other day:
It has always been my dream to start my own pottery business. Hoping to do that in the next couple years. Any advice?

My first thought was to just send this person to my blog, but then I thought it might be hard-- even with my half-assed tags-- to ferret out the advice amongst the bitching, crying, and general angst that my posts are usually engaged in. A rational person would walk away from my blog realizing that they do not want to start a pottery business, but ceramic artists are not rational people, at least not when it comes to clay. Look, we take mud and turn it into a freaking cup, so many of us have this idea that we can do anything we put our minds to. Ceramic artists have wills made of steel.

So I thought about it-- what would I advise someone who wants to start a business in making clay objects and then sell them? I made a list.

#1- Get a mentor. Find a successful clay artist and ask them to be your guide, teacher, and mentor. If possible, work for them. When I was first learning how to make pottery, I landed a job with ceramic artist Sandi Dihl. She is a successful artist who has been supporting herself with her work for decades. I leapfrogged ahead in my career by many years because I learned from her firsthand what it took to run a business. What to do, and sometimes just as importantly, what not to do.

#2- Don't sell mediocre work just because you can. A quick peek through etsy will show you that there are many people making unexceptional pottery, and selling it. Don't add to that pile, it is not the path to distinguishing yourself. Brutally assess your work. Find other people whose opinions you trust to brutally assess your work. Make something special that shows who you are and hone that talent before putting yourself in the marketplace.

#3- Realize that when you make pottery for a living, you are sacrificing a part of yourself for money. Every artist struggles with this, and every person who wishes to survive in our society must do this, so don't fool yourself that because you are an artist you can skip by. If you are running a ceramics business, then ceramics is your job. Maybe your dream job, but still a job. I've spent years cycling in and out of burnout and psychological stress from running my art as a business. Recognize that you will need outlets to help balance your life, and put them into place.

#4- Create a support network for yourself of other artists and creative types so that you can struggle and learn together, give each other advice, cry on each others shoulder, and critique and advise one another. Your mother, best friend, and significant other can't do it all for you.

#5- Don't eff up the business end of things, and don't spend one second telling yourself that you are an artist, not a businessperson. If you want to be successful, you must be both. Get interested in running the numbers. Learn quickbooks. Read small business blogs that specialize in the arts. When you are done reading this paragraph, read it again and replace the word "business" with "marketing". Then get interested in promoting yourself. Learn how to use social media and avail yourself of all the online tools that are out there.

If you've been keeping up this week then you may notice a theme developing. I promise to take each point from above and write more extensively about it in the coming weeks, and as usual, some feedback from my readers to keep me on track is always helpful!

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Crazybusy at the Droplet do at 50/50

Crazybusy in Bristol this weekend, Sickboy, Droplet launch and Cheo. Managed all too (a long evening that ended with the odd Alco-milkshake (don't ask).

Anyways, here's the 50/50 Gallery and the Droplet Launch pix.







Saturday, February 06, 2010

Sickboy - Logopop @ Friend & Co

The temple has come home!

This is the first exhibition Sickboy has held since treading the path on the yellow brick road to the big metropolis of London. This also followed his recent December Pop Up exhibition in London which was on for 3 hours.

Maybe the clue is in the title 'Logopop', the gallery seemed to be split in two, with the first half conveying Sickboy's more serious artwork (see last picture) and the other half displaying his more familiar (and apparently popular) temples and street-art screen prints, which were produced in edition's of 3 and were all slightly different.

Giving the audience what they want.