Highlights of 2010

Here's some highlights of 2010:

Exhibitions seen : Rachel Whiteread at Tate Britain, Agnes Martin at Tate Modern, Picasso at Tate Liverpool, Shackleton at Maritime Museum, Liverpool, Robert Mapplethorpe in Sheffield, Beyond limits at Chatsworth, Ron Mueck, Goya prints & Facing East in Manchester, Miroslaw Balka's & ai Weiwei's Turbine Hall installations at Tate Modern, Ai WeiWei, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at Manchester Art Gallery & Abstract expressionism at MoMa New York & Kandinsky at the Bauhaus at the Guggenheim New York.

My art: Cut Click exhibition, Won the Dry the River Poster Competition, Finalist in Ten Images for Ithaca & work shown in Greece, Sushi carriage in the Doodlezine, Berlin Poster in the Show us Your Type exhibition in Barcelona, Picked to be in the 1st Central Station Book, To Kill a Mockingbird T-shirt design did well, Finished large complex map drawings, in the online map where I belong exhibition, started screenprinting!

Music: Idlewild at Moho Manchester in April & the 100 broken windows at Relentless Garage, London in December, Discovering great albums by Wild Nothing & Best Coast, Rediscovering old stuff by Weezer & Belle and Sebastian, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals new/old III/IV album, she & Him's Volume 2 which is just as good as Volume 1 and finding new gems like Frightened Rabbit, Loch Awe and LCD Soundsystem.

Places Visited: Visited New York City for the first time ever and found it exceeded my expectations ten-fold & they were pretty high to start with. Back on UK soil went to Chester Zoo, Chatsworth Horse Trials, London-wimbledon (queued overnight!)/kew gardens/balham

Notable Books: Finally got round to reading some Haruki Murakami (After Dark), Walden by Thoreau, Diving bell & the butterfly, Moondust, Nothing by Paul Morley, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the 50th anniversary of it's publication.

Oh and who could forgot we got the cutest little kitten ever and we named him Panda!

Work in Series?

I’ve been working on a series of works for a couple of years now I loosely title them ‘Map Drawings’ as they are all drawings on maps. Working in series has brought up some questions though. This series has become a comfortable set of work, which I can easily go back too and fit into again, it’s become my comfort zone. This phrase ‘comfort zone’ has always felt negative and maybe it doesn’t have to be, maybe while restricting yourself and limiting your parameters great things can come from it too. I remember having a great quote that illustrated this but I can’t find it now so I’ve found a few more:
‘Each repetition has a new meaning’ --Gandhi
Limits increase creativity. --Kim Stimpson
‘Repetition is the mother of all skill. --Anthony Robbins

Or am I just in denial? All the great artists are put into boxes of what they are known for, we all do it go round galleries guessing who’s work that is and more often than not it’s easy to guess because of their style, their comfort zone of work is easily noticed.
Maybe because I keep coming back to this series it means it’s not finished, maybe it won’t be done until the last piece is completed. Does there have to be an end, it can be organic, just go with the flow and work to your own rhythm not dictated by anybody except yourself or at least your subconscious.
What do you think? Why do you work in series? Why don’t you work in series? Is it important?

100 Abstract Broken Windows

 

One of my favorite albums of all time is Idlewild's '100 Broken Windows' and this year was the 10th anniversary of it's release, I loved it when it came out and still love it now, it's such a complete album every song is there for a reason and it flows effortlessly. My first ever gig was on the 100 Broken Windows tour at Manchester and the last gig I went to was the 10th anniversary 100 Broken Windows gig at the Relentless Garage in London. I've seen them loads and they still surprise me with how good they are and how amazing they make me feel. They're taking a hiatus this year so they can come back better in 2012! plus it lets Roddy Woomble do a solo tour and I get to see him at the Union Chapel in March, wahoo!

Anyways to celebrate 100 broken windows' birthday I listened to the album and drew a small abstract picture for each song (1st song-'little discourage' is top left and they then carry on...). Each image was drawn in the time it took to listen to the song and then I've put them all together and you can buy a t-shirt of it here! I think they make work better individually and with some type and then maybe I'll bring them all together to make a zine. I've never made one and this would make the perfect one, so keep an eye out!

Lochgilphead Map Drawing

I finally finished my latest map drawing I've been working on, it seemed to take forever at the time and now it's just become a record of that time. I took an OS map of Lochgilphead that I'd found in a charity shop and using the grid squares of the map I blocked out alternate contours within each square and then the opposite ones in the grid square next to the that. As well as completely blocking out all the green spaces. Why? The answer to that changes constantly, sometimes its a reaction to information overload and I need to gain a bit of control or freedom and I can achieve this through taking time over a map with a simple pen. Other times it's creating shapes from things that already exist, turning things around to a new perspective, a new lightness or darkness appears from something that wasn't there before. Then I like that sense of decision at the beginning where I decide what process to undertake at that point I am at my most decisive until I realise that it's impossible or not going to work out and then it changes and becomes permanently in a state of flux like me, like us, like the planet and the universe, it has always been like this and will always be like this, we're just along for the ride...

Central Station Book!

I'm in the Central Station Book, my copy just arrived and it looks fab- My map drawing 'Map Circle' was chosen to be a part of it (see top pic)! It's a book celebrating the 1st year of Central Station and there's Q&A's with two of my fave artists Martin Creed & Richard Wright, information about projects and what happenend with the member fund and lots of exciting portfolio work.

If you're not already involved, it's a community for artists/designers/filmakers/photographers/illustrators and many more creatives and you should join in just go here! If you'd like to get your hands on a copy of the book it will be available from January 2011.

New York City!

I went to New York a couple of weeks ago and had the most amazing time! The architecture, the shopping, the art, the food, the streets, the sights, the people, the views, the park! We went to Katz's deli, the pastrami sandwich was like nothing you'd ever believe, saw Kandinsky exhibition at the Guggenheim and Abstract Expression show at MoMA which were unbelieveable. Ate donuts for breakfast and took in an ice hockey game at Madison Square Garden, walked around Greenwich village. We took the subway to Brooklyn and walked back over the Bridge, saw Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and had a turkey dinner, went up the empire state and had the most amazing peanut butter brownie! Just had the best time and now I'm back to grey ole england and missing it so much!

Berlin/Barcelona & Paper

My Berlin poster I did for show us your type was exhibited in Barcelona and still on show till the 5th December at Galeria Cosmo better get there quick! In this picture it's the 2nd from left on the top row. It's great to think it's off making friends and starting its own journey!

My 'Paper stack' piece which was part of my degree show was featured on Central Station's Top 5: Paper. I'm also going to be featured in their Birthday Book which comes out in January, so watch this space for news!

Chemistry submission for Compound Mag

Here's my submission for Compound Mag on the theme of Chemistry. Every issue will be based around a theme and everyone picks a song to interpret thus creating a visual mixtape. I choose 'Contagious Chemistry' by You Me at Six who are fast becoming a favorite. Go here for more details on how to submit, you've only got till 6th December for this issue though so hurry!

Cat & Octopus bags on Etsy!

Check out my new Cat and Octopus bags on Etsy, they're hand screen printed, which was so much fun to do! They're for sale in my new etsy shop called Louweasley's I'm going to be stocking it up over the next few weeks with cards, prints and then some t-shirts and more bags. I'm going to do a travel series of items starting with New York-I've just come back from an amazing trip there and will be sharing some pics soon!

Berlin in Barcelona

My Berlin poster has been chosen to be in Neue's 'Show us your type' exhibition in Barcelona! There'll be over 100 posters of typography depicting New York, Berlin, Hong Kong and Barcelona; It opens this Thursday, 18th November and shows until the 5th of December at galeria cosmo. If you're over that way pop along it'll be great! Here's the galerias address:

Cafe & galeria de arte

C/ Enric Granados 3

08007 Barcelona

Espana!

Reading books

I've been reading loads lately, I seem to go through phases of non-stop reading and then reading nothing, I must wear myself out! Lately I've read:

After Dark by Haruki Murakami

Moondust by Andrew Smith

The Clan of the Cave Bear & Valley of Horses by Jean M Auel

Wrong about Japan by Peter Carey

The Diving Bell & the Butterfly by Jean Dominque Bauby

and at the minute I'm reading Walden, or life in the woods by Henry David Thoreau

What have you been reading? any great suggestions? My fave from the above was probably After Dark, it was so atmospheric and didn't give everything away, the story was allowed to continue in your head long after you'd put the book down.

Outdoor sculpture exhibition at Chatsworth

A couple of weeks ago I went to see the beyond limits sculpture show at Chatsworth in Derbyshire. It's become an annual show of outdoor sculpture in association with Sotheby's who are trying to sell them to those lucky millionaires out there. Here's Yue Minjun's 'Contemporary Terracotta Warriors' installed in the cascade looking fab; Ron Arad's 'Rod Gomli' chair with an imprint of a person upside down; Eduardo Chillida's 'Gurutzeak I' (my favourite) and David Breuer Weil's 'Visitor' head coming out of a lake which disapointed a little.

Autumn had arrived with gorgeous colours, leaves falling and still some dahlias blooming. Here's Eve by Richard Hudson in which you could see your reflection in about 6 different surfaces at once, fun and it made you interact with the other visitors at the same time.

Richard Long's slate pathway is in Chatsworth's permanent collection, positioned perfectly by the canal pond, shame you couldn't walk on it though, why get precious about it, it's a natural material. Another of my favourites was 'Why does strange fruit always look so sweet' by Johan Creten' an old statue covered in black globules.

Zabok Ben-David's 'Leftover' and 'You Again' were beautiful, installed in the right place and really difficult to draw!

Ron Arad's 'Ping Pong' was exquisite and I didn't even recognise it as a ping pong table till someone pointed it out to me, even the name didn't give it away, I saw the person on the end flying with wings, that's what's great about art, it doesn't always have to mean what the artist or curator or what the person next to you sees, you get to choose how you see it.