Silver 2020
Hammer-wielder
I’ve been hammering away at pieces of silver for the last few months, inexpertly crafting bits and pieces for myself and loved ones. I’ve cut & soldered & beaten & ground & polished and even as a beginner it has been possible to create a few things of beauty.
I can’t help but contrast the joy with which these were received with reactions to my attempts to be creative using software – I recently downloaded Sketchbook to create working drawings for digital projects and uploaded first plays with it to much hilarity from others but we all know if it’s not online then you aren’t making anything and then I also downloaded Blender again to revisit my cackhanded efforts at making 3D models and I have sat impatiently through the video tutorials for beginners and my raggedrobinfey.fbx still doesn’t look like I want it to but you can’t just pick up a hammer and a blowtorch and see what happens.
I prefer picking up materials that I can experiment with – clay, plaster, paint, metal, fabric – without the barrier of having to learn what every fecking button on a laptop can do. But maybe I have just forgotten the past fifty years or more of familiarity with clay, plaster, paint, metal, fabric and all the tools that go with using them and if I want to make the VR/AR/MR pieces that currently sit inside my head, without waiting for a magic pot of money to pay someone to do what I want done then I need to learn how to use Sketchbook and Blender and Unity and put the resulting messes up and not worry what people will say about my initial attempts. It is exciting to play with new software, just not as easy as throwing a flame and beating with a hammer.
Another year over
Here is my greatest achievement, my small tribe:
so I filled in the form and clicked send and now I am wondering why on earth I thought there was any point
Wings of glass rod feathers
from an exhibition of contemporary Chinese ceramics and glasswork at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery
In the footsteps of giants
I’ve just got back from spending five days in the company of a lovely bunch of fellow writers. I’m exhausted! I was lucky enough to get on to a course at Arvon in Hebden Bridge on writing for games, run by David Varela and Jon Ingold.
Amazing place – once lived in by Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath (and yes I did make the pilgrimage to her grave nearby) and now a house full of photo portraits of all the writers who have tutored the residential courses.
What a week!
I’ve come home with a head full of ideas and under strict instruction to not be hesitant about calling ourselves writers.
So. I write, therefore I am a writer.
Reverent Actions Book
I just got back from three days of intense book development in Newcastle, working on the creation of a tangible object that captures the output from the Reverent Actions (action)research project. We inhabited a small room at the Newcastle Arts Centre, a group of people who have been involved over the past couple of years (is it that long?!) coming together again to shape our discussions into something shareable. We think we have cracked it, with some very helpful input from Andrew Wilson . It’s always good to get a fresh pair of eyes on something you have been immersed in for a while.
Constance
A new year & new projects. 2014.
Well here we are in 2014 and we are all busy getting on with different projects.
Emily is working with Sunshine on the exciting Skype Collaboration Project and has just got back from NY Fashion Week and plunged into London Fashion Week.
Harriet is organising various events and festivals around London/Southbank, working on LOCO and BFI Future Film, as well as trying to find time to explore her own filmmaking and creative work.
Constance is working on various writing projects and her most recent creative foray was at the Global Game Jam at Bristol Games Hub, where she worked on a slightly gruesome AR iPhone game with Ben Trewhella from Opposable Games. She is also still involved in Reverent Actions (the AHRC-funded connected communities funded project) which is currently developing a final publication for sharing.
What Happens After The Ball?
featherhouse were once again invited to show work for Decima in an exhibition, this time in London at a temporary pop-up gallery in collaboration with Jackie Clarke and Nomad Galleries – What Happens After The Ball?
Adapting the photo collage technique used for the Britain’s Rubbish exhibition, featherhouse again allowed romantic fictional characters to invade well known tourist spots. This time in giant form, and in Picadilly, spreading the big love at the nation’s dazzlingly colourful home of Eros and er, Coca-cola….
The A3 print outs were positioned near the thermostat in the gallery… sizzling!
Nomad Galleries, Jackie Clark & Decima present
An art show not to be missed nor sniffed at
W H A T?H A P P E N S?A F T E R?T H E?B A L L ?
Adam Dant + Stephen Gill + Mark McGowan + James Hopkins + Vicki Gold & Alex Fear + Simon Ould + Brian Morrissey + Eleanor Lindsay Fynn + Mark McGowan + Joy Collie + Ingrid Z + Piers Wardle + Jackie Clark + Laura Oldfield-Ford + Louise Camrass + Micalef + Richard Niman + Gilbert & George + David C West + Derrick Welsh + Alex Chappel + Angelica Fernando + Byron Pritchard + Dr. Adolf Steg + Emma Andrews + Emma Forsberg + Featherhouse + Francis Farmer + Geoff Hautman + Geraldine Cox + Geraldine Ryan + Harriet Fleuriot + Ian Wright + Jackson D Ferguson + Jenny Gordon + Josephine Ada Chinonye Chime + Julesy P + Katarina Forss + Kate Ketchup + Larry McGinity + Louise Loudoun + Mark Reeves + Mel Simone Elliot + Natasha Morland + Oliver Dungey + Richard Starbuck + Rob Sargent + Rudi, Count Phalle + Takayuki Hara + Tom McDougall + Rose Mouton
Dress for after the ball.
We cannot emphasise enough, this event is strictly INVITE ONLY. To gain entry you MUST rsvp here as “coming” or go to www.decimagallery.com and follow the links. This is a legal requirement of the venue so there will be no exceptions, sorry. Get on the guest list.
What happens after the ball??That’s what I want to know.?In the one step they all hold you so near?and whisper things that a girl shouldn’t hear.
But in the two step?They have a new step?that isn’t in the dance at all.
And when the band began you’d have a surprise.?You could tell their thoughts by the look in their eyes?If that’s what they do when they’re dancing…?What happens after the ball?
featherhouse at Tate Modern
On the weekend of 12/13th December 2009, feather house went to the Tate Modern for Rob Pruitt’s Flea Market, where we were selling more romance-themed items on the Tate Modern Turbine Hall Bridge– beating heart books, prints from Britain’s Rubbish and What Happens After The Ball, as well as some beautiful lighting inspired by exploding males torsos and a tombola style lucky dip where you win a saucy novel with the naughtiest bit bookmarked by an original featherhouse postcard. Ooh la la!
Here’s the info about Flea Market:
“Holiday cards! Ornaments! Garlands! Mixtapes! Crafts! Artwork! Clothing! Gifts! Photographs! Fruitcakes! Stockings! All by your favorite artists, celebrities, and other surprise guests!
A festive reprise of Rob Pruitt’s Christmas and Kwanzaa (an African-American festival) version of the ‘Flea Market’ event, programmed to coincide with the exhibition Pop Life: Art in a Material World, in which Pruitt also appears.
Originally held at Gavin Brown’s Passerby gallery in New York in the late 1990s, then featuring artist peers including Elizabeth Peyton, Piotr Uklanski and Rikrit Tiravanija, Pruitt’s Flea Market is a playful take on a curated group exhibition cum entrepreneurial initiative.
For Tate Modern, Pruitt has worked with a new selection of London-based artists, plus some of the original participants, to set up market stalls with everything from artists editions to old 12²s, in a seasonal flavour.”
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/musicperform/20642.htm