Tuesday 30 July 2013

The Burrow Open House, Brighton

I spent last weekend in Brighton, participating in an open house art exhibition. The Burrow, a.k.a Moomin House, is home to the very welcoming Laura Honeker. A variety of colourful couchsurfers have stayed under her roof and I am no exception. I couchsurfed with her back in November, as I fancied a jaunt to Brighton, and at that time my travel expenses to London had been paid by the BFI as I took part in the Second Light Documentary Pre-Production workshops.

My poster for The Burrow exhibition

On Friday I saw the sights of Brighton with fellow creatives Nathan Berry and Leti Mortimer. The Brighton Museum desk-man was nice enough to let us leave some Burrow flyers there. The Brighton Museum was also nice, in that it was full of some interesting stuff.
Leti Mortimer, illustrator, and Nathan Berry, photographer, outside the pavilion.

Meg Vaughan, designer.
Saturday was Trans Pride in Brighton. I missed the march and main rally, as I was manning (/womanning) the fort back at the Burrow. But I did end up there later, having taken a walk, and saw some free comedy.

Nick Williams, musician.
In the background is art by Thea Wilkins and Leti Mortimer.
Sunday saw a final party, with live music by Nick Williams with his instrument assortment, Laura Nenonen and her cello. There was also an impromptu performance by a blonde girl on keyboard, whose name I didn't catch.
Some cool street art.

Saturday 20 July 2013

Psychedelica in Helston

This here's a poster for my exhibition in Helston Museum. ON NOW! If you are a Cornish lass or lad, or a visitor to our fine shores, do pop in. It's free entry to both the museum and the exhibition. So not only do you get some exciting, psychedelic work to soothe your soul, you can first see lots of sparkly rocks, Victorian wagons, military costumes, vintage children's toys and almost every kind (surely) of radio and typewriter this country has ever seen.

My old next-door neighbour died a couple of months ago. He had a grand collection of radios and typewriters. (He also had a lot of biros; rumour had it he'd once had a crush on girl who worked in a newsagents.) I don't know what's happening to them, but I hope his family keep them in one collection. The quantity alone must be impressive. I still have the small transistor radio he gave me when I was a child, though it has been out of batteries for most of the time I used it, so I instead used to pretend it was a high-tech (it was largely silver) communicating device. A walkie-talkie basically. I did in fact have walkie-talkies, but as they were orange and black (Action Man branded, I believe), they didn't feel realistic enough (even though they worked (at least, they did before the batteries ran out). I remember lots of battery-powered toys running down their batteries and then having to run on the power of imagination.

At my Psychedelica exhibition in Helston Museum, there are amusing devices which have no batteries to run down. They are my special Thinking Devices. Through them you can find clever arty things to say to impressive your friends. Although, chances are you might end up with a result that makes you sound a bit of a wally. It's a risk, but I hope it's one people will think worth taking. Art can be fun!