Christmas Wishes.....

Apologies for a severe lack of posting for the past few weeks..I have been on the sick list for the past 10days - a bad health record my body had not seen in years! Fingers crossed I am back on the mend now for good.. especially now as I am now officially on Christmas holidays..yeaaayy! We have reached our Christmas location in Cheshire, and are heading to Scotland after for Hogmanay.

We did, however manage to put up our Christmas Tree with decorations I made back in early November, at least I was organised with these! Made from my fave air drying clay, I painted these or used decoupage and strung with ribbon or binding.

It has been a busy and productive year, highlights have definitely included completing the Communitas Digitas installation at Nunhead Open, Fab Lab Challenge as part of the FutureEverything Conference and engaging with drawing to produce a new body of work.

On a personal level, special memories have been a birthday holiday to Prague, a holiday to the Black Isle and Summer Isles before and after my sisters wedding, which brought back some happy childhood memories and created new ones.

January 2011 already looks set to be a busy one.  I am giving a talk on the 8th January at the Artists Practice Day at Camden Arts Centre about my own practice, which I am looking forward to, and a little nervous too.  The Artists Practice Day, is a by invitation only crit event for emerging artists.  I have attended before, but only as a dicussion participant, so it is my first time holding the floor.  I also am exhibiting a drawing in the Members Show at Embassy, and completing drawings to be sent to NY for the Sketchbook Tour which begins in early 2011.  I will also be getting on with ongoing projects, applying for funding for the China Residency.....

Wishing you the very for the festive period....and relax...

Navigation Map...

Production has been a little slow over the last couple of weeks due to a horrible extended lurgy, but I have managed to complete a larger drawing, 'Navigation Map', which I have uploaded onto the front page of my website.  The drawing is derived from city centre street patterns and facades of sites that I regularly travel to. I have also been working on sketches for a series of colograph prints and a proposal for the Kaunas Textile Biennale 2011.  Fingers crossed!

'Navigation Map', 2010. Pen and pencil on paper. 45cm x 70cm

Re-wire - Liverpool, 2011, Call for Papers

You may be interested in submitting a paper for the Re-Wire 2011 Conference - Media Art History, which will be held at FACT, Liverpool from the 28th September until the 1st October 2011.

Please read below for further details......


Media Art History 2011 - Rewire

Fourth International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology
Liverpool, 28th September - 1st October 2011

Call For Papers now open - Deadline Monday, January 31st 2011
Host: FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), Liverpool

In collaboration with academic partners: Liverpool John Moores University, CRUMB at the University of Sunderland, the Universities of the West of Scotland and Lancaster, and the Database of Virtual Art at the Dept. for Image Science.

Following the success of Media Art History 05 Re:fresh in Banff, Media Art History 07 Re:place in Berlin and Media Art History 09 Re:live in Melbourne, Media Art History 11 Rewire will host three days of keynotes, panels and poster sessions.

Media Art History 2011 - Rewire will increase the voltage and ignite key debates within the internationally distributed network of histories, which takes account of the questions surrounding documentation and methodologies, materiality, and agency. Rewire aims to up the current to illuminate the British contribution to media art, and by looking at our industrial heritage and contribution to the history of computing technologies themselves, we will open the discussion to how these contributions are manifested internationally. Considering the International scope of the histories of media art, science and technology, Rewire is also listed as part of the "McLuhan in Europe" programme, and will take place concurrently with The Asia Triennial in Manchester and Abandon Normal Devices, the North West's festival of new cinema and digital culture which returns to Liverpool in September 2011.The reviewers especially welcome proposals for presentations that
resonate thematically with these events.

We are looking for original research on:

* The relations between art, science, technology and industry, both historically and now

* New paradigms and alternative discourses for media art and media art history, such as, for example, craft, design, social media, or cybernetics

* Local histories and practices of media art, including (but not limited to) Britain

* Colonial experiences and non-Western histories of media art, science and technology

* Media art history in relation to the biological, biomedical and ecological sciences

* Relations between the histories of media art and those of computing and new technologies

* Writing art history in a technologised and scientific culture, including the documentation of media art and how it is changed in a technologised and scientific culture

* How the field of science and technology studies (STS) can offer useful models for new paradigms for art history

General papers will be accepted. The conference will be delivered in a range of formats, from panel discussions to Pecha Kucha sessions and video poster presentations, as well as a small number of invited speakers. The programme will include competitively selected, peer-reviewed individual papers, panel presentations, and poster sessions, as well as a small number of invited speakers. Keynote Lectures, by internationally renowned, outstanding theoreticians and artists, will deliberate on the central themes of the conference and will include the Roy Stringer Memorial Lecture, held annually by FACT in memory of Roy Stringer, an early pioneer of digital media, champion of multimedia industries in the North West and Liverpool, and former Chair of the Board at FACT. The conference will also include dedicated forum sessions for participants to engage in more open-ended discussion and debate on relevant issues and questions.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words and a short cv by Monday 31 January 2011, either in Text, RTF, Word or PDF formats, and clearly identify three keywords for your paper via the Call for Papers.

I-Mac - Kerry Hughes

I have been keeping my eyes on the website of recently graduated Kerry Hughes, who studied the Graphic Communication BA at UCA, Farnham (2009).  She now works as a freelance designer - working in prop and set design, toy making and accessory design, as well as being part of the design duo Forager.

I particularly like her I-Mac, and other three dimensional felted and stitched objects...

'It must be..'

I have been very poorly for the past week with a cold/flu lurgy, but starting to feel back on the mend properly today...thank goodness! Thus development of my website has not happened so fast. Today I uploaded some images from my Sketchbook project where I am documenting daily sites that I visit over a period of a month.  More images to follow... please have a look here.

Everything Must Go! at Forest, Edinburgh

The Forest Cafe and Exibition Space, Bristo Place in Edinburgh is struggling to support its exhibition and event programme that has offered very interesting showcases and opportunities for emerging artists for over ten years.  When I was living in Edinburgh, and as a student on holiday from Dundee, I always enjoyed visiting the exhibition space and having a coffee or sandwich in the relaxed cafe populated by artistic types and students.

Amongst many activities to raise funds to continue to keep the space open, Forest art holding an Art Auction on the 11th-12th December 2010.  I have donated an etching 'Message Screen', from 2006, to the sale, so if you are in the area pop in to see what else they have in store! Wishing them all the best of luck with their endeavours.

'Message Screen', 2006, Etching on Fabriano, 22cm x 12cm

The last time I was in Edinburgh, I also visited the fantastic workshop, Edinburgh Printmakers, and caught their current exhibition 'Myths and Legends: From Ancient to the Modern'.  A more curated approach to their annual members show which I had taken part in in the past; it features prints focusing on more personal approaches to the historical and mythical narratives from a range of geographical locations.

Another recent addition to Printmaking resources in Edinburgh, is the opening of a Printmaking studio at Amber Arts.  The workshop is available to hire, and also offers bespoke classes in Relief, Monoprinting, Etching and Screenprinting.  It is great to see many artists I knew from my time working at the Printmakers Workshop still thriving!