showing up

2012-01-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2012!!!

yes it started 23 days ago already, i know! there is so much i need to fill you in on, which i will do very soon i promise, however, in the mean time let's look to the future when you, yes YOU!, could come and holler abuse and hard questions at Gillian and myself at the GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL on Thursday 23rd February.......

details here..... Women in Comics

YIKES!
xxx

two for the price of one

2011-07-24T03:55:00.000-07:00

hey hey hey - roll up roll up roll up - today's special offer is indeed two for the price of one - hurray!

well, it's only because time has alluded me once again and i managed to by-pass May somehow... how did that happen? anyway, i have uploaded a-drawing-a-day for May and a-drawing-a-day for June on my facespaceplace...

so, what has been happening?

well.....

....still not heard from BBC about being the new Miss Rolf Hart, which in tele speak is a big fat NO - they are all a bit too busy in tv to update each and every big fat no, aren't they?

ocht well, just let me know when you have a slot free and i'll pop over and perform in your living room instead - payment in tea and biscuits (half up-front, half at end of stint)....

....i decided to combine making an info sheet to help with GMAC's application for funding to first light with my c/o:minx homework for june, the subject of which was 'give us a clue' and came up with this...

....i also took part in the comic con as Team Girl's graphic facilitator during Gillian Hatcher's talk, which you can see a wee bit of at about 1:21:00 in this BBC report and BBC 2's Artworks Scotland at about the 04:45:00 mark - woo!

....i took one of the characters i made for the comedy sting in april and placed it in a frame and entered it, along with a collage of my friend Marianne, for the Jerwood Drawing Prize

...i had a crazy eventful day on the day of delivery - the drop-off point for all submissions in scotland was at WASPS in Edinburgh so i was all set to pop into my studio and pick up a couple of other artists' work, as well as my own, and have a day in Edinburgh looking at the galleries - it didn't quite happen like that

....i headed off to the bus stop about 10am, and about 100-150 yards from the bus stop i saw the bus coming, so decided i should run to catch it, at which point i fell completely flat on my face - it was amazingly fast how it all happened - the pavement just came up and smacked me good and proper right in the face! - ah! still suffering flashbacks....urgh!

anyway, i bust my chin, both my lips and scraped my nose and hands badly and also managed to sook up an entire muddy puddle into my top, which was covered in blood, and so therefore looked like i'd just been in a massive fight - i thought i'd knocked out my front teeth, but they are thankfully still in place!

luckily for me, my most lovely other half was with me and took me back up the hill to my flat, where i had a shower, put on fresh clothes, some plasters and we started off again on our journey.....

we did eventually deliver the work, but didn't really have any time whatsoever to nosey round Edinburgh's galleries, so instead a good walk back through Stockbridge, which is full of some really funky happening wee shops and boutiques well worth checking out, and back to Glasgow to the opening at the Glasgow Project Room.....

i didn't get any work selected unfortunately.....

the moral of this tale - do not try and run in MDBs!!!

....another not so happy tale is, that my volunteer time at Project Ability is up - AW!

i've been volunteering once a week on a thursday since february and have had a really great time working with all the staff and participants - thanks guys! x

....on a much much more upbeat note however, last week saw me applying to Screen NETS (which is now based at Screen Academy in Edinburgh) to possibly become their animation trainee for 20 whole weeks!!! and.........i got through the first part of the shortlisting and have an interview on 12th August - oh my!!!! that is uber uber exciting!

on that very same subject, Jess Ashman, one of my trainees from the Generating Animation Skills Programme, that I used to manage for Scottish Screen has become the FIRST EVER filmmaker on to win 3 awards at Limelight - including £10,000 production prize for her next project - GO JESS GO!!!

....i also stumbled upon a really old blog entry for Forbidden Planet from December last year, where there was an advert for interns to work with Gary Erskine - i know it's like 7 months since the ad was posted, but i decided to email Gary anyway and see if he was up for squeezing me in...i met him the following day - what a lovely man i must say! i don't think i knew what to expect really, but his photo on his blog looks a bit like Shawn Ryder (no offence intended Gary if you don't like Shawn!) so i think i thought he may have Shawn's personality too for some obscure reason - no he doesn't, he is possibly the opposite, in ALL the positive ways, phew!

anyway, i got 3 pencils to take to my studio and work on inking up - MAN!!!! this is possibly one of the most hard things i've tried to do on a long long long time! blimey!

my attempts are, so far, incredibly dismal and fall way below an acceptable level, but i do have a obstinate persistence about me that means i want to crack it - i will not let it lie - i will defeat the ink demons!

the only way to do that is.....

practice, practice, practice!

which is exactly what i am off to do now - how exciting!!!

xxxx

here is the long awaited May update!!!

2011-05-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

well........long awaited by me anyway - not sure about you guys, hee hee...

anyway, i don't know what's been buzzing round my head for the past month disabling my blogs, but let's hope it's buzzed off now - i've had a fair bit to say too and i've done lots of drawing, but somehow for whatever reason i've been unable to blog it out there - mince!

so, deep breath, here goes......i decided quietly to myself, probably due to the 28 drawings later escapade in february, that i would upload a drawing a day over the next year, so feb is done, march is done and i've finally just uploaded april - may is going to be up next week already, as it will be june, eek, eek and triple eek!

i've also uploaded some photos of props i made for a 15 second animation tv sting to flickr

what else have i been up to? errrrr, um... oh yeah - i'm going to be at free hetherington zine fair event on thursday 2nd june, 3-7pm, with a bunch of my iamconsumer booklets, a few postcards and a small selection of prints all for sale if anyone fancies coming along to check it out

i've also been working on getting the new web site for glasgow independent studio & glasgow project room up and running - there are still quite a number of gremlins to iron out, but it is actually live now, phew!

another thing i did that was brilliant once i'd done it, but was one of the most scariest experiences i've had in a very very long time (being a proper mature grown up i tend to steer clear of all scary challenges, i just do straight forward non-threatening challenges usually) - but here was me, in front of a camera for the bbc, undertaking a screen test!!! yes, indeed! i was showing off my 'on-screen presence' and art skills for the chance to possibly be the new tony hart for an on-line educational resource for teachers - to be honest, i was so much more like rolf harris!!!

i've got my fingers crossed for this job - it would indeed be a dream come true for me to be the new tony hart or rolf harris - i would love so much to do that, but it's been a couple of weeks and i've not heard back so my happy little cheeks are beginning to deflate sightly with each day unfortunately....

ocht, not to worry - i can always just come round your house and do it live instead!

xxxx

Working the streets to pay the bills....

2011-04-07T07:14:00.000-07:00

yes i am! thank goodness, it's about time too!

finally after working very hard towards going bankrupt in style via a forth month of minus income i have managed to convince a few folk to pay me for my services - though whether or not this will meet my outgoings or maybe even exceed them this month is dubious, but, nevertheless, it's better than absolutely bugger all, yeah!

the thing is, i do a lot of work, but i never seem to get paid - it's weird, i'm not entirely sure how this became the 'absolute norm' within my life, but i seriously can't remember a time where i haven't been doing work for free - and the weirdest thing about this fact is, that much of this work that i do for free, other folk get paid top dollar for.....!

so, taking this fact on board, i believe it is high time for a 180º about turn - and so, my new mantra is thus:

it's time i got treated like everyone else on the planet

it's time i got respected for my knowledge and skills

it's time i got paid just like every other mucker

so that i can actually pay some bills

ok, so i'm not a poet, ha ha, but you get the drift......

today i have been back to making something really complicated - it's using one of the drawings i did in feb for the 28drawingslater project and working out how to turn it into a fully animated paper character...

the whole point of this process is to test some ideas i've had for a while now (the book launch for 28drawingslater is this saturday where a real live book containing drawings from the project, including 2 of mine, will be on view to paw - woo! i'll find out more details of how to buy a copy and circulate if any of you fancy).

hope all is well in your world and you like the sunshine xxxx

twentyeightdrawingslater - part 5

2011-03-12T07:23:00.000-08:00

it's like star wars - five parts!

yes, here is the final part of my project - i apologise terribly for it being nearer the middle of march rather than the end of february for this, but i do have a very good excuse, honest, i do! i have been designing and hand-crafting, constructing and installing the set for a new show which hopefully i can tell you more about soon, but at the moment is still under wraps....erm, that doesn't sound like a good excuse at all does it? but it is, honestly, and day 26 is a very small peek at some of the work i have been making for the secret show i can't tell you about yet.....

anyway, back to the project....

Tuesday 22nd Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a live chive plant at 99p, a pineapple at 99p, a bag of chillis at 50p, two red peppers at 82p each (all needed to make the most excellent scrumptious good for you salsa!!!! mmmmmm, yum!), 3 limes at 80p (for margaritas!), bag of 5 lemons at 99p, a cucumber at 69p and a pint of milk at 52p.

Wednesday 23rd Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a bag of baby potatoes at £1, a bag of mange tout at £1.50 (that's pretty pricy!) and a bag of 6 tomatoes at £1.

Thursday 24th Feb - a drawing from 'iamconsumer' of 2 pints of milk at 86p, a punnet of plums at £1, two onken biopots for £2, two oranges at 28p each and a bag of crispy cox apples at £1

Friday 25th Feb - a drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a box of kitty biscuits at £1.35, 6 cans of kitty food at £3.96, a large chargrilled vegetable and pesto pizza at £3.99, a packet of 4 apple and cinnamon super soft hot cross buns at £1, a packet of 6 classic super soft hot cross buns at £1, a packet of potato hoop ring styleeeee crisps at 49p, two little gem lettuces for 99p, two carrots for 26p and a very lovely jar of hot chocolate for £1.99 which is called LOVE POTION! and contains a mix of herbs (basil and whatnot!) - very tasty, and if the intention is for it to get you in the mood for the act you love the most, and that act being sleeping, then this is the right potion for sure!

Saturday 26th Feb - today's pic shows the end result of the drawing i started on this day - this was for the secret set i mentioned earlier which i can't tell you about yet! i drew the plants on photocopy paper, then cut out the paper inside the lines of the images and filled the holes with tracing paper - during the following week i constructed some bags from cartridge paper and attached the cut-out drawings to the front and added some lights, et voila...c'est ca!

Sunday 27th Feb - a drawing from 'iamconsumer' of two pints of milk at 86p, a large bag of kitty litter at £5.60, two pots of arrabbiata sauce for £3, two packets of filed pasta pockets for £3, a packet of reduced pancakes at 80p, three packets of red nose special crisps for £1 and a box of delicious dates at £1.68

Monday 28th Feb - a drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a hand-knitted grey jumper (with hood and kangaroo pocket- my most favourite attributes for a piece of clothing to possess!) from a charity shop in Partick for £3, a fish-shaped water jug from same charity shop for £4 (this joins my collection, so now i have a whole shoal of 4 of these jugs - i love them! they are for adding water to your whisky, but the most exciting thing about them is that they make noises as you pour - the shape means bubbles of air get caught in the tail end and so when you tip the jug back and forth, it glugs! cool!)........then for lunch a can of cream of tomato soup at 79p, a loaf of bread at 99p and a small austrian smoked cheese for 89p - what a good day!

twentyeightdrawingslater - part 4

2011-02-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are, day 21 of the task - only a week left - blimey, it's gone by fast!

Sunday 13th Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of 3 packets of crisps which are part of the Red Nose appeal (the Stephen Fry Up pack was absolutely disgusting according to my better half!), a box of dates (utterly delicious!), a bag of bananas, a punnet of reduced strawberries, a punnet of plum tomatoes, a box of breakfast cereal, a tub of cauldron moroccan veggie pate (amazing!), box of eggs, some scottish butter, a jar of raspberry jam, a bag of plain flour, a bag of icing sugar and a bag of granulated sugar - yes indeed, cooking fancy biscuits was on the menu - me and the mr made our very own scrumptious array of jammy dodgers!!!!!

Monday 14th Feb - it is St Valentine's Day!!! here is my card for my most wonderful other half xxx

Tuesday 15th Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a packet of Ainsley Harriot Bulgar Wheat at 89p, a can of soup at 69p, a tub of olives at £1.69, a tin of sherbet filled boiled sweets with Snoopy on it at 59p, a packet of toffy-ooze biscuits at 69p, a packet of 3 iced-fruit slices at 99p (which we took to Plan B and shared with Tom over coffee and book perusing - if you like comic books, then you'll love Plan B - check it out!) and a black and white film at £6.29

Wednesday 16th Feb - a drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a pint of milk

Thursday 17th Feb - a drawing from 'iamconsumer' of 2 pints of milk, a packet of washing powder, a packet of 6 rolls of toilet tissue and a can of tuna for my kitty-cats!

Friday 18th Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a packet of crackers and a packet of tea biscuits (I was very hungry when i sat down to draw them, hence the poor quality drawing, sorry!)

Saturday 19th Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a large vanilla steamer from Tinderbox on Ingram Street - although the drink was indeed vanilla flavour, it was disappointingly not steaming, far from it in fact, it was pretty luke warm and therefore not worth £2.40!

Sunday 20th Feb - catty looking girl...

Monday 21st Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of some olay face awakening cream (it's got mint in it, so it does king of slap your face awake in the morning weirdly enough!), some chinese tea, some thai veggie spring rolls and some spicy vegetable and noodle dish (this was sooooooooo tasty this meal from a place called four seasons on cambridge street - go! it's good value too - this came to about £8 i think)

twentyeightdrawingslater - part 3

2011-02-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

hey hey hey, how good was last night?!!

well, if you were at the opening at Market Gallery for Telling Stories i hope you enjoyed it as much as i did - even though it was really really busy, hot and sweaty!

it was so good to see so many friendly lovely shiny faces of folk i know, but also incredibly cool to actually meet Victoria Evans who organised the 28 drawings later escapade that this blog entry and the previous 2 are focused on - oh yeah!

so, here as a 'catch-up-penny' session is my past 5 days work {uh-oh, slipping into a 'big' catch-up there due to exhibition opening last night - it's my story and i'm sicking to it!}....

Tuesday 8th Feb - drawing of a girl flying with three foxes

Wednesday 9th Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a box of 80 regular teabags £1.39, two boxes of 20 green tea teabags £1.26 each, 2 pints of milk 86p, a 'hot cross bun' loaf reduced to 99p, a packet of ready salted crisps 44p and a packet of tomato ketchup crisps 46p, two fancy-assed pot noodles 69p each, a tube of toothpaste for £1 and four packets of webbox cat delight meaty sticks at £1 a pop...

Thursday 10th Feb - oh man, i just realised that since i started a new journal for 'iamconsumer' on 7th Feb all my dates have been wrong coz i have consistently written Jan instead of Feb - whoops! ocht well, not to worry...let's see, 10th of Feb consists of one seeded finger-roll at 37p...

Friday 11th Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a pot of carrot & coriander soup £1.29, a cheese roll 31p, a galaxy chocolate bar 59p (i pretty much never buy chocolate bars for myself, it's weird, i just took a notion, even though i balked at the price - jeesoh!), a can of ginger beer £1.30, a can of mango juice £1.30, a box of kitty biscuits £1.25, pack of six cans of cat food £3.96, one refried bean & cheese taco £1.49 and one butternut squash quesadilla £4.99....

Saturday 12th Feb - i've been a portrait model all day since 10am-4pm, so felt the need to do some therapeutic drawing, et voila.....

tewntyeightdrawingslater - part 2

2011-02-07T11:24:00.000-08:00

Saturday 5th Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' showing 2 packs of pasta (only £1 each!), 2 cartons of soup (only £1 each!), 2 activia snackpots (buy 1 get 1 free), 1 litre of semi-skimmed milk, 1 box of honey shreddies, and for my poor feet - a pair of insoles & a pair of socks, and... because i managed to stab myself in the hand with a scalpel (aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!) i also bought a tube of germolene & 2 boxes of plasters!

Sunday 6th Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a large reduced loaf of bread, a tub of bertoli olive spread, 1 carton of soup (3 bought though), a box of filo pastry spring rolls filed with goats cheese and balsamic onion, a box of sage teabags, a bar of olive oil soap, a packet of linseeds, a packet of turmeric and a packet of foam sweeties - having a c/o:minx meeting, hence the lovely food! we're preparing our work for a show that opens at Market Gallery this Friday - eek!!! the show is called telling stories and also features work by David Shrigley and Frank Quitely - double eek!!!

Monday 7th Feb - drawing from 'iamconsumer' of a pack of sugar snap peas (yum!), tub of salsa (very hot actually!), a bag of mandarins (not manda rin!), a bag of oranges, a tub of hazelnut yoghurt (how 70's is that??), 1 pint semi-skimmed milk, a box of kitty biscuits, another pair of insoles (my poor poor feet!), a pair of tights, a pair of slippers, 2 bras and a shirt.....yes, i did go primark crazy!!! everything was so cheap - i got confused - then spent too much - bugger!

twentyeightdrawingslater - part 1

2011-02-04T07:06:00.000-08:00

hey there - woooooo! new month, new project - yeah!

and this month...... as well as my 'iamconsumer' project..... i am taking part in 28 drawings later

i have done a drawing every day this month (it's only the 4th today), but i'm only scanning and uploading them today as today is "catch-up-penny" Friday....

Tuesday 1st Feb - a drawing of my 3 kitty-cats looking every-bit the mob of gangstas that they are!

Wednesday 2nd Feb - a drawing from 'iamconsumer' which shows a box of plasters (as i really ripped my heels of in my boots- i'm too used to trainers, my poor wee feet can't cope with real shoes!), a box of surf washing tablets, two A4 frames which were 2for1 at Boots and some flowers (anemones and roses) for my mum's birthday!!!

Thursday 3rd Feb - a drawing of my favourite christmas present - which as you can see is a robin shaped cup - it looks hilarious on top of my telly with my weirdly deformed googly-eyed cactus sticking out of it - it makes me smile!!!

Friday 4th Feb - a drawing from 'iamconsumer' which shows a packet of go-ahead! biscuits, a carton of tomato and basil soup (YUM! all gone now - consumed entirely!), a packet of pitta bread, a pint of semi-skimmed milk and a packet of coffee biscuits (which were only 50p! - bargain!)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

hello 2011 and bye bye 2010!

2011-01-03T07:14:00.000-08:00

ah, the new year is upon us - let's hope it's a guid one all round!
it's definitely a very strange time of year - i'm feeling conflict in my brain because i think that i should be feeling full of joy and optimism, but actually i am incredibly deflated and down - is that the post holiday blues, or is that just me?
i'm aware that sometimes this year i will loose confidence, and at some point i will feel worthless, and possibly there may even be times where i am convinced that i am completely talentless...
however, i am still committed to trying no matter what, because - i LOVE drawing! - i LOVE creating images! that's all i need to remember this year.
from now on, next time is right now - and it's right now every time! all the time! no matter what the time! the time is now!
bon chance, mes amis xxxx

yikes, it's nearly here!!!!

2010-12-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

hello, the new year is nearly upon us - i can't believe it! it was just hallowe'en a wee minute ago...i have actually managed to miss november out completely from my blog!

well i have actually been busy doing a creative scotland visual arts grant application form and a glasgow visual artists grant scheme application - if any of you has filled one of these out before, you'll appreciate the amount of time you need to invest in making it not sound like complete and utter mindless begging drivel - so, stay relaxed and calm and i'll update you about the outcomes some time next year once the adjudicators eyes have stopped bleeding :)

i managed somehow to have one of my silk/tissue/embroidery portraits picked for the royal scottish academy open exhibition - woo!

it's free and still on till 17th december if you fancy a gander....otherwise, see right for a pic of me with my pic! it's hung in a great position - pretty much straight ahead as soon as you enter the first gallery of the show - how fancy am i?!!!!

i also did a huge amount of prep and spent a very large amount of money for a set of workshops i was due to take this week in glenrothes - unfortunately due to the adverse weather conditions, none of the workshops happened and all events were finally cancelled yesterday late afternoon - what a shame! it looked set to be a great week for the children from fife - hopefully it will be re-scheduled for early next year instead.

it's that time of year, isn't it, where everything seems to be being put off till NEXT YEAR!

not so with the winter craft and music event with butcher boy next saturday 11th december at the mitchell library's jeffery room!!! yes, i will be "MAN"ing the team girl comic stall at some point throughout the day where you will be able to purchase comics, booklets, clothes, cards and delicious cupcakes - ooooo, YUM! for info see this event

right, i'm off to continue drawing my piece for the glasgow project room, for the glasgow independent studio member's show - opening on saturday 18th december, phew! no putting anything off till next year for me....not yet ;)

xxxx

the first frost is here (and snow!)

2010-10-22T06:06:00.000-07:00

hello!

well, walking to work yesterday the grass on the hill where i live was still super frosty, even though the sun had been up for a while and i read that there was a big flurry of snow up by inverness too - wow!

this weekend i have my very short, short film 'the possible consequences of one action: part 1 - the end of the world' showing at the hidden doors festival @ the roxy art house in edinburgh - it looks like a totally amazing line-up over the next three days of live bands and films - i'm really really looking forward to heading over on sunday afternoon to enjoy the entertainment! well done genevieve et al, i doth my cap to your stupendous powers of organisation and dedication (they are all volunteers who work in the collective - my kind of folk xx)

i also believe that one of my silk portraits has made it into the RSA open 30th October - 15th December!

wow!

i believe it to be true mainly as i have not received an email asking me to come and remove it from the premises - i did get an email to collect another piece of work as i had entered two pieces - so that's super coolio too!

then of course there is hallowe'en.....

the world's first audio horror movie, 'the dunwich horror', is being screened at the grosvenor on sunday 31st october and so to celebrate the end of the month club is relocating from the 13th note basement to the bright celluloid lights of the grosvenor cafe for the hallowe'en special IX - and as ever, i will be singing my usual spooky nonsense and taking part in some exceptionally distasteful collaborations ....ooooooo!

and then it will be november.......eeek!

xxx

aaaaahhhhhhh it's october!!!!

2010-10-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

oh how did that happen already?? BLIMEY!

september went past in an almighty flurry with the opening of TIME TO GIVE UP, a show by Simon Shaw and myself at the glasgow project room on saturday 4th

the show was only on until saturday 11th, after which the sad task of sanding back and painting over began - it is indeed the weirdest thing in the world to spend all the spare time i had either side of my jobs for about ten days going to the project room and hand-drawing onto the wall with POSCA graffiti pens to make what the project room committee termed a "substantial piece of work" only to just paint over it and make it disappear again - it's kind of liberating i suppose and i have plenty of photographic documentation of the making and destroying of which i will hopefully make into a stop motion soon...

so, after TIME TO GIVE UP, i discovered that my work for the big antidote had also been printed by cure studio, down in London, as part of Zineview: a pop up reading room

this event was run by Teal Triggs (Professor of Graphic Design at the University of the Arts in London) in conjunction with the London College of Communication and Thames and Hudson on Monday 20th

i am also forgetting the marvelous Pietro Fortuna exhibition, Glory, at the Tramway that I was lucky enough to be an artist in which took place on Saturday 28th August - that was pretty exciting stuff to be a part of something so large scale!
and then there was the Ironbbratz antidote to Glory, which was an exhibition in IB HQ with the nifty title, Shame - and i think we were all suitably ashamed of our particular exhibits in this show (well at least Mr Smith and I were as they were particularly low quality) - this show happened on saturday 11th.

that's all for now!

ciao xxxx

TIME TO GIVE UP

2010-08-30T03:26:00.000-07:00

wowee! ok, so the time is nearly here!!!

on saturday 4th september

simon shaw and myself are having the opening of our wondrous show with the nifty title

TIME TO GIVE UP

at the Glasgow Project Room, 1st Floor, Trongate 103, 7-9pm

the show runs daily 12-6pm from tuesday 7th until saturday 11th september

short and sweet x

wading through muck

2010-08-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

hmmmmm, well i have successfully avoided doing anything creative towards my impending exhibitions..............i am floundering around in the muck trying to sort out how to pay huge bills when i earn so little money - it takes up a lot of my time and really doesn't get me anywhere at all, except for making me more worried about drowning under the pressure of trying to stay afloat! bums!

it's less than 4 weeks till the project room opening and my last vain attempt to secure funding through central station didn't work - that's about 5 or 6 funding strands i've approached for this one show and not a single sheckle offered towards it. i know i'm not good with words, that much is clear, hence i'm a visual artist, but i really find it difficult to swallow that i am so unworthy of investment - am i really?

i've tried every year for 15 years to secure some sort of funding from all kinds of places, possibly 20-30 applications each year, but to no avail whatsoever....it's really hard going, especially when i have a show and yet i have no money to produce anything that i had really wanted to, that's really disappointing. yes, i can just show some drawings, yes, i can possibly print out a few pamphlets, but it's not ever going to be the show that i was intending to exhibit due to lack of finance.

i guess it's a never ending balancing act - trying to earn enough money to just get by so that there is enough time to be creative - i've just not found the right balance - before i was far far too busy to fit in creative time properly, now i don't quite earn enough to enable me to pay for my creative time....it's a conundrum...

x

time flies!

2010-07-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

well well well, time flies sooooo fast! i can't believe it is a month since i last posted a blog - how did that happen??? blimey! if it's any consolation i have thought about it frequently...no, that doesn't actually count does it, sorry!

ok, so what has been happening? well, i managed to survive the intensive month of june doing the ironbbrazt art-off at market gallery, phew! i got a letter back from glasgow city council's sport and leisure saying that had unfortunately not won a small visual art grant again (i think i have a complete set of these knock-back letters that span the past 15 years!!!), i have almost completed my first ever e-card animation and i have nearly filled my first book of 'iamconsumer' (only two pages to go!)....

up and coming over the next few months is ironbbratz team working with some italian artist at the tramway in august - {will let you know what, where, when and who once i know} - and also a show in the glasgow project room in september with simon shaw - {cripes! i'd better start making stuff!!!}

i'm off to eat my tea now and contemplate the future manoeuvres needed to sail my dingy safely around the shores of possibility xxx

june june june june june...etc

2010-06-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

my my my, half way through june already!!!

this month I have mostly been involved with the Versus project held at Market Gallery - I am on team Ironbbratz - hell yeah! we have created and installed 4 shows since the beginning of the month and we have our 5th show opening on Saturday 20th at 7pm - come and join in!

also, the comic strip project, the big antidote, that i did the opening story panels for (not the title at the top, but the bit that introduces Sylvie and the fox) is now actually up on a 30 metre long hoarding on Old Street, London!!!! if you can, please go and see it, take photos and send them to me (as I can't go to see it myself), i would most appreciate that, thanks.

right, must go and make art!!!
xxxxxxxxx

i think this must be the gulf stream!!!

2010-06-02T16:12:00.000-07:00

well, this month has started off at full throttle....
a week or so ago i got invited to take part in an exhibition experiment which sounded pretty good fun - i didn't have too many details about it, just vague idea about it being a kind of competition against another group of glasgow based artists....
we had our fist meeting yesterday at 7pm at Market Gallery where the true extent of what i have signed up for became a lot clearer...very suddenly!
it's art wars!!!!
we got our first brief last night and a budget from which we had to produce a work to assessed this afternoon at 5:30pm!
there were several factors that made this a hard task
- 1st was my group Ironbbratz was made up of people who didn't all know each other or each others' work and practice
- 2nd the budget was given to us after most of the shops had shut (and our decisions were definitely made after all the other useful shops in the vicinity had closed)
- 3rd was that many of us have those really crap things called jobs which get in the way of work!!! hee hee, only kidding!
it was all good and really really exciting - i've not been so pumped about being involved in anything for ages - this is the kind of project that takes me back to just after i graduated when everything seemed possible and everything pretty much was possible depending on how much effort you put in to make it happen - BRILLIANT!
we got graded as 'effective' for our response to the first brief, occupy....
we have our next brief already and will be graded on Friday afternoon....hmmmm...
apart from that, i am in the final stages of the ten animated films i'm making for East Ayrshire hopefully - squeezing them into all my spare time (which seems suddenly to have completely evaporated - eek!) so that should be one less thing to do soon, fingers crossed...
i'll be back..................after this break
x

meat meat meat

2010-05-13T14:44:00.000-07:00

hello, well, the c:o/minx meeting was really fun as we went to the closing celebration party for GI in the Pollok cricket club...as soon as we walked in the club house we were confronted with a table of meat products which turned out to be a raffle...we didn't buy any tickets, just some beer which we placed on top of the pretty hideous and badly varnished spam and egg coasters!!! (made of real spam and egg, yes!!)

there was a really good band playing, but i've no idea what they were called, and then there was some pinjata action served against a quite attractive pink paper mache pig, and then at the end of the night, the raffle was given out....by this time we had inherited a number of raffle tickets from other folk who had left and first we won a pie in a tin, then we won a box of gravy granules, then a tin of corned beef, then some frazzles...

i'm a vegetarian

anyway, back to taking over the world with my scribbling....i need to get these animations for the schools finished and get back to my own work - it's weird how jobs come along like a big gust of wind and blow me off track - i really need to get myself some anchors and/or steel underpants tout suite!

toot toot x

big fat monday....

2010-04-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

hello, it is indeed big fat monday - and to try and combat it - and the fact that i have barely moved for two whole days due to an extra-ordinarily large amount of animation prep work - i have walked to my yoga class (about 2.5miles away), did my yoga, and then walked home again (another 2.5miles), however, it is still monday......

so, the last week has compromised mainly of cleaning up after my wee kitty as she has been super poorly and sickly - really stinky and bad stuff, poor wee soul!!! i have not had much of a chance to seize the rudder and steer myself into any brilliantly creative inlets or cruise by a research and development island unfortunately - bums!

i did show Dave my drawings for miss monkey and he seems happy so far with the direction they are going, but i have decided to hang fire doing anymore until the poem is finished, as the story my change and then the drawings will be redundant, but i have really enjoyed doing them, so i'm looking forward to getting the finished version from Dave when he has it!!!

the other creative endeavour i've been involved in this week is working with 2 primary 7 classes in kilmarnock to make a series of animations based around the novel, carry's war - the final part of the class contact time was on friday there, when i filmed and sound recorded all the groups (there's 10 of them!!!) performing their chapters live beside a kamishabai theatre {this is what i have been working on preping all the animation images for editing on top of the live performance for, over the past two days - phew! it really is an extra-ordinarily huge amount of work - mainly because there was hardly any class time with the children and so i have had to do all of the animation work on behalf of the children...a very odd situation....}

anyway, i look forward this week to friday mainly, as i have a meeting with the most excellently talented and darn-right beautiful c:o/minx girls - yeah! bring it on! (oooo, i did do my homework ages ago, but my computer crashed...can't remember if i ever went back and re-did it - best check before friday!)

have a good week
xxxx

it's raining fairly hard...

2010-04-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

the wind is whipping up quite a fair wee bit too outside - luckily i'm home safe and dry with a warm kitty draped across my lap :)

it's GI time - oh yes it is!

i don't have any work in it, but i've been to see some good shows so far - i've seen 'fizz up and disolve' at Glasgow Project Rooms, Jim Lambie's 'metal urbain' at the Modern Institute and Tony's band at le Drapeau Noir (new cafe venue opposite Stereo on Renfield Lane) - all very very interesting and inspiring.

i have also started a batch of drawings about a young female monkey, which hopefully may be turned into a story book app if Mr Dave Sapien of Me and the Giants likes them....i'll show him them tomorrow and keep you posted..

apart from that....i've been for TWO farewell lunches with my Scottish Screen colleagues in the past week, both yummy and very enjoyable (that'll be the food!) - i do miss those guys!
....and last week i was elevated from meagre Studio Manager to the high echelon that is Director of Glasgow Independent Studio!!! woo! that's pretty exciting :)

i think that's it really...my mind is a bit blank to be honest...the radar is not showing up anything significant on the horizon and i've still not quite worked out which way up to hold my map...but it'll all be clear enough soon, i hope
xxx

swanky...indeed!

2010-03-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

hello, well the waves have welled up and completely smothered me the past two mondays - ooft! making it difficult to shoehorn my blog in, but...with straggly bits of seaweed still stuck in my hair and a slight burny feeling on my salty exposed skin i am now determined to start rowing off to warmer and calmer climes!

firstly, i have to point out i have been enjoying my new post at once were farmers so much - these guys truely rock!

secondly, thanks to the most lovely innes, who has made me some choice choonz, i have managed to bang together a rough version of "the possible consequencies of one action - part 1: the end of the world" to submit to re:animate at oriel davies gallery - this wee animation, which incidently is only about 48 seconds long has been shot 4 different times!! the first time i shot it on super 8 (nine weeks work) and then it was developed with the wrong chemicals so it didn't come out!!! the second time i shot it on super 8 (a further 7 weeks work) and then someone stole it out a cupboard in glasgow school of art (where i had stashed it
supposedly to keep it safe)!!!! the third time i shot it on super 8 (another 7 weeks) and sent it to london to be developed by professionals, who did indeed develop it and transfer it to digital, but it was a bit fuzzy and drained looking! so.......i shot it a fourth time, this time using my nikon d60, frame by frame, just as if it were super 8 (a tremendously intense further 5 weeks) and....taaaaadaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! it is now in existence and has sound too! thanks innes xx

the other wonderful news i have sifted out the swell is that there is a new promo video up on the trongate 103 web site which has the first organisation spot lighted as glasgow independent studio and glasgow project room, where i have been studio manager for the past 5-6 years. the interview with brian hartley gives a really great overview of all the fantastic things that happen in the studio and gallery, but.....hold onto your hats......
the first studio we visit in this clip is mine!!! yes it is! that's my wee animation cells lined up, my sketchbook on my desk with a wee note from someone to me beside it, my paints and inks, my row of chiffon paintings and longshot towards my window!!! mine! mine! mine! i tells yee!
yar-har-har!!!

i am tres swanky....indeed! xxx

suction pad towel holders are rubbish!

2010-03-08T15:12:00.000-08:00

well i've been bobbing along this week, still slightly traumatised by the whole painful teeth and gums thing, but I did start working at Once Were Farmers on Thursday and managed to put in a 10.5hour day!!!! yes, true, i really shouldn't have done that many hours due to my sickly state, but i got involved in building a loo roll holder and bog brush unit and attaching suction pad towel holders to the walls (which incidently fell off rather swiftly..!!!)

i now have been acccepted to be part of the daumenkino - thumb cinema that i mentioned last week and the exhibition details are as follows: the exhibition is curated by abigail hirsch and brings together national and international artists from different disciplines with different approaches to the idea of FLIPBOOK.
launch: Friday 12th March 2010, 6:30-8:30pm
open 11th March - 24th March 2010, Wed-Fri 1-7pm, Sat 1-6pm
venue: 17 Pitfield Street, London N1 6HB
tube: Old Street

also, i got a rather exciting email about a project i submitted work to in the autumn last year, the big antidote. the studios that run this project are also taking part in a series called the Hoxton Hoarding Project - the hoarding will change every two weeks and will feature work from artists such as A Child of Jago, HigginsonHurst, VNA magazine and......in May.....big antidote!!!! hooray! the hoardings can be found at 313-319 Old Street (on the junction with Rufus Street by White Cube Gallery).....and......apparently, the best photos uploaded onto flickr, tagged with 'hoxtondisplay' will win meals and prizes and stuff!!!!

wow! it all almost makes me wish I lived in London as my artwork seems to be having a ball of it down there at the moment....amazing!

other news is, i had a lovely afternoon of scones with jam and cream and two huge pots of tea on Sunday with my lovely c/o:minx ladies, Heather and Yvonne - it was scrumptious! just what the dentist ordered! our new topic for next meeting is "photo-story" - oooh!

well, that's the highlights of this week, which actually in retrospect look pretty hot! i hope this week coming will be too

xxx

the pain of it all! OUCH!

2010-03-02T08:43:00.001-08:00

this week i have mostly been suffering from toothache caused by wisdom teeth and ensuing virus in gums - aaaaaargggghhhhh! the salty sea water is the only thing keeping me upright (along with the anti-biotics)...

what happened this week then? how much progress have i made on my epic journey i hear you cry!

well,

i managed to print and bind a flip book and send it to london in time for the daumkino deadline - hooray! more about that when i find out about it...

i also got my application in for arts trust of scotland, so more about that when i hear back...

i think that may be it for this week - my mind is slightly forgetful with all the crashing waves of pain lapping about my ears just now....ooooo, the pain of it all! OUCH!

one week later...

2010-02-22T14:42:00.000-08:00

and where has the sea of change taken me? have i managed to catch the rip tide to success (or even just a warmer climate)??

no, not really - i guess it's only been one week....i've mainly been checking my dinghy and making sure it is ship-shape and ready for the big adventure...i've been writing lists of things that need to be done throughout the week on a day-by-day basis, which includes time for creativity as well as all the other snash...it's proving to be quite a good navigation tool at the moment!!!

this week's important deadlines include:

making at least one new flipbook by friday so i can post it down to the daunmankino exhibition in time - woo! exciting stuff! my first attempt has failed so far due to me deciding to print it out via Boots photo printing facility - the problem occurred when Boots decided to crop my work and now some of the pages in the sequence are too small!!! eek! (I called Boots and they told me to come back in and they will try and fix situation, thank goodness! but that'll be wednesday before i can go in again....)
setting up a new animation support group with the two other jurors who I sat with on the BAFA new talent animation jury on saturday morning - mr jim stirk and mr jamie stone - brilliant! i'll let you know how that progresses

ciao for now xxx

today i started my future

2010-02-15T15:10:00.000-08:00

i spent the afternoon mulling over what i got up to last year in 2009 and thinking about where i really really want to be a year from now - it was not entirely an afternoon of discovery for me, but more an afternoon of re-affirming the already blantantly obvious fact that things in my life really need to head in a fresh direction....

so, i thought i would start a blog about my progress across the wide open seas of change in my wee one woman dinghy!

if you are a salty old sea dogg, then this could be right up your street and all your wise words of wisdom will be most welcomed, and if you are a landlubber then perhaps this journey might inspire you to take a dip in the ocean, if only one wee toe!

xxx