yikes, it's nearly here!!!!

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!)

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!!!!

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

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

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!

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

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!!!

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

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....

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...

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!

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!

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!

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...

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

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