Simulacra And Simulations

My long awaited free holiday to the Isle Of Wight is approaching, I was getting excited, train tickets were booked….. then last week someone announced that there is due to be a rail strike.

On the exact dates we plan to travel down to Southampton for the ferry.

I sometimes wonder exactly when my life turned into an episode of Fawlty Towers, but can never quite fathom it out.

Lincoln Artist’s Network are looking for artists that wish to sell work at Lincoln Artist’s Market. If you have work to sell, please get in touch!

I finally managed to get in for a quick tutorial for After Effects on Friday, which seems very straightforward, but I can pretty much guarantee that at some point I’ll encounter some confusion between timing and keyframes. Because I usually do.

The animation department insisted that I use After Effects. I can’t do ironing board and old LPs like Alex Pearl does, because it just wouldn’t be right!!

I snuck into his talk at The Collection this afternoon, and sat sniggering at the thought of Button Moon and Dave Gorman, amongst other things. Once those things appear in your mind, that’s it.

I of course never know who’s coming to the artist’s talks, because no one ever tells me. So I go along and have to guess. At some point I will do one of my own…

And it was nice to see John Newling’s Lemon Tree, grown from The Noah Laboratory: Constructing Soil compost he made last February, in a somewhat space – like capsule in The Collection.

I attended a networking event last Thursday evening for Enterprise @ Lincoln, and would’ve thought it a complete waste of time if it wasn’t for some drama students that want to involve the LAN for a forthcoming project, and another student who inquired if we were the ones that did an art installation around the Brayford Pool last summer. (The Lady Of Shalott/The Cupboard Project) It means we’re recognised locally for what we do, which is a good thing.

We have some space booked at The Terrace in Lincoln from next Friday, and a few members are keen to have a mini Alice exhibition there over Easter.

This will run from 8th – 21st April, and I’m just in the process of finalising details for that. I however, am looking forward to going to the Isle Of Wight courtesy of The Young Victoria. A visit to Osbourne House will be lovely, especially because it’s all free!

I caught up at University with regard to the AA2A scheme, have been advised to add images to my blog on the website, which I was avoiding, because it meant uploading them again, when previously I’d been keeping my blogger blog updated.

http://helend-blackbird.blogspot.com/

I’m desperate to get on with my animation, but have been twice to the faculty of animation today to find no sign of anyone available.

I did attend a lecture on Monday about setting up a social enterprise, which was very informative, and confirmed that’s where the LAN is going.

The Alice In Wonderland exhibition will now be in May hopefully, we have provisionally booked Lincoln Central Library for this, and I’ve spent most of this week working on a new ACE grant proposal, fingers crossed we have no more issues with that this time.

Another outcome of the lecture on Monday was a whole lot of Social Entrepreneurship Grant Awards and funding opportunities. From May the Enterprise Inc funding will stop, so it’s imperative to make sure the LAN is sustainable.

I’m rather glad to have more time to get the animation together to be honest.

This month is difficult. My sister has organised a meal for us all for Mother’s Day, which is a week before what would’ve been Dad’s 60th birthday, and their wedding anniversary. My sister wants to do something for Mum, but I don’t really feel like celebrating.

I’ve started to become more reclusive, not through any fault of my own, and seem to find social networking a distraction now – I recall someone saying that spending too much time on Facebook or Twitter was a sign of depression! But then I’ve heard much nonsense about what constitutes depression lately. However, it seems that those that initially criticised its use are now the ones that are having to concede its effectiveness. Here is my twitter feed if anyone isn’t already following me: http://twitter.com/Blackbird1976

The LAN have a separate twitter: http://twitter.com/lincolnan