Simulacra And Simulations

The Mail Art exhibition started to pick up some momentum last week, on Thursday I was pleased there was a steady trickle of visitors. Not loads, but enough to mean people came in and left some positive comments. And I received the first submission – a piece by a London based artist, so I was glad for that.

But whilst there, my son appeared, and told me he’d been (temporarily) suspended from school.

This is over something he stupidly posted on Facebook. So here am I, juggling money, fighting my way to build up my career afresh despite the sometimes impossible rejections I constantly face, and I finally start to feel as though something good might actually come of all my hard work for once, just when I want to focus fully on something, I have yet another utterly mind-numbing issue to deal with.

And utterly mind numbing it was. I spent all of Friday completely unable to do anything at all.

Of course, I haven’t planned the exhibition very well either, otherwise I wouldn’t have arranged for it to be on at all this week, as it’s half term.

So I spent the weekend trying to regain some sort of sense of normality again, and this morning I got a call from the Lincoln School of Journalism, wanting to interview me about the LAN, so that’s arranged for Thursday.

And luckily, the lovely Angela from Revival was kind enough to open the exhibition for some visitors, who loved it, and I know that a piece has arrived all the way from Australia. I’m looking forward to going there tomorrow to see what other post has arrived. I’m hoping that my youngest son will come along and keep himself occupied.

I’ve conceded that it was a bit too ambitious to organise a Big Draw event. Maybe next year.

I did a small bit of work on the graphic novel today, I shouldn’t really bother, as my 13 year old seems to be in a really weird mood, and the journalist wanted some info, even trying to email someone seems to warrant pointless clingyness from him ramming a Christmas list in my face :-s

I think after next week I’m going to give myself the last week off for half term, then an extra week to clear my head.

The Pecha Kucha event went well, I’ve developed a cold over the past week, and have mostly been feeling rubbish, so I’ve had a couple of days at home doing some promo for the exhibition, and organising things ready for today.

It was the first Pecha Kucha evening in Lincoln at The Collection, an opportunity to share your practice, or things that influence your work, projects you’re working on, etc. So I wanted to share my recent collaborations with Apparatjik, and I managed to speak coherently enough, without the cold ruining things for me. There weren’t very many people in attendance, but let’s hope the next one is better attended.

I also had hoped to do a bit of promotion for the Mail Art exhibition, but it was enough to speak about Apparatjik as it was.

Next time I plan to do another one, about my own work, and the LAN.

I held a private view today, but I didn’t see a single soul all afternoon. The empty shop space is in a good location near the train station, and bus station, and there was interest from passers by, and buses would stop just outside on the way to the bus station, so people would see the work in the window at least. I hope this will develop interest as more projects happen there in time, and will attract people to come in and see the work.

Feedback so far is that a lot of work has gone into it, not least the fact that I’ve curated it all on my own – I’ve had no help from anyone for this, other than Marie Louise Plum for offering the opportunity, and Anne-Marie Stejila, who sent the work to me. Really hoping more people will come and see it, and get involved.

http://lincolnartistnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10…

Mail Art Exhibition

I’ve offered to share my Oslo adventures with Apparatjik for a Pecha Kucha event at The Collection next Thursday. In amidst the Mail Art Exhibition, which I’ve offered to curate at the Empty Shop space for Marie Louise Plum. This will include my own mail art piece (which itself was sent to Stolper & Friends and returned at the time of the Oslo tragedy in July 2011, and Magne Furuholmen’s Alpha Beta postcards, along with work by a variety of artists and illustrators.

I wasn’t lucky enough to be accepted for the AA2A scheme this year, however, I’ve agreed to keep the work on file for next year, and will work on the graphic novel at home in the mean time between other stuff.

We will be accepting submissions for Mail Art for this exhibition ongoing throughout October, with a main opening event coming up on Friday – please get in touch if you have work you’d like to submit!

Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/427767660603026/

It’s been a busy weekend in Oslo, finally fulfilling my lucky all expenses paid trip; tusen takk to Headhunters / Momentum / Norwegian Embassy. I went to several galleries, went to the National Library of Norway, where “Move To Oslo”, including one of my illustration commissions, was recently exhibited last month as part of an A-ha related exhibition. This was now replaced with an utstilling of work by a prolific Norwegian children’s book illustrator. I had hoped I would have time to meet up with David Sandum, of Twitter Art exhibition, but unfortunately my new phone wouldn’t work in Oslo and I couldn’t get hold of anyone.

For now, I’ve updated this blog with images from the Apparatjik live performance at the opening of the Astrup Fearnley Museet http://helend-blackbird.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/oslo-trip-2012.html

On Friday evening, after checking into the hotel, I took my brother for a walk around Oslo and wandered down to Aker Brygge to have a sneaky preview of the Astrup Fearnley Museet the night before it opened.

Magne Furuholmen has a gallery nearby with Paul Stolper; Stolper & Friends, and I always receive invitations to private views / exhibitions, but obviously cannot always go to them. And I’d had one recently, but was so busy with my own exhibition and preparation that I barely gave it a second thought. If I had, I would’ve made sure I went in good time to catch Magne and Paul there, but what happened was that we wandered past later on in the evening, not even knowing there was a pv on, and I actually got star struck seeing Magne standing outside chatting to a small group of women. I think he saw me, which made me go into some kind of mental A-ha fan mode that I never thought possible, certainly never happened when i met Morten Harket, and I just continued going past. It was as if all of a sudden, a forcefield had appeared round the gallery stopping me from even thinking about going anywhere near. So I went round the block and pointed him out to my brother. Then I can’t remember what we did next, I think we went back to the hotel – either way, it was utterly crap! And I kicked myself later on, as I only spoke to him briefly after the Apparatjik gig, and he didn’t have time to stop and chat. The first words Magne said to me were “I’ve got to go and have a shower” before hurrying away.

I went round the Astrup Fearnley Museet the following day and saw lots of the work there, including something of Damien Hirst’s that I’d never come across before, before there was a fire alarm and we left to take up the free evening buffet in Carl Ungers Loft before the gig that evening.