electric angel /design for life

bonjour charlotte

today we officially welcome charlotte to electric angel. charlotte’s been doing odd bits of work with us over summer after a couple of work placements with us and exhibiting as part of the crescent gardens art trail last year. she now joins us as a partner filling the recently vacated third of the business. you’ll be seeing her design work and love for inventive typography on this blog over the coming months…

the big draw

it’s all community engagement with us at the moment… we were invited to lead one of ‘the big draw‘ events at the rotunda museum and were quick off the mark to snap up ammonites as our theme for the day – who doesn’t enjoy drawing swirly shapes? we had great fun and loved the fabulous drawings of everyone who took part. if you couldn’t get down today there’s still opportunity to join in creating a large banner each day up to and including saturday.

limestone journeys – the artwork

here’s the limestone journeys artwork i blogged about last week on display for the ‘festival of the environment’ at creswell crags visitor centre in derbyshire. there were some great comments about the artwork, not least the postcards written in character as ice age cave dwellers.

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if you’d like to read about the different sections of the artwork and the activities that led to them being created you can download an info sheet here.

bon voyage james

today is james’s last day as part of electric angel before he and jenny (that’s mrs rush to you) depart for a new life in the land of mounties and maple syrup.

it’s unfortunate timing that i’ll be out of the studio all today although we did manage to integrate beer and pastry-based products into yesterdays events by way of celebration and i intend to raise a glass along with many of james & jenny’s friends and family this evening.

six years working together have flown by in a whirlwind of strong coffee, good music, sausage doorsteps and considered discussions as to the various merits of bruce willis movies. we even did some designing along the way. if i have a regret it’s that we didn’t create enough opportunities to integrate james’s increasingly sublime photography into what we offered as a creative team but i’m excited at the prospect of seeing canada through his lens over the coming months.

who you work with is, i believe, as important as what you produce and with james i have been most fortunate on both counts.

james – safe journeys wherever life takes you and thank you.

limestone journeys

we’ve been clocking up the miles just lately on public art projects. one of these has been with year 6 at whaley thorns primary school on the derbyshire-nottinghamshire border. it’s part of a project called limestone journeys and we’ve been commissioned by junction arts to work with the school to develop a map-artwork that explores the movement and lives of peoples in the area over 15,000 years.

we took the stance that the artwork would be created from that which the young people had discovered for themselves and to this end invited writer-director lizi patch to join me in the school to develop a way of working in which much of the artwork could be created ‘in character’. the final 5 metre long artwork will include postcards written by ice age people, lettering by roman empire migrants and photomontage created from the lives of their grandmas and granddads.

the above photos are (clockwise from top right): photographing a possible drinking place to make an ice age postcard; exploring a cave at creswell crags; hot-seating in character inspired by family heirlooms; a day in the life of an early homosapien.

the artwork will be exhibited next weekend at the festival of the environment at creswell crags visitor centre.