electric angel /design for life

a trail of hidden words

we’ve got a lot to be excited about right now at electric angel with some lovely design projects and public art commissions arriving from lincolnshire up to the lake district, but what’s promising to make us a bit giddy (and a tad nervous) this week is more local – the trail of hidden words.

charlotte has passion for putting words into the physical world, taking excerpts from poems and books and placing them in context. it’s one of the reasons she seemed such a good fit to join electric angel when james emigrated last year. this passion led her to apply to ideas tap who fund exciting creative projects by young people with her idea of using poetry and song lyrics by younger scarborough residents in one of scarborough’s public gardens.

saturday’s event is the culmination of this idea when the italian gardens on scarborough’s south cliff will be transformed at dusk with words and lights from local writers jamie mcgarry (founder of valley press), lee simpson & martin hughes (from band ‘everyone an army‘), ben sullivan (from ‘lazlo‘) and james koppert (rapper and founder of scarborough hip hip school.)

the event is free and takes place between 7.30-9.30. it’s suitable for all ages and has disabled access. head for the clocktower on the esplanade and you’ll find us.

the empty plinth

the ‘a postcard to’ exhibition has come down in our tiny gallery and we’re sad to see it go – it’s been a popular one. but no fear, we have something a little bit fishy opening in a couple of weeks… keep and eye (or nose) out for that.

so to make use of all this white space, physical and virtual, here’s one of the ‘what we’re working on’ posts we like to do every now and then – just so you know we’re not sat here twiddling our thumbs.

adrian has been been thrusting sculptural type into crumbling cliff tops while photographer tony bartholomew risks life and limb to get that perfect shot. we’re pretty chuffed with the results so keep an eye out for the next publicity coming from scarborough art gallery trust as that’s what it’s all for.

charlotte has been working with text from local young songwriters and poets for something rather special you can go visit. ideas tap have funded this special event – more on that nearer the time but put the evening of 20th october in your diary.

whilst keeping a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff moving, rebecca has also been busy starting up ‘frankly my dear frocks’ – check out her stuff over on etsy.

we’ve been designing too. it seems logos are what everyone wants right now and we’ve been busy on a diverse range of visual identity projects for business start-ups and organisations with an international reach. and coastival is looming on the horizon, in the nicest possible way of course – the 2013 logo is already out there and we’re currently working on a whole new format for next years festival brochure.

that’ll do for now, there’s work to be done and that gallery wall needs a touch-up…

the great typographic scavenger hunt

this weekend (25/26 august) i am ‘artist in residence‘ at the sea swim beach huts in scarborough’s south bay.

i’ll be encouraging whoever passes by to collect stuff off the beach to spell out a word they associate with swimming/splashing/paddling in the sea. i’m hoping that by the end of the weekend we have enough words to form a scratch poem entirely made from scavenged shells, pebbles, seaweed and whatever else the tide has brought it.

the rockpools and beach beyond the starmap are best for this. hightide is at lunchtime so the afternoon looks to be the best time to pop along and join in. it’d be great if you can make it. i’m officially in action from 10-4 so when the tide is in i’ll be around the area photographing previously collected stuff.

i’m also hoping to collect enough shells to form a complete alphabet which will be the start of a project i’m calling ‘shellvetica’ (see what i did there?). perhaps you can help with that too? stuff that’s created over the weekend will be posted on or linked from this blog so check back next week.

[image: 'scavenge' created from photos taken at scarborough south bay yesterday]