electric angel /design for life

rings

scarborough’s own cultural olympiad project, seaswim, is sending poem postcards to outdoor swimming clubs around the country asking them to notice sights, sounds and textures when they swim. the aim is to write a collective poem from the responses.

look out for a seaswim exhibition as part of coastival and a series of beach hut artist residencies in summer, plus regular group swims of course.

laimonis mierins 1929-2011

i heard that my drawing tutor from leeds college of art days, ‘lem’ mierins, died just before christmas.

lem was a vital influence in our graphic design training although at the time we often questioned why we spent so much time life drawing and listening to lem’s eccentric and passionate take on the history of art when surely shouldn’t we be designing book covers or something? but now i get it. not only do i credit lem with instilling in me a confidence to just pick up a pencil or pen and attempt to draw anything, but he also taught us to appreciate the flow and movement of line.

the theory of drawing the same thing multiple times, learning with each stroke to eventually be able to produce exactly what you want with all the freshness of that first attempt is something i learned from lem and continues to influence my approach to typography as well drawing.

being a great teacher was only one aspect of lem. he was a noted abstract/pop painter and produced life drawings of great energetic beauty, all about the purity of line and a moment in time frozen with charcoal, graphite or ink. he would regularly remind us as to how good his large geometric paintings would look in the receptions to design agencies – my only regret at not having a reception with black leather sofas and scattered design magazines is that i never had an excuse to buy a mierins.

the last time i chatted with him was at his retrospective exhibition at cartwright hall gallery in bradford, fresh from the state gallery of fine art in latvia [you can download the gallery catalogue as a pdf here]. although clearly moved at his former pupils coming to view the show he quickly slipped back into character and although i may have imagined him actually cuffing me round the ear (a regular technique in his life drawing class), his parting words in thick latvian accent were “…and buy a bloody catalogue!”. which, of course, i did.

advent of a temporary artwork

you wait all year for a beach hut and then two come along at once…

yes, we’re down the seafront again, but this time it’s not sea swim (although we will be sea swim beach hut bound again next summer), but down the coast in bridlington where we’ve been invited to participate in the beach hut advent calender project. each day in advent beach hut no.1 is opened to reveal something new, and today it’s our turn.

it’s all about surprise so we’re not giving anything away, other than to say you’ve probably never seen a beach hut quite like this before. and that you get to take part (you’re not scared of sudden loud noises are you?). so if you’d like to see our for-one-night-only installation-cum-interactive-artwork you’ll just have to turn up. go on – tis the season to be jolly.

the beach hut is opened at 6pm, beach hut no.1, just past the spa, bridlington south bay. all are welcome and there’ll be hot drinks for all.

northerly

we had a great opening night for james’s exhibition on friday – success is usually judged by the amount of drink we get through and we had to wash glasses several times which i think was a first. the exhibition of sea photography taken in scarborough runs until november, we’re open weekdays 10-5 and we’ll be open the weekend of the national pro-surf tour next month as part of the programme of cultural events. prints are on sale at £15- £25.

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northerly – you’re invited

we’ve had some exhibitions that have meant a lot to us in our tiny gallery since opening in february 2010. but even by our standards, this one is going to be rather special…

if you’re reading this, please do feel invited to come along. the exhibition will continue through to november and is part of the arts programme put together by coastival for the UK pro surf tour which comes to scarborough next month.

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little acrobats

our tiny gallery is currently playing host to these little acrobats, the result of a workshop led at st martins primary school by rebecca and artist rachel welford. they were inspired by the three sculptures by bob tuffin we’re continuing to exhibit in the trees outside our studio. more little acrobat pics over on the gallery website.

the little acrobats will be around for about another week before we prepare for an exhibition as part of the uk pro surf tour which hits scarborough in october. more on that rather special exhibition very soon…

typobike

if you’ve taken the most cursory glance at james’ blog, tweets or photography portfolio you’ll know about him and bikes… i know about james’ ability to use a mouse and keyboard with one arm in a sling. so whilst it’s unlikely i’ll also be flinging myself down mountains on two wheels anytime soon, i was recently given a long discarded rusty old gal which prompted this repaint and spur-of-the-moment typography job (you’ll see i didn’t really bother tackling too much of the rust).

having a bike again has prompted something of an affair with the cinder track (site of the wayfinding artwork we created with rachel welford) which i’d only walked various sections of before. having tasted the scarborough end of the route on bike and loving the ravenscar stretch on foot i’m rather tempted to attempt the whole scarborough-whitby in one go. but should this sound all rather athletic, no fear – there are plentiful opportunities for ice creams, cream teas and pub lunches on route.

settled

we (me on typography, james on photography) created this as an offshoot to the creative coast windows project (first fruits of the project here). it uses words from retirees in scarborough. writer dina murphy had conversations with older folks on benches around the town, which given the hilly nature of scarborough get regular use – she then selected phrases from those conversations as the source material for one of the windows.

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we borrowed some of the phrases to create a few temporary text interventions around town of which this is one. it’s exploring a potential approach to future public art projects – a small part of an idea we first had about 5 years ago and which has been stewing away since then. we’ll be revisiting this on different scales as we grab a bit of spare time here and there.

as for the windows project, we’re just chasing permission for our preferred building in the town centre. the window design will also feature illustrations by rachel welford alongside some wonderfully evocative text created/curated by dina. there’s also a design by another local writer-artist-designer team that will shortly appear on the former scarborough music shop opposite boyes department store.

creative coast : creative post

a new series of creative coast events start tomorrow night (thursday10th). responding to calls for a return to the pub, we’re gone really casual and developed a new format whereby we’ll meet in public bars rather than booked rooms and people can use the night however they like.

if you’re wanting to engage with the theme (this month it’s opportunity to suggest practical ideas on what kind of support for creatives local government and organisations could offer) then there’ll be postcards on tables for you to fill in and pass around. if you just want the networking or a good old chinwag, then that’s cool too. we won’t be having speakers or announcements but feel free to bring along flyers to distribute.

meet in the lower bar of the merchant, eastborough, scarborough from 8pm onwards.

and then there were four

bob tuffin’s three acrobat sculptures which we’re currently exhibiting outside our studio/gallery have been joined by an interloper. hanging from the fourth arch of the spa footbridge, this chirpy fellow, apparently made from plastic milk containers appeared overnight. we rather like him.