electric angel /design for life

open for business …and art

a freak blizzard brought scarborough to a halt for our gallery opening, but lots of friends still braved the snow to look at rachel’s work and glass or two of much-needed schnapps. we had a nice gentle stream of visitors on friday – the first day of coastival – as the snow rapidly vanished and rachel and i were interviewed on bbc radio york.

the exhibition runs to 15 may and is open whenever we’re in. do pop in if you’re passing.

rachel has created two glass & mirror window panels as part of her exhibition which are specific to the location. they’re based on the view from inside the gallery and reflections in the windows from outside and can be viewed from both inside and outside the gallery. our gallery overlooks scarborough’s south bay and spa footbridge and they’re the images you can see in the design.

also in the exhibition are two lightboxes and two wall pieces.

we wondered if this was the very definition of postmodernism – me taking a photograph of rachel taking a photograph of a piece of work made from photographs that rachel had taken including a reflection of rachel taking a photograph of the reflection.

the electric angel gallery

there’s a little back story behind our new studio. when we decided that we would buy our own premises we had a wish list of ideal locations in scarborough. obviously some would never come on the market or be anywhere near our budget, but museum terrace was one of those places we said ‘if that ever comes up for sale…’. well it did, so we did.

another thing we said was that if we ended up with premises that had a public face that we’d love to run a little art gallery. well we did, and so we are. yes, it is possibly the smallest art gallery you’ve ever seen, but we’re going to enjoy exhibiting work by local creatives just because we like what they do.

we open to the public on friday as part of coastival – you can catch our first exhibiting artist – rachel welford – and myself on radio york friday morning talking about it along with other coastival peeps such as FEEDER.

shown here is the poster for rachel’s exhibition which doubles as the invite for the private view and to come have a peek at our new place. the invite slices off to form a more traditional poster.

battle of the sands

pre-coastival event, this sunday at the spa, starting 2pm. bands from across the region will battle it out for a prestigious support slot at coastival [the headline act will be announced on sunday].

i’ve been asked to be one of the judges – a job i feel rather unqualified for although discussing the judging criteria this week brought back memories of many teenage summers spent performing in the sun [and rain] and anaylsing judges comments afterwards. so at least i know what it feels like to be judged on musical peformance. otherwise i guess i’m bringing the average punters perspective to the panel. good luck to all the bands competing.

tickets on the door are £5 or if you’re quick you can snap one up online and save 20%: www.coastival.com – use the coupon code BATTLE. i’m told that students can get two-for-one if they buy theirs from mojos music cafe.

the big creative marketing discussion

- the topic of this evening’s creative coast, namely how we build the areas creative profile to benefit all local creative practitioners and businesses. we have big plans and need your thoughts and ideas. 6pm at woodend creative workspace. all welcome.

coastival tour pics

photos of victoria performing in york station. this was the best of the unusual venues we visited to promote coastival. people stopped to listen, often to chat and the sound of arias echoing around the magnificent station architecture created quite an atmosphere. it was lovely to see people look and smile even as they were dashing to catch a train. radio york interviewed victoria and myself live from the station and broadcast a snippet of her performance.

our task was also to take photos for use in future publicity – this was sometimes a little more hazardous than we had anticipated. the photo at the humber bridge below very nearly resulted in james and i getting blown across the humber. we were also accused of stealing real road signs – so they must look the part!

you can sign up to be first in the know with headline acts, listing and special offers for coastival at www.coastival.com. full resolution versions of the photos of victoria performing are also available on the coastival website.

woodend – celebration, credit,
confession and controversy

woodend creative workspace officially opens today. i was in there for a meeting yesterday and the interior of the building had been transformed from cool white architectural space to a vibrant colourful hub with tenants’ work on all the walls. it looked good before, but now i wish we’d had all that work on show for the enterprising britain judging – it really makes a difference and proves that woodend is not about a showpiece building but rather about supporting a vibrant creative industries scene in the area.

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i’ll settle for speaking in craven

hmm, sorry for the pun. i’ve been invited to speak the launch of ‘creative craven’ on 3rd of july in settle. the idea is to launch a creative network along similar lines to creative coast but for the craven area. local creatives will be exhibiting their work and there’s a chance to chat over lunch. sounds like a good day, i hope some of our experiences with creative coast and bmedia before it will be of use. it’s also a nice opportunity to revisit a lovely part of yorkshire.

get swapping in whitby tonight

it’s creative coast whitby tonight 6pm at the shambles bar in the marketplace. all welcome. we’re kicking off with a ‘creative swapshop’ – bring what it is you do [product or service], and swap it for what someone else does. it’s good fun and of course, a valuable networking event cos everyone gets to find out what everyone else does.

after that we’ll be throwing around ideas to decide what creative coast whitby does over the next few months. if you would like to help shape the fledgling network please do come along.

if any scarborough types fancy the trip over the moors in search of swaps, give me a ring at the studio before 4.00.

what we’ve been up to

working hard mostly. hence no recent blog posts. soz!

yeah, things have been kinda running away with us. good news is we’re hitting all the deadlines and lots of people are getting in touch for work or even just to say nice things. but we haven’t got round to blogging much. i’ve just returned from creative coast [more about which below] and am full of enthusiasm for, well, everything. so whilst in a good mood, here’s what we’ve been up to:

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art & design degree show tonight

today, 6.30pm at yorkshire coast college, westwood campus. shows by costume, fine art and applied digital media students. plus chance to vote for the student to win the creative coast / science city york award.

in recent years the show has been rather poorly supported by local creative practitioners and employers which is rather disappointing when creative coast has 130+ members and is presenting an award. let’s hope for a decent turn out tonight.

the costume show will, if last year’s show was anything to go by, be spectacular. the fine art degree also produces some fantastic work. but most of all i’ll be interested in seeing final work by some of the applied digital media students i’ve had contact with this year.