electric angel /design for life

porcelain by post

invitation to the opening of ‘resolutions’ by gabrielle naptali which is showing in our tiny gallery until 24th november.

we liked the idea of posting a little piece of potential artwork out as part of the invitation and so these invites were handmade by gaby and ourselves – the card folds to seal in and protect the fragment although we did hear that one piece had escaped in transit. it is probably now crossing britain in the corner of post bag. the porcelain is layered black and white – the same material that the two main pieces in the exhibition are made from and their random broken shape (each is unique) reflects the element of chance that is part of gaby’s current work in ceramics.

freestyle

a superb end to our [tiny] poetry series last night with rapper james koppert. james was honest, funny, angry, political, questioning, self-depreciating, heart-breaking. the evening finished with some freestyling in which james took us from a play on words with ‘electric angel’ to a fly on the gallery wall and out to the yorkshire coastline.

john allsopp was in the audience and took some footage – you can watch it here.

it’s been hugely enjoyable to put our gallery to use as a [tiny] performance venue and the enthusiasm of the poets and audience has been fantastic. question is, what shall we put on next…

thanks to wordsmiths felix, mark, john and james and to all who came. good, good evenings.

btw, you can catch john w clarke performing by the grotto as part of the crescent gardens art trail tomorrow. he’ll be reading for about 20 minutes at 10.30 and 12.00.

tiny poetry : the edger

it’s our final ‘tiny poetry’ night in the gallery this thursday. all have been ‘sell-out’s” so far and hugely enjoyable (tickets are actually free – just call in for one). this thursday it’s an ‘unplugged’ set from rapper james koppert aka the edger. here’s the blurb:

“… a rap artist and a street poet using words and rhythms as a vehicle to express anarchic musings and unstructured passions to challenge the listener to challenge their own thoughts. a recent review described the poet as being “an angry chav crossed with a modern day Shakespeare” who rather than reads his poetry explodes his words directly (sometimes literally) into his audiences faces”

click here to hear james in action: www.myspace.com/theedgerhiphop

8.30pm. drinks on the house.

live, last night, sold out!

thursday evening, as a dreary, misting of dank weather engulfs the town, a small gathering of surfers, designers, poets and artists got together for the second of our ‘tiny poetry’ gigs at the electric angel gallery – tonight was the turn of landscape poet mark dickinson.

mark’s work is intrinsically linked with his surroundings, his time spent in the natural environment, be it fishing or surfing. he says more important to his poetry than these activities is walking. his great knowledge of natural environments, geology, history and words create orchestral poems that build and ebb and flow as if a part of the landscape themselves. mark read from a decades worth of work ending with the epic trods which follow.

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our next poet, john clarke, attended (who you can see next thursday, 26th august), along with local filmmaker ollie banks, who works with mark on many surfing related projects, and james koppert, another of our poets who’ll be performing on thursday 9th september.

two weeks in to our tiny poetry gigs and they seem to be going down very well indeed.

tiny poetry

what’s the point of having space if you’re not going to use it? ok, so we only have a tiny little space but let’s use it anyway. so as seen as our current exhibition is all on the walls (literally – see here) we thought it would be fun to use the gallery floorspace for some poetry gigs while it was on. there’s the loose theme of the sea/surf/coast to tie in with the exhibition, but we’ve told the poets ‘do what you want’ and we can’t wait to hear what they do.

for full details download a flyer here.

hey, who’s been doodling on our walls?

tsk, you open your studio to an artist and next thing you know there’s graffiti everywhere.

actually we’re rather delighted with these montages that snake around the walls – a visual trail along the coasts of spain, portugal, france and morocco – to accompany the paintings in ‘view from the back: journal of a surf trip’. the paintings aim to evoke the 6 month surf trip which in kathryn’s words “is as much about encounters with people we met, the surfing lifestyle and the landscapes as the surfing itself”. kathryn is also exhibiting postcards she created and sent to her then one year old niece from the journey which document the minutiae (even the camper van sink!) as well as the bigger stories.

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preview is this friday then it’s open whenever we’re open – usually 9.30-5.00 monday to friday or just get in touch if you’d like us to open up specially – we’re very happy to do so.

postcard from a surf trip

it’s always nice to receive a postcard, but this one has a specific purpose – it’s part of the lead up to the exhibition ‘view from the back – journal of a surf trip’ by kathryn welford. this will be the first exhibition when our tiny gallery re-opens for north yorkshire open studios on june 11/12/13 and 19/20. kathryn will be using our studio walls as an installation to support paintings in the gallery and you can come see the work in progress as part of the open studios. we’ll have a little opening ‘do’ and return to our daily working-week gallery opening when the exhibition is complete.

but back to the postcard – kathryn is asking people to respond to photographs taken on a 6 month trip across spain, portugal, france and morocco with stories, poems or just a simple phrase or single word. these will be included in the exhibition. she’s scattering postcards to encourage this (designed by us) and this is the first that’s been returned. you can also respond via the exhibition’s blog: http://www.viewfromtheback.info

so get writing and then call in for open studios to see your text being used.