Lucien Fellowes Polaroids

These are the preliminary polaroids for the Lucien Fellowes ROADSISE MARKINGS project.

Summer Project

The second year's Summer Project has been set...about two weeks ago in fact but I've only just been able to reference it now. It's a little off-key but sounds fun. The umbrella title is Wearable Gallery Project:

Criteria:

We realise you might be all off around the world and therefore you summer project is designed to fit neatly into your summer schedule. We would like you to record, in whatever way you chose ,the habits, customs, everyday things you notice in your new environment (or down to the post office for the less adventurous). And compare them to your own home. We would like you to produce a series of work using the information you glean. You will need to make your work transportable and become your own
“Walking Art Gallery”. You should wear it to the first meeting on Tuesday 21st September at 1.30 in the Interactive Arts Studio.

It seems quite easy but a little too easy because they are many obvious paths that can be took. Holiday snaps, postcards, silly things being attached to teeshirts and the like or the obvious routes..Mail Art IS a route that I think I could take but, just how many are going to take that option... There's no fun in plying your energies into work and when it is shown, there are two-three people who has chosen your path as well.

I have a couple of ideas that are work in progress. They differ in style and outcomes...the presentation of the finished project will need a set of mechanical gadgets to fine tune but...

Lucien Fellowes and his Collection of Particulars

The concept that I have devised is one that involves a certain nobody who travels the country collecting road-side debris, rusty nuts and bolts and car crash remnants. He likes to take photos of road-side markings and like a butterfly collector, pins and mounts his rusty nuts and bolts.

I have evolved this character over time and devised a Facebook page dedicated to his finds. To present his collection, I will need to buy an old and tatty suitcase with period clothing and paraphenalia. Within this case will be his collection of rusty objects and certain polaroids of his locations. I have collection over twenty objects already and now need to photograph them in situ. Some photographs are going up here soon of his roadside markings.

It will be in the style of Merz, Schwitters, Cornell and hopefully have the philosophy of the trash, garbage and ruins background that I have been working towards. I have an idea for the performance side of it that involves me (as Fellowes) lurking about in other peoples (models) photographs looking a little odd.

Free For Arts Exhibition 2010

This is an interesting one, a chance to get work shown but there are hardly any takers...apathy is a little ironic here. We as a group of 1st year students have been given a chance to exhibit within the second year's exhibition. I thought there would be of some interest here but since the deadline for proposals was 10 May 2010 and another extension that ended last Friday, only 8 out of 28 has entered. I have entered my monolith light-boxes into the original deadline and now have two more...space permitting, of course. The show will bee on October 2010 in Manchester city centre. It will be a great opportunity to get work seen by the mass audience.

I need to fit the Monoliths with their lighting system real soon because I haven't even thought about this for months...just been far too busy doing other things and writing music with Andrea. The lighting will need to be wired and tested and screwed into place. I can do all this in my studio...the only problem would be the haulage task of actually bringing the damned things to MCR. I am on with the printing project with the printing firm here in Blackburn. I have scanned the polaroids that I am intending to use with the FFA2010 project if there is space and the Road-Side Markings are being a hit on www.polanoid.net so they can be enlarged if the other snaps do well.

The hard-edged collage is a stopstarter at the moment. I have start on a couple of compositions using different paperweights, textures, typography; I just want to go larger...probably six-footer utilising wood, wallpaper and cement..?

And finally, In have started experimenting with iStopmotion and created a 9second film with me and Andrea dancing like loons, this is on my Facebook page. I needed to start using this package because it wasn't cheap and I have too many ideas knocking about for my first real foray into film making. I don't know what I'm doing but I will succeed.

and Roket01 examples

These example are by Roket01 and are in Sheffield.

So from the post previously, I saw the show at Mooch and got into conversation with Roket01. I didn't get to see or speak to his partner Faunagraphic though, which was a pity. They DO have a kind of similar style but after stalking them on the web for a few hours, I can see the differences and creative nuances.

I really want to go to the nest IBUg event over in Germany but I don't know if to go there alone or try and get some random uni guys on the case. It would be good to go with people and experience the three-dayer with a gang and people where I am at the moment aren't really interested in graff and jetting off on the spur of the moment...BAH!

even the greats get rejected

This is a snippet from Saturdays The Guardian dated 10-07-10 and involves the rejection by the MoMA of an early Andy Warhol piece.

new painting in progress

This is of course the painting in progress, it needs to be a lot thicker in texture, the black being tidied up and the areas for the red to be selected.

I am naming this series, [even the spaces in between have their purpose]

another group of graff artists- faunagraphic and new work

On Thursday morning I received an email from some admin/student girl from my course...Interactive Arts stating that a new exhibition was opening at the second Mooch gallery in Manchester. This was is situated in the Northern Quarter alongside Oldham Road. This was a show by Faunagraphic and Rocket01, a collective from Sheffield who specialises in Fine Art/Graffiti located in old derelict places such as factories, offices, cinema, et-cetera.

I gather the email/msg come to us because I have devised a Facebook page under the moniker of [dereliction duty collective]. It's a page dedicated to crumbling architecture, dereliction and decay in general. I have a project in mind regarding this environment, some are in a state of symbiosis but, I am finally coming to the near end...

So, I trotted off to Manchester on Friday evening and after stalking my way through the Northern Quarter, actually found the gallery. To be honest, I wasn't really taken with the work I did see on the walls. With the description I read in the MSG, it would be rough and tactile and raw, these pieces were very nice. I tried to find the bar and found that no alcohol present, only fizzy pop. They had some printing guys making and selling [for one night only], screen-printed teeshirts. I wanted one but, they weren't able to do one that I wanted...they didn't have red ink or something.

Past the tee-shirts I went and then saw the artwork that made my trip over to MCR worthwhile, the image above. They did three off these and this one is my favourite. Like, I said above, they find derelict sites and spray site-specific artwork, photograph them and when the times come, they are erased as the buildings come down. I really like this concept and after looking and thinking about what I was seeing, I bumped into one half of the collective, Roket01, and generally, gave him an interview.

We talked about the grey area and legalish information and the process of creation of their artworks. the selection and recon mission of the location, the set-ups and final output. I told him about my plans and projects and the fact that I'm going to curate an exhibition about graffiti and dereliction and also the fact that I wanna do it in a derelict site with site-specific sculpture and performance. He was eager with what I was saying and in turn I got some really good advice and information from him.

There is a collective in Germany called WWW.IBUg-ART.DE. This group are guying near Reelane, Germany who are given a space by their local council and allowed to have a three-day art festival involving street art, graffiti and all within derelict sites. I've already been on the website and really want to go this August...I just need some bodies to come with me... They are doing exactly what I want to do n I have retained this Roket01 guy as a FCBK contact and hopefully I can do something with his collective and the IBUg people.

After a week and a bit off from doing any artwork, I have returned to the painting I started a couple of months back. It's based on the derelict theme and thoughts on site-based work and also paintings by Sean Caherty and Pollock. I am only using two-three colours, Black, White and a little Re. This is my favourite colour selection, a little green at times but only briefly. The paintings are small scale at the moment, I think they are A2. I could see these Rothko-cathederalesque in size.

Beat-Herder Polaroids

Here are various Polaroids of a local three-day electronica festival that basks in the glory of Pendle Hill. I have used both TZ Artistic and PX100FF (monochrome) cartridges for these photographs.
The festival was beatastic got to see Luke Vibert, Dub Pistols, Blasted Mechanism, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, and erm...a few more but can't place the time or places or whom... I had a great time out though, sun, music ...,
I met a group of graffiti artists and especially one that I know from a record shop owner friend of mine. I bought a selection of tee-shirts at this guys shop and in turn, were designed and made by this festival guy. His tag is CERB and using typography here and there.