Nick Hand

This guy Nick Hand has spent some time cycling around the UK interviewing different artisans, collecting their stories. Heres one of my favourites...

http://slowcoast.co.uk/soundslides/soundslide.php?id=110

There are loads of nice ones, such an array of interesting people he met on his journeys! 

High Above Wide Lands

Last Saturday saw the first collective exhibition/ poetry reading/ drunk dancing event organised by myself and friend Claire Jane Carter. In the run up to the evening we had no idea what to expect, how the readings were going to be received, how many people would turn up...we were blown away by the response. Well over a hundred people showed up and despite trying, we couldn't even squeeze them all into my little shop. Evidently the people of Sheffield hold landscape very close to their hearts and even though the majority of people may never have been to a poetry reading or would consider themselves particularly arty, from the general vibe of the night, its fair to say everyone had a good time.

Heres a few snaps from the evening. The art is going to remain up in the shop until the 22nd feb, the readers however have gone home.

Marcus Doyle
www.thisismarkdoyle.blogspot.co.uk

Claire-Jane Carter
www.clairejanecarter.tumblr.com
@CJ_Cart

Heather Dawe
www.heatherdawe.com
@heatherldawe

Helen Mort
www.helenmort.com
@helenmort

Niall Grimes
www.boulderbritain.com
@grimerclimber

Photos courtesy of Sara Hill http://thatglassmoment.tumblr.com/

and Jordanna Farrimond http://artistsinthemaking.co.uk/

Happy New Year

Poetry

A good friend of mine is a talented poet. Introducing Claire Jane Carter, conjurer of images through words.

She wrote this poem in response to some ink and salt experiment I was playing with...

A small house sits,
flicked in beside
the flaring trees
salted and wet
and yet somehow on fire.
Mud flats simmer in the ink thick space
that extends, hiding god knows what
to the end of the page
What swims in the white?
Turns its milk eyes to the sky
to watch as
overhead you wreak detailed chaos.
Something mineral
crackles, bleeds,
spikes the night,
oils in clouds with the residue
of its own burning.
Is this simply a
a salt slight of hand
from whoever would build that house
on the edge of such a catalyst.

School workshops

Last week I was invited along to Watercliffe School in Sheffield to help run a workshop as part of their annual Artsweek. Here is the room in a pre-paint/collage/mess state and another photo of a selection of pandas that obviously overrun China according to our map. I think my favourite bit was when one of the children got distracted from what she was supposed to be doing and painted Africa blue instead.

meraki

Residencies

Another artist from my studio sent me a link to this project in Scotland...

http://www.thebothyproject.org/