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A recent trip to Bristol Aquarium got me excited about colour again. It also interests me because these creatures are the perfect mixture of disgusting and beautiful. What do they feel like? Can you eat them? ? Sea Star Fish Eating Anenome Crazy thing. I feel like I made this and snuck it down thereBit of research on the old google images, and I found these beauties: Fish Eating Urticina Pink Sea Star
Amanda uses a variety of media in her work (including stitch, wire, ceramics and found objects), but all have their roots in drawing. The work tends to be simple and pared back - about the juxtapositions of different marks, tones and textures; and often uses elements of mapping and graph-making inorder to convey particular emotions and ideas.Themes that Amanda is exploring at the moment include identity and some of the aspects that contribute to this such as memories (especially the transient and shifting nature of memories and those mediated by photos) and a sense of place, particularly around living on an island with fixed boundaries, surrounded by the forces of the tides and the weather.
sewn tides 1
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sewn tides 1
Here's her profile on North Bristol Artists website.All: 'Sewn Tides' Images Copyright Amanda Hazell
Bristol, Design, Exhibitions, Light Box
This was yesterday's job, 4 hours of flyer design. Is that fast? I'm not sure, but i'm really pleased the the outcome. I nipped around cutting textures and shapes out of magazines, looking at other flyers for inspiration, scanned the best texture and the best shapes in, used a photograph of our painted pistachio shells, in a triangle formation (which links brilliantly to the content of the exhibition) 5,000 being printed right now, and will be looking at you from tables in various Bristol locations soon
It's this weekend! I've been looking forward to it a long time. This is the most exciting Bristol event of the year for me, since the first time I went - when Michael Jackson had just died. Me and Lucy dancing outside Dad's Cabs with the man who was amazing at dancing and everyone's flirting with each other and asking you to dance or dancing on you.
Bristol, color, Organisation, Poppies, Process
Cor the poppies are out already!
What a surprise I got driving past Eastville roundabout. The best place to find poppies in Bristol. Hundreds and hundreds of poppy plants. I did ten minutes of picking, took them home and filled half of the Sunday paper and an hour of my time lining them up to be pressed for the 3 months they need before they turn beautifully translucent.
Another batch for my poppy collection, part of my ongoing poppy project. I have been doing this for 5 years now and have thousands. Soon, it'll become something but for now I am happy with the collecting and meticulous pressing (each petal needs to be completely flat and intact).
A walk from the studio to Old Market. 15 minutes. It's a strange thing, walking. I usually am cycling, getting places fast. Here's what I found:
Leftover Barbie in plant pot
A lot of sandwich choices
Dead wall
And I fell over.
I recently taught some workshops with Light Box for World Mental Health Week. We chose Broadmead Baptist Church as our location, which is a lovely space - right in the centre of Broadmead, and has the cheapest room hire in the city. It's not too 'churchy' and some of it is quite beautiful.
The Bristol Zombie Walk was amazing this year! I think it more than doubled in size this year compared to 2009. Last year, I was a Zombie broccoli:
This year, a zombie leek:
'Let's Do Nice Things' has a website, it's
I made this at the Art Club at Christmas Steps, which was part of 'Let's do Nice Things' takeover last week. I made things what I was told to make.
Hello me
I helped out with a wedding recently, a semi wedding stylist if you will. Main jobs were making cake stands and designing the look of the cake table, (the bride asked every one in her book club to bake a cake each, instead of the regular wedding cake) creating the place settings and designing the table plan.
Table Plan
I hand-cut everyone's initial and stuck them onto the plan with velcro - this made it easy to make last-minute changes to the seating plan if guests couldn't make it. They chose trestle tables - with couples sat both opposite and next to each other. I was hoping that the plan would spell out something, but it didn't - not enough vowels. I would like to make something out of the letters, as a post-wedding present.
Cake table
The whole day was a dream. Bristol Florists
worked hard on the flowers, they were gorgeous too - some wild flowers, all seasonal and locally grown.
Looking for a photographer in Bristol? All the above photographs were taken by Bruce,
He also photographs the Invisible Circus lots, so if you've ever been to one of those nights, you should have a look and see if you can spot yourself in the galleries.
In lots of places, lots of people are doing some extraordinary things. This morning, after a good long Skype with my sister in New Zealand, I knew I wanted to do some blogging, find some new stuff, get on twitter, snoop around the internet a bit. So here's a great thing I found:
Now Say Hello is a one-man mission to make London more sociable via a bicycle. Bruno Clarke cycles a lot and has created a point-scoring system for human interaction whilst on his journeys: Me saying hello – 1 pointGetting a response – 5 points (unless it’s aggressive or rude)Getting a conversation – 10 pointsGetting a joke – 20 pointsHe's noting down his efforts and scores on the blog, like this:
Saturday 10th July
60 points – ok so it’s a slightly made up number, but I think it’s fairly representative of the day. I cycled 117 kilometres to Brighton with many a country hello and nod along the way. Was a lovely ride. It’s no Tour de France, but I was still pretty please for a lone effort on a hot day.
Thursday 8th July
5 points – after my fellow cyclists, a lady in red, was barked at by an enfuriated oncoming rider, we shared a little “well good morning to him too” as I cycled past. A jolly end to an aggressive start. Some people just get on the wrong side of their saddle don’t they.
I'm inspired by this and want to start my own mission - both whilst cycling around Bristol and walking around, and I'll even count when I'm in my car - most people have their windows wound down in the sun.Join in yourself. Lets collate results. Follow on Now Say Hello on Twitter - @nowsayhello
Bristol, Design, Interesting and Inspiring, Silly
A recent find from The Scrapstore. Off cuts of clothing labels - Just call me Ishmael being my favourite. I might sew that into some of my clothes.
Hurrah! My work is up in Planet Pizza Bishopston, Bristol.
The artwork is being displayed as a Valentines Exhibition, all pieces are for sale, at good prices -small sizes (about 5" tall) are £15. The larger frames are £20 and there are two big pieces in wooden frames are £35
All the other frames have been saved from being chucked, restored, polished and repainted.
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Amazing pictures from the Halloween Zombie Walk in Bristol. Have a look. This is me in my zombie broccoli costume.
I had a fantastic day out with my brother’s family at the Explore Center in Bristol. It’s so interactive and playful, and the observatory show was great, I finally can name some of the stars! I brought my camera and photographed some quite strange things during my visit; views in mirrors and through microscopes. Button-pressing, long exposure in the fiber optic lights, virtual volleyball and a face in a machine.
My weekend at Womad was amazing, Womad stands for World Of Music, Arts and Dance. The sun was shining for us on the Saturday, but not on the Sunday, but it didn't really matter. There was glorious music (I did not see enough of it though) beautiful surroundings - the festival is on Lord Suffolk's estate, amazing food, great company and great camping, camping's always fun.The flags were mesmerising. They are a signiture of Womad, designed by artists, if i'm not mistaken. And they are especially lovely when everywhere is silent - like when I hiked up to the festival arena toilets to escape the camping site queues. Can't wait for next year!
Yesterday I had a lovely time at the Bristol Zoo. It's great going with kids, the three of us were discussing what we'd do if we were trapped in a cage with a hippo, and which would be worse; being trapped with a hippo or with a gorilla. I say gorilla.Lots of exciting things happening at the Zoo, music nights (Like the Migrations African Dance Party) and they even have an 'overcoming arachnophobia course: 'Living with Spiders' Yuck. Why would anyone need to overcome the fear??Lots going on in Bristol in general at the moment, with the Bristol Balloon Fiesta this weekend. I'm sad that I'll be missing it for the second year running. Here are my zoo pics:
My text project is going well... after having a stall at the Redland Girls School Fete, I received three commissions, one for someone who wanted a present for a christening - 'Zoe Grace', and two commissions for a gift: 'Love' and 'Peace'I have discovered that selling at markets is more successful whent he customer feels like they are part of the making process - if they are supplying me with the word, and I go away and make it for them, it's a whole lot more personal and meaningful. It's bespoke.I'm going to continue with this 'commissioning stall' as opposed to a stall where I have all my stock for sale. And in all future stalls, I will be sat creating the work infront of all market-goers. It's important that people see I have drawn the lines on myself, it's not just pretty paper !Holly, Adrian and I had a stall at the 'Queen Elizabeth Country Park' Show, which is in Petersfield, and which was a complete disaster. It was raining so heavily, it was misty, there was a really poor turnout, no one was particullarly interested in our stall, which kept nearly falling down. Holly sold one piece, the money recieved was paid back to the train guard when she got charged on the train... and I had a rainy two and a half hour car journey back to Bristol with a car full of damp artwork.We're seeing this as 'research', we know now to not leave Bristol, there's so many different opportunities for us here.
We made a pinata - shame it looked like boobs/testicles though
11 Lucy's in total, 13 including Barfoot and Duggan. Next time, hundreds!
Pegs to hang completed questionnaires. Balloons hanging from the tree's
Lovely big oak tree in Brandon Hill park, Bristol
Lucy scrolls - each containing the questionnaires, a Lucy pencil and a name-tag.
The Lucy picnic was perfect. I had such a gorgeous Saturday, amongst some lovely people, all called Lucy. It was great to meet you all, and hopefully some of the Lucy's who didn't make it will come along next year.Barfoot and Duggan are going to make this a yearly event, we're looking to create more interest and involvement with the next picnic - finding a Lucy who has/knows of a nice indoor space to use if the weather is bad, Lucy's who can help us stuffing envelopes/posting letters/putting up adverts/promoting to local magazines. It's going to be big!We had an as in Venue magazine - we didn't even realise! And Venue have review & picture of the party - it's not in this week's, but was promised to be, so fingers crossed for next week's edition.
