Make Do and Mend hits Brighton

 I performed Make Do and Mend for the third time with Katherine Johnson on Saturday night at The Basement in Brighton.  We were one of the many acts performing at the "Supper Cub" night which included art performance, music and poetry.  Our slot was for an hour and a half where we frantically tried to fix the mess the audience had made-the Brighton audience certainly did not hold back on the map destroying!  Our washing line of wet maps were at the top of the amphitheater which took a lot of exertion to climb up to the top and do our duty.  The line of destroyed maps started to look like rows of frayed bunting, quite apt in the run up to the Royal Wedding but also another layer of meaning that runs through the piece of damage and repair.  All in all a good night, excellent venue for our work and a great platform for artists or anyone involved in the creative scene.  We  even managed to enjoy the weather and have a little paddle in the sea!

You've probably become a little bored now....

 ...of the constant posts of HDR photos but, as you can see, I haven't!  A jaunt to Stony Stratford.

Probably my favourite

Royal wedding fever hits Stony Stratford

Little Japanese men in my garden

Bike ride number 2

 More Photos!  This time Kenilworth was the destination.  Lovely weather we're having!

A bit of HDR...

Today I went on a bike ride to take advantage of the lovely weather and took a camera with me in the hope to try (warning: geeky word usage) Automatic Exposure Bracketing to create High Dynamic Range images (HDR)  (I think I need a lie down after that sentence)  And these are the results.  Basically it is a way of getting all of the tonal range your eye sees into a picture by taking different exposures of the same scene and combining them.  I quite like a few of the effects, I think it has worked best on the photo of Berkswell Church, it's kind of surreal, almost film-esque.  I used some software called Photomatix Pro as I wasn't getting the results I wanted in Photoshop, I think I need a little more practice, I shall persevere!  I need to take a tripod out with me and maybe even a remote to make sure I'm not moving the camera as it causes it to have these funny double exposure "ghosts".  Pleased with it for a first attempt though!

Giant Cupcake

 Birthday party time. Cue a monstrous cupcake with slightly day-glo icing!

Make Do and Mend Art Performance

Last night Katherine Johnson and I performed our Make Do and Mend performance at the opening of the reduction exhibition at Broadcasting House. The exhibition was organised by the Young Curators, a project based at Leeds Met Gallery and Studio Theatre that gives young people a practical introduction to curating art exhibitions. The performance was as we wanted it to be, very hectic! We invited members of the audience to destroy maps of Britain and our task was to attempt to put them back together showing a literal cycle of damage and repair. The exhibition was based on cuts within the arts and the performance was based on the idea of "Broken Britain" and how the ever-mounting problems in society are never fixed properly but smoothed over and inherent to our culture. We were dressed as land girls referencing the idea of the wartime community spirit and the idea of the home and hard work to bring people together in more desperate times. We had some very good feedback during the performance and are both looking forward to performing it again at the Home from Home exhibition at 153 Woodhouse Lane, Leeds on 12th March from 12pm. More information about the reduction exhibition can be found here.

Call and Response: Campaign

The rest of February's drawings to be added soon.

A response to Katherine's call.
Campaign.
Champagne.
Kampf.