Premier Pli issue 2

Issue 2 of Firstfold’s Premier Pli is now in production and Ive been given the honor of the cover(s) this time out. The theme – decided upon by this issues editors Pierre & Karlheinz – is Nostalgia. With that in mind Ive come up with a fake libary book insert that is liberally decorated with sets of Top Trumps…

Those Horror Top trumps now go for £40 a pack on eBay if you got them kicking around somewhere. Sadly I dont (I did find those two on the pavement on my  street a few years back though which was very odd) but if you should want a look at the rest of them – and they are very weird indeed you can see the full scans here. The Pointless Museum also has the Spaceship ones but sadly no Western Gunfighters.

Ive also done a set of 4 illustrations that will be adapted by Alex Bermingham to fit his super layout and cover typography. These will be the front and back covers at some point and Ive left it up to Alex to see which ones fit – look forward very much to seeing the results. they are based on seaside holidays, days at National Trust properties, Witley Court and Lego instructions – a sort of rebuilding the past theme I think…

B.O.Y.D (bring out your dead) 5 & 6

FirstFolds live event back in Sepetember has now become a regular monthly night at The Bulls Head in Moseley, Birmimgham. Ive ecently picked up the design work for the posters starting with the 5th one in February  and the 6th in March. This will be a regular thing from now on so you can see all the posters (and alternative versions) in this Flickr set. Or see below for the newest editions…

2 New Illustrations

Here is two new illustrations for a new music zine (online only at present I think…) that will be out at some point this year – I really dont have any more information than that. Heres the first – an Illustration for an article on forgotten instruments (the theramin in this case):

And the second – this time for an article on “The retro-futurism music movement in Birmingham in the 90s”…

Will print these out at soem point to see how they look and depending on that may well sell a few.

Narrative and Planning

Ive been dabbling lately with ideas of narrative and storytelling in images and one thing I kept on coming back to was a collection of books I used to have as a a 9yr old child. They were quite odd really – a collection of 3 (although I only had 2 at the time) of books on the Supernatural that had those wonderful gouache  illustrations that only Usbourne books of the 1970`s could produce. My original ones were long gone so thanks to the magic of the internet Ive managed to source them again – all 3 this time too…

I had no real idea why these had stuck in my head so much when so many other books had been lost. The thing I kept coming back to was the little “comic strip” type boxes they had about each story – but also after seeing them again it was a real look and feel that they had – not at all like a “strip” but much more like a story/incident in one frame. This page illustrating the story of Borley Rectory particularly stuck in my mind and shows that perfectly…

I’m unsure how this will effect what I’m going to produce over the next year or so but I certainly want it in somewhere. After I produce the next round of First Fold covers in the next week or so I’m working on a mock up of a new music magazine which will be completed in the new year.

By then it will be time for Premier Pli issue 2 – hopefully this is where it might come to fruition. In any case here is a rare glimpse into a creative process – a illustration I did while working right at the start of the process for the new work – untitled 2…

New Work

Ive had a few months off making new work but have got back in the photoshop saddle somewhat over the last week or two and had a go at creating some new work based upon the box of slides I purchased back in March. Although the scanning and posting of these came to a halt almost as soon as they started (soon to be rectified as I have just moved all my work over to a Mac and purchased a new scanner…) I had about 70 that I began to hack up. As mentioned when I bought them I wanted to make something quicker, cleaner and with a clearer narrative – not sure if thats been achieved but Im certainly happy with them. Ive done 7 so far and these are my hard chosen faves…

 

Supersonic Zine

Local promoters Capsule recently put out an open call for illustrators to work on the online Supersonic zine (it might be in print too but I have yet to see one…) and I submitted the 3 you can see below…

Style wise its a continuation on from the work I have been doing over the past year but I really enjoyed the limitation of working purely in monochrome and the small A5 size. Also for various reasons they needed to be done fast so these we turned round in about 2 hours one evening. I was very pleased with the results – if you are too you can buy limited prints at Capsules Supersonic Festival (I will be on the First Fold stall) priced at £10 each (A5 prints on A4 paper ltd to 20). And for the sake of completeness here is the online zine  (and if I find a printed copy I will post a photo).

Bring Out Your Dead

I had the privildge of designing the poster for First Folds first venture into a live music event a few weeks back – the fantastic Bring Out Your Dead event at Grand Union in Birmingham. So good in fact that they are repeating the event in 2 weeks at Bring Out Your Dead 2. For a taster of what you can expect then this complilation of film clips would be a good place to start.

Premier Pli and launch video

Ive just picked up my copies of First Folds premier pli zine and its accompanying CD of audio (called Exquisite Corpse and based on a sound version of the Surrealist game of the same name) and it really is fantastic. Its limited to 100 copies and features words, images and sound from a variety of First Fold artists and collaborators. Its also selling really well and I highly recommend purchasing a copy before they are all gone. It costs £5 and in true independent record label style we loose money on every copy sold. Click here to go to the buy page on the Fold website!

Also the new documentry film makers 144 have completed the film they shot at the opening of my show and the premier pli launch and you can see the excellent results below.

Many thanks to Alan Dolhasz and Ed Lawes for producing something both First Fold and myself could never have afforded!

Permenance

As Im on Summer break Ive started scanning the collection of slides that I purchased on eBay back in March and posting them on Flickr. They probably number around 800 and are primarily an entire output from one keen family photographer in the 1950`s to early 1970`s. For variety there is also a handful of shop bought souvenir slides too from holiday locations.

As you can imagine they are mostly of holiday and family events during that time and look pretty much like my own family photographs – although they are often slightly creepy and I can imagine finding myself picking out a young Fred West  in one.  Also some of the captures are just plain weird – check out the woman’s on the left`s  eyes and body language in this one…

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Im intending to use these for a new set of illustrations at some point later in the year but for the moment Im just enjoying the monotonous, uncreative aspect of scanning and uploading. Ive also set up a tumblr blog here called Permenance which will post daily links to images posted on Flickr (where they will appear in one big lump in this set). Jim Davies has also being playing detective and placing some of the images on Google Maps which is an interesting idea to develop at some point. (UPDATE – Ive started a new set on Flickr detailing any locations of the photos found via google street map – please feel free to have a browse and see if you can find any others and post a comment/link with the photo if you do!)

Ive not started making any illustrations as yet but this photo montage from Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin is really floating my boat compositionally with its use of the same figure from different photos…

From The Ashes Of Industry We Rose…

Many thanks to everyone who attended the launch of my exhibition last Friday at the  We Are Birmingham space. It was a really successful and I had a great time meeting everyone that came – as did the other members of First Fold who were on hand with some excellent improvised electronic music. Here is a clip of Stuart and Jim (AKA Papa November & Spunkle) playing as the Folds house band “Nations Shall Rise..”

If you missed out in the night (or perhaps missed it again at the Zine Festival the next day) you should have a last chance to browse the walls over the coming weekend of July 16th and 17th before I take it down the following week – if you want to see it please get in contact with the shop directly as they are not really keeping regular hours!. Its a pity that it wont be visible for longer but as I understand it the We Are Birmingham space will be closing for good after that weekend (after the last of the artists works in storage has been collected) and the remaining assets put into liquidation. A sad loss to the city centre and a admirable retail experiment that I was very pleased to be a part of. In any case here of some photos I shot of the space during the hanging of the exhibition (admirably aided by Aaron Andrews) and a taster of what it looks like…

In addition to this main exhibiton I was asked by the very talented photographer and zine festival volunteer Helen Flanagan to show some of my frames in the independent city centre coffee shop 6/8 Kaffe. This was in conjuncton with the Bimingham Zine Festival and they had a little launch party a little before the event at the We Are Birmingham space. Sadly I was not able to make it up to the opening (due to some issues with USB cables and PA systems) but Antonio Roberts took some nice shots of the pictures and zines in situ…

And also this fab shot of Stuart and Ben manning the First Fold stall at the zine festival the following day…

And thats about it – thanks again to all who came and especially to all at First Fold. Watch this space too for a short documentary film that was made about the night that was shot and edited by new video production outfit 144.