Furiously Mad: 300 Years of Legal Insanity.

"A fascinating insight into mental health, past and present."  - PHM.org.uk

Exhibition flyer taken from 'artsforhealthmmu.blogspot.uk'.

'Furiously Mad' an exhibition funded by the Heritage Lottery, has allowed Pool Arts, a group of artists from diverse backgrounds, to research and respond to the framework of law that surround mental health. Each member contributed their personal response to reveal an interactive timeline, ranging from historical legislative information to modern day care and treatment of the mentally ill.

I visited the People's History Museum for the first time today especially to catch a performance in relation to this exhibition and I was knocked for six at the overwhelming creativity and spirit bursting out of the hall. The work presented was incredibly diverse, everything  from drawings, printed posters, installation work, paintings, animation, performance and activities. Circling the room gave you invaluable insight into just how expansive the term 'mental health' is and how terrifying it can be living with conditions such as schizophrenia. But for me, it was the positives that were illustrated best. Of course a few of the installments were intended to shock, but in order to let the viewer to formulate a complete 'mental image' if you will, of previous and (sadly) current discrimination of people with mental health problems. It all stems from misunderstanding, even the people who suffer from such issues must learn to accept and overcome the fear of terminology, side-effects and hospital visits just like everyone else must eradicate barriers between themselves and fear of those with mental health issues.

I met Galen, a young man working a badge machine to let children, well actually mostly adults, personalise their own brightly coloured badges. Galen was admitted to the Priory Hospital in Darlington with various long term problems, he spent his time during hospitalisation drawing and encouraging other patients to express themselves artistically. This culminated in him initiating a art competition with treats and chocolate as rewards for everyone who part-took, he continued the same style of competition during the exhibition hours allowing everyone attending to decipher a colour-scheme and render and copy of his drawing. His work in particular held a statement; to help others even when you struggle to help yourself.

A lot of the artists were available to talk about their pieces, their experience and their reflection encompassing the topic. They were so open, even when it came to receiving feedback it seemed the comments left upon leaving were welcomed over donations for the fund. I have never met a more inspirational group of people, the show was an absolute success and I would urge everyone to visit.

Day Job.

All images taken from Dayjob.org including logo.

Dayjob is a cleverly named collective comprised of 10 graduates with very different working styles but a mutual love for illustration. Based in London, the group have all sprung fresh from Camberwell College of Arts situated in Peckham and now spend as much time outside of their day jobs as possible, collaborating on bigger projects and installations. They work with a huge range of media as each member has preference over materials which brings depth and variation to large quantities of work generated interdependently. Personally I felt the playful characteristics of the members we met will be a real help for the longevity of the collective and a great asset when running events.

Their studio was tucked away in a far-flung industrial estate amidst Elephant and Castle, isolated but spacious. The top floor of the building was dedicated to a whole raft of various artists tucked into their allocated booths or spilling out across the hallway. Seeing the walls lined with work, homely belongings, decorations and found furniture scattered around Dayjobs' studio pushed pangs of jealousy into my heart, it was like their second home, their peaceful getaway crammed with inspiration and helping hands. To me, this seems like the most logical step after university and after to speaking to Charlotte and Grace I feel extremely motivated to find a place with a few friends to set-up camp while we find our feet.

 

A nice little bonus at the end of the day, after being pumped full of inspiration, was a little confidence boost in the form of a very constructive portfolio review. I felt more nervous showing my work to the girls than I had been previously, even with established Illustrators. I think the fact that they were at such a similar age to us whilst being indoctrinated into the industry in such a viciously competitive place as London intimidated me at first, but the friendliness and laid-back attitudes they all adopted acted as comfort rather than confrontation. Two of the girls spent a good fifteen minutes looking through my work stopping to ask questions or pose comments every so often, very reassuring that they didn't rush through it like a flick-book and yet another pointer as to the kind ethos they uphold. I was especially pleased with the response my personalised portfolio received as I spent such a long time getting it how I'd envisioned it. The main comments I took away in regards of constructive criticism were mostly related to attention to detail; print every page on good quality paper, clean the plastic sleeves regularly, tidy up the text and descriptions so they appear on the same line on each page but justified to the edge of each separate image. Seemingly standard prompts but things that had obviously slipped my judgement. All comments in respect to my work were again positive, the pieces they picked above the rest were all line drawings, for a reason slightly different to the usual. They mentioned that the control I had shading with lines could lend itself to anatomical drawings of educational posters, the thought of which had never crossed my mind. They echoed the idea of adding more balance into the portfolio or refining it down to one specialism which I feel will become more apparent over the next few weeks.

All in all a really brilliant and insightful day, I hope to keep in contact with the team and hopefully see them at our end of year show!

Abram Games.

'Maximum Meaning Minimum Means.'    - Abram Games

Taken from postalheritage.org.uk

Taken from creativereview.co.uk

Abram Games (born Abraham Gamse, on the day World War 1 began) belonged to the Golden Age of British graphic design where commercial artists produced hand crafted concepts and combined traditional techniques to create innovative styles. Games worked for an astonishing range of clients in his day inlcuding; Shell, London Transport, Guiness, The Times and The Financial Times. Abram Games' reputation as a graphic designer is based on his ability to weave together layers of ideas with a great economy of means. He realised that if you combine several images in one iconic design, the result involves the spectator in a visual game to unravel the layers of meaning within. Games explained, "A poster with a measure of intrigue engages the mind of the spectator and he looks again. You have to take him along with you so he follows your line of thought. The best way I can describe what happens is to say that as the designer you wind the spring, and it is released in the mind of the viewer." (Artyfactory.com and estate of Abram Games.)

During our trip to London we had the real pleasure of visiting Noami Games in her lovely home situated near Kilburn. Noami Games is the daughter of the late Abram Games, keeper and co-ordinator of all his outstanding work. I cannot express how wonderfully inviting she was to a group of complete strangers waltzing excitedly into her home and entrusting us with precious originals. We even sampled coffee from an early Cona model (if you don't know what the hell one of these wondrous inventions is you can take a look here ) that Games designed, not only a Graphic designer but his inventive mind came in handy for functional objects too. The coffee was delicious if you're wondering, and that's coming from someone who's made coffee for a living for 5 years now. Noami's reasoning behind being so open and welcoming to was simple, it's what Abram would have wanted. His work was made to be seen, to inspire and educate as many people as possible and a lot of the delicate drawings and developmental paintings never get shown to the public, which is a real shame since they're usually the most interesting and raw. 

Photographs I took, with permission from Noami, of two original pieces by Games.

It was overwhelming the amount of work she had filed for us to look at, since half of the finished pieces and inventions are included in various shows, a real eye-opener into a true designer's thought process and methods of working. Noami shared some beautiful stories of Paul Rand (a family friend) being incredibly fussy at dinner, how Abram would always ask her as a child, whether she understood his work...if she didn't he would scrap it and start again because if a child didn't understand it, it wasn't simple enough and chances are nobody else would understand it. He made work for the companies he believed in, on topics he felt passionately about. They hold an undeniably strong message yet delivered through simple design. Something that gets lost very easily in today's overly critical and mistakenly complex generation.

One of the greatest experiences of the year, thankyou so much to Noami Games, what an honor.

Lucky Break.

My personalised portfolio, front cover.

Ta-Dah! My portfolio's finally finished, well the vessel anyway. But first impressions and all that eh.
After much research into the world of highly expensive portfolios, I decided that in order to best represent my work I would either have to fork out for a leather bound portfolio or customise a wooden one. I found this A4, refillable, book-style portfolio on Etsy after Lorgie was recommended to me via social networking site Tumblr. Run by a lady called Kamma and based in Fremantle, Australia, Lorgie makes all custom folio's out of 'satin-eco-varnish' covered pine, fixed with faux leather bindings and nickel screw posts. Although the price of the portfolio includes a typographical customisation I chose to order mine as blank, I'd already hatched plans for both covers. The quality exceeded the price in my opinion and it arrived in good time, and perfect condition with no extra shipping charges.

Now, earlier on in the year I took part in a workshop at a local Laser studio where I met Cai, the brawn, brains and beauty behind LaserLea. I've mentioned previously on my blog how beneficial the experience so I jumped at the chance to get a really personal piece crafted with the help of Cai. After getting in contact with her I hand-drew my designs ready to be bit-mapped and checked. The Wishbone is very symbolic to me; representing luck, tradition and a strong bonds. I have a full and broken wishbone tattooed on each arm to signify hope and closure, wishing for better times and the realisation that I no longer needed 'luck' to get where I wanted to be. So, my portfolio physically represents me and the work inside projects me mentally.

Left: Front Cover, Right: Back Cover.

Another thankyou to Cai at LaserLea, for being lovely as usual.

Shadow Puppets

Just a short post to show development with technique and confidence entering the Final Major Project. Although the photographs above are pretty bad and the actual paintings are still in progress my ability to illustrate shadow and detail with watercolour paints has progressed over the past year.

Final Major Project Part One: S. E. Hinton

"The original teenage rebel story" by S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders, is a fictional story that focuses on two rival groups of young adults divided by their socioeconomic status. Set in Tulsa, Oklahoma (although never actually stated in the book) and written by Hinton when she was 16 herself, the book is intended for teenagers of the same age who can relate to different elements of the story. Struggle between class and 'coming of age' are two main divides within the story, with loyalty, honor and friendship being under-pining themes. Penguin and Puffin's most recent competition brief was to re-design the entire cover for the Puffin Teenage publication of The Outsiders; front, back and spine. The story was a favourite of mine from school as the characters were accessible, the book contained such strong imagery and the story had that rebellious escapism portraying gang culture and under-age smoking.

I wanted to focus on symbols that represent scenes or themes within the story; such as switchblades, cars, the greaser hairstyle and matches along with the recurring motifs of eyes and use of literature.

Edits from sketchbook.

Sense of place was particularly important for this project as I've never set foot in America let alone witnessed the landscapes and culture of Oklahoma, I had to find enough visual and written material to enable a make-shift experience. In order to test colour schemes, texture and background I needed to connect as closely as possible to the place and the theme.

Test image for background image, colour scheme and over-lay drawing.

I lend towards characters, animals and objects rather than landscapes or abstract work so it was difficult to focus on working on the background without any idea of how I would tie the foreground together but the ethos of producing as much quality work as possible without the focus of the end result did work in my favour. Not only did i end up with two full sketchbooks but the backgrounds I produced actually work a whole lot better separately and combined than when I work on a piece as a whole.

Experimental background in progress.

I'll make sure to create another post at the end of the year with updates from this project, final piece and extra sketchbook work focused on the foreground. Keep your eyes peeled.

Conspiracy Theories

Taken from dominiquebyron.com.

 

Dom Byron, ex-stockport college student and current employee of the infamous Stan Chow has a new show up at Kosmonaut called Conspiracy Theories. As the name suggests, each print displayed suggests a particular conspiracy still shrouded in much doubt but illustrated boldly and beautifully. As an image, my personal favourite has to be the one featured above. I don't know much about American football but the cleverness of the poster gave me clear idea of the theory under-pining the design, communicates the conflict and stands striking without existing knowledge. Many other posters line the wall and  feature Area 51, the Bermuda Triangle and the mysterious honeybee disappearance.

I really enjoyed the night, such a good turn out of and a great opportunity to speak to Dom and meet local artists. Having an exhibition in a key location such as Kosmonaut draws in a more unusual and varied crowd than a specific art orientated event would, ensuring the work will never fall short of views.

Well done Dom!