Failure is a concept.

A postcard/design I picked up at BABE at The Arnolfini a couple of weeks ago.

Some photos

Here are a few photos I took recently, late one sunday afternoon. Very quickly taken, trying to capture and record the pale golden glow of the sun sinking behind reeds, across Chew Valley Lake.

BABE at The Arnolfini

I spent a good three hours or more looking around the exhibition of artists’, and limited edition, books. An amazing variety and invention of the use of word and image in a limited format. A range of scales from tiny to poster size. Political and social issues and messages addressed in some, aesthetic and decorative concerns in others. Narrative and story-telling were the focus in some work, whereas others were a collection of assembled, collected and recycled images and fragments. Books were constructed from paper, fabric, plastic, they were fragile and delicate, or heavy and solid. Amusing, serious, though-provoking or throwaway.

What is so enticing about these books is their accessibility; the simplicity and immediacy of their form. They are personal and direct, and connect you with the maker in a very straightforward and approachable way.

All very inspiring, and I came away with many ideas for developing my own work, personally and professionally. Find out more at http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/details/309

The website has links to many brilliant artist book sites, small printermakers etc.

Bath Cartoon Exhibition

This exhibition, organised to coincide with the new Bath Comedy festival, contains examples of satirical and political cartoons from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as some more contemporary ones. Including work by Gilray, Charles Williams, older and younger Cruikshanks, and Thomas Rowlandson the works are both amusing and entertaining, and provide an interesting historical record of activites in and around Georgian Bath. The satirical images poke fun at popular figures of the day, attack a range of inhabitants and visitors, and provide a largely unsavoury image of the city and its activities.

Contemporary images, some devised by Alex Timms the founder of the comedy festival, clearly and cleverly reference the orignial satirical cartoons, and have a more twentieth century, sea-side postcard flavour.

It presents an interesting contrast to the image of Bath portrayed in the grander artworks (novels and paintings) of the time, and contemporary images we see regularly in films and on television, the most recent I watched being the film “The Duchess”. Even last week at The KoolKat lounge at Komedia, the acts all referred to Bath as a “posh” and grand place. The image persists, and is perpetuated in all media. It is interesting as a visitor, and new resident to the area, to see the differences between ones reality and the public or fictional portrayal of the city. It does appear to be a fascinating mixture of grandeur and squalor, old-world charm and new-age chillout. This rich combination of grand history and modern commercialism, of that which is preserved and that which is crumbling, of the high brow to the low brow, all make for an exciting, attractive and vibrant city.

There are very good quality reproductions, as well as original copies on display. The exhibition is drawn from the Bath Libraries collection, which is currently being documented and published on line. view and explore at .http://www.bathintime.co.uk/ or see the cartoons online at http://www.bathintime.co.uk/collection.php?collid=2236