I’m in the midst of writing a series of posts about artists getting paid and the economy of the arts but that’s a bit heavy for a Friday, isn’t it! So instead, here’s one of my occasional link posts.

Art
My web designer, Steve, had a moving encounter with some art.

This Andre Jordan cartoon made me laugh with comedy of recognition.

The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies – many of these were intimately familiar to me but perhaps they won’t be to younger artists.

This spoof Damien Hirst blog made me howl with laughter (although some of the ‘works’ are more Martin Creed in style).

If you’re a jeweller then the Cookson’s Forums may be worth checking out. I’ve not tried their forums but I’m a big fan of them as a supplier of materials – they’re always very quick and efficient at despatching stuff.

Artists are buying up cheap houses in Detroit – some interesting discussion in the comments about the familiar artist gentrification cycle.

I’m A Photographer, Not A Terrorist is a UK based campaign objecting to increased police interference in street photography.

Unique and clever matchboxes, which naturally I adore because I have a bit of a thing for matches.

Me, Me, Me!

Lisa Pressman recently interviewed me about my art influences. I like her encaustic work very much, you should check it out.

Thanks also to Kayte from the Love Forever blog, who featured my work last week.

There’s loads of excellent comments on my recent ‘art wank’ post. Apparently the subject resonated with a lot of people. Apparently there’s even an entire blog devoted to examples of art wank!

I had my work accepted to culturehall. I haven’t quite finished uploading works to my profile yet but I’ll let you know if I get any interest or opportunities from it. The site is curated by an artist and frankly, it shows – when I researched it I was very impressed by the high quality of work shown.

I also joined Textile Forum South West. If you’re a British artist interested in textiles, you may want to check this out, you don’t actually have to be based in the South West of England to join.

Podcasts
I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts whilst sewing sequins on my apron. Here are a few of my recent favourites.

Jennifer at Craftsanity interviews the Beerhorst Family and discovers how they live a creative lifestyle with very little money. This interview with X got me all excited about my chickenkeeping plan again (it’s moving slowly onward btw, I’ve just taken out a load of library books on chickens and I’m researching coops).

I discovered The Electric Sheep podcast on Twitter and I’ve happily chewed my way through all 20 of them in the last month. It’s knitting based but she delves into other stuff too. Very British.

Craftcast with Alison Lee is always a good listen but I was particularly fascinated by her exploration of Maggie Taylor’s highly involved creative process.

if you’re struggling with your blogging motivation, this podcast from Sister Diane at Craftypod should get your juices flowing again.

Random

Lexicographer, Erin McKean suggests that if it works like a word, we should just use it.

Because nothing says ‘I love you’ like handknitting someone a periodic table jumper (that’s a sweater if you’re American)

Ever wondered where the dark thread of horror in British comedy originates? Welcome to the wonderful world of British Public Safety films! Includes one of my all-time favourites – the Spirit Of Dark Water but thankfully not the one about children dying horribly on farms that gave me nightmares for months after I was shown it in primary school. Definitely NOT for the faint of heart.

I was VERY flattered to make it into the ‘Best Artists Blog’ section of the 100 Best Scholarly Art Blogs list this week.

Congrats to Katherine from Making A Mark, who also made it into the Best Artists Blog section and to Dion from the Art News Blog, who very deservedly made it into the Art News section. I was also pleased to see the New Curator blog mentioned – I only discovered this blog fairly recently through Twitter but it’s rapidly becoming a favourite.

I haven’t checked out all the other blogs mentioned yet but it looks like there’s plenty of good stuff to get your teeth into.

It’s Friday afternoon – time to slack off at work and browse the net instead! Fortunately I’m here to enable your procrastination.

ARTISTS

Really loving this post on DudeCraft about the work of Jim Denevan who creates incredible largescale freehand drawings in sand.

Stephen J. Shanabrook makes rather strange work, including collages of heroin paraphernalia.

For those of us with gothic sensibilities – I’m loving the crazy Victorian aesthetic of Wilhelm Staehle’s site.

Beautiful drawings from Rachel Mosler.

This project gets points for sheer chutzpah – curator Anna Ricciardi is asking people to send her their gallery rejection letters for inclusion in an exhibition at Islington Arts Factory. So far, so good. But here’s the cheeky bit – she’s also asking for a £7 submission fee! I hope she’s done this deliberately as a comment on the increasing tendency for venues to charge artists to apply for exhibitions. Because if it’s not ironic, it would be too depressing for words.

ARTICLES

I like Joanne Mattera’s blog very much; she writes so eloquently about the realities of being an artist. In this post, she recommends that we define what success means to us (something art coach, Alyson Stanfield also strongly recommends) and suggests considering options beyond the narrows confines of the art world.

Daniel Sroka ponders how to survive as an artist in a struggling economy.

Lori Woodward Simons with some advice about how to negotiate with art galleries. This was published on Clint Watson’s FineArtViews, a blog with masses of articles about every aspect of the art world, including this great one about how to sell your art. Boy, do I need help in that department!

Lisa Call gets things done by setting goals and having a system.

HUMOUR

Step away from the metaphors and no one will get hurt! A piece of quite remarkable prose that, amazingly, was actually published. I wouldn’t drink anything while attempting to read this, if I were you.

Have I mentioned Wrongcards before? As their tagline says: ‘E-cards that are wrong for every occasion.’ Including zombie attacks…

When I lived in Leeds, a friend and I used to delight in that urban harbinger of summer – the sight of goths with thick white make up slowly melting down their faces. So as you can imagine, I was delighted to discover the blog Goths In Hot Weather.

And because it takes one to know one, here’s a delightful visual guide to goths. OK, so I’ve never actually been a full-on goth but I’ve come pretty close over the years and definitely have aspects of at least three of these!

Apologies for the lack of posting – as you may have guessed from my last big post, I’ve not been too well. I also got stuck in a cycle of perfectionism, the sort where I think, “ah, I absolutely must blog about such and such a thing next but oh dear, I can’t until I take some photos or do some more research or until the planets are in the correct alignment!”

Sometimes I just get caught up in these mental loops and stay there until I realise that I’m stuck and do something to free myself – in this case, writing a very different blog post to the one I had planned. So here, to loosen me up and hopefully to inspire you, are two very different but connected videos about the nature of inspiration.

First of all, here’s Susan Boyle performing on the reality TV show, Britain’s Got Talent. Unfortunately, embedding is disabled, so you’ll need to pop over to YouTube to watch it.

Secondly, here’s a longer address by writer, Elizabeth Gilbert on the subject of genius, inspiration and creativity. It’s twenty minutes but it’s well worth your time.

I found this touching in a very different way – much of what she spoke about was deeply familiar to me as a creative person and I just loved the two anecdotes she relates. I’ve never been sure where I stand on the whole muse concept but I’m sure that we’re all familiar with the ‘where the hell did THAT come from’ sensation when we’re making our work.

I found this video on Denise Carkeek’s excellent Melancholie Dreams blog. It’s well worth a visit and do make sure you check out her wistful and haunting ceramics.

Firstly, some of you may have noticed that comments aren’t always appearing straight away. Unfortunately we’ve had to tighten up security after the site was hit by a bot that can crack the anti-spam word feature. So if you’ve not commented on the site before, your comment now won’t appear until I’ve accepted it. I’m checking every day to make sure that comments don’t languish in purgatory for ages. If you’ve commented before, your comment should appear straight away unless you include any URL’s.

Secondly, in celebration of April Fool’s Day, here’s an art-related Absolutely Fabulous clip to brighten up your day.

I think this is real but even if it’s a hoax, it’s still absolutely wonderful.

It’s a beautiful sunny day and I need to make the most of the light by getting up the studio and then out to the garden. I’ll be writing a proper post later but in the meantime, have some fun stuff.

I have written about my love for sheds on this blog before and I know I am not alone in my admiration for this humble structure – check out this great song about sheds by Cardiff band, Punks Not Dad.

If only it was really this easy to make money from art! Sean The Sheep shows us how it’s done.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal absolutely nails the art world.

A pointed cartoon about the gallery system.

The Childbirth Song by the very talented Helen Austin – not particularly worksafe but it makes me howl with comedy of recognition.

If I’m getting a bit up myself, I listen to King Missile’s song Sensitive Artist to bring me back down to earth – song here, lyrics here.

It’s National Shed Week. What, you didn’t know that Britain has a National Shed Week? Shame on you! There’s a blog and everything.

The winner of this year’s best shed competition is Tim, a man who has combined two great British passions to create a Pub Shed.

Images from readersheds.co.uk

This isn’t the only pub shed I’ve heard about; a friend of my mum and dad has a small ‘cricket pavillion’ shed in his garden, complete with beer on tap. And yes, there is also an area to play cricket, although I believe that they often go straight to the beer part. You have to make your own entertainment when you live in a small Scottish village…

There are a ton of other inventive sheds on the shed website. including this fabulous Tardis one.

Image from readersheds.co.uk

In fact, there are so many Tardis sheds that they have their own category. but I particularly like this one because of this quote from the female owner, “I don’t think of it as just a shed – more a David Tennant trap.”

Some of their sheds are a bit posh but as a fan of wabi-sabi, I prefer the more ramshackle versions like this one or this. Some sheds are particularly organic. This one makes me envious – I’d absolutely love it if mine had a living turf roof but it’s pretty far down the list of gardening priorities.

And of course, we can’t talk about sheds without mentioning some art inspired by the humble shed.

I find most traditional shed paintings a little boring but I was quite taken with the naive style of allotment painter, Chris Cyprus.

Simon Thackray’s photograph of his shed door inspired him to start The Shed, an unusual series of music, poetry and art events in his small rural community.

Simon Starling’s Turner Prize winning installation, Shedboatshed started life as a Swiss shed that he turned into a boat.

Image from Tate website, unknown photographer

He sailed the resulting boat containing the remaining shed parts down the Rhine to the venue where he was exhibiting before rebuilding it into a shed. I have to say that the confidence of this project impresses me, I’m not entirely sure I’d want to set sail in anything I’d built! Loathe as I am to link to the Mirror newspaper, this attempt to replicate the project made me laugh.

Cornelia Parker’s famous piece Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View involved the British Army blowing up a garden shed that Parker had filled with a collection of objects sourced from jumble sales, charity shops and the sheds of the artist and her friends. The resulting charred remains were collected and hung around a single light bulb.

Images from Tate website, unknown photographer

Sheds, what’s not to love?

Hooray, I’ve cleared out my links folder. Of course, I still have another two to get through but at least one of the three is empty.

ART

Beautiful microscopic photographs of sand from scientist and artist, Dr. Gary Greenberg.

An elaborate and intricate laser-cut book from artist, Olafur Eliasson

Arthur Ganson makes strange mechanical scupltures.

Tips on being an environmentally aware photographer.

I’m loving Poppytalk’s series of interviews with artists about their studio spaces.

Amy over at Life Craft makes intriguing collages and assemblages.

Miwa Koizumi makes ethereal sea creatures from plastic bottles.

There’s a ton of drawing lessons over on Drawspace.

I like J.T. Kirkland’s pierced wood drawings. He also has a great blog called Thinking About Art.

Reya Veltman makes very lovely pebbles covered with felt. Link found on the excellent This Is Love Forever blog.

RANDOM STUFF

Off-Grid is an excellent environmental site. I was particularly fascinated by this story about Microbial Fuel Cells, which use a combination of very basic technology and the energy given off by soil microbes to provide electricity.

A fascinating collection of objects found under the floorboards of an old British house that’s being renovated.

An alphabet made from clothes pegs shaping flesh – ouch!

Animals in formalin – what’s not to like?

25 Amazing Everyday Do It Yourself Inventions – the fangs made from a plastic fork are my favourite.

Lost caverns and buried cities from the excellent Web Urbanist.

Ladders made especially for cats – who knew such a thing even existed?

FUNNIES
Andre Jordan’s pointed cartoons about disability always make me laugh.

Cookie Monster faces his cookie addiction and asks ‘Is Me Really Monster?’

Ah, real comedy of recognition here – The Artist’s Decision Tree

Not at all seasonal but as a knitter, this photo story about Christmas sweaters made me laugh a lot and gave me 80’s flashbacks!

Time for a load of links again, as usual I’ve been keeping a stack of these.

Art Opportunities And Events

S1 Artspace in Sheffield is hosting its third annual residency. The residency takes place over ten weeks from 19th July – 28th September, to be followed by a solo exhibition in October – November 2008 and the deadline is May 8th, so if you’re interested you’d better apply soon. I can’t apply but it looks like a good opportunity (it’s paid!) and it’s open to both British and international artists.

criticalnetwork is a new resource for UK and Ireland-based artists, activists, art organisations, cultural critics and the public, launched Feb 2007. Their focus is on “critical and contextual art, events and discussion” and you can sign up for a weekly newsletter of opportunities and events.

The Spike Island Open is coming up next weekend. If you’re close to Bristol, the launch party is on Friday 2 May from 6- 9pm with an After Party from 9-11pm. It continues from Saturday 3 – Monday 5 May 11am-6pm. It’s a popular and busy event that’s usually worth a visit and I’ll be there on the Friday evening if anyone wants to meet up. If I have the energy, I may also be hanging out in the Associate Space on the Sunday afternoon but it’s doubtful.

My friend Sarah B is doing some great curating work up in Cheltenham with the meantime project and I believe they’re always looking for interesting proposals.

The Here Shop is looking for amazing original crafters or anyone else who makes fantastic things, to use one of their shop windows on a monthly basis to showcase your works for sale. Email them at shopATthingsfromhere.co.uk or drop in some samples of your work and a plan of what you’d like to do. Click here for pics and a plan of the window.

Other Art Links

A lovely article entitled Art Is Medicine For The Soul

Harry White Design make excellent measuring jugs and I love his million dots print.

Do You Buy Art – an excellent article by artist, Lisa Call (her blog is great btw, you should read it).

Photographer Daniel Sroka, whose beautiful macro work I very much enjoy, has an interesting offer where you can buy a print of a work in progress and later upgrade so you wind up with two prints for the price of one. Cunning.

A celebration of the professional artist by Barney Davey.

Art Found Out is a blog dedicated to “artists who are informed by the world around them or driven by a highly personal artistic vision.” I like this blog but I’d like it even more if it had more entries on a page, having to click back after every entry is a bit annoying. I spotted this amazing looking book called Grandfather’s Envelopes on it – I want a copy of this Japanese book so badly but unfortunately haven’t been able to find any websites in English that sell it.

Advice from Alyson Stanfield on how to get out of an art slump. I need to follow some of this!

A couple from Empty Easel blog – a cheap and easy way to make a paintbrush cleaning jar and 8 Sensible Projects for Artists (I should be doing some of these too!)

Random Stuff

The Anti-Pragmatic Manifesto from the always interesting Cabinet Of Wonders

One for the Firefly fans – a couple of speeches from the film Serenity done in Shakespearean verse. I salute my fellow Browncoats…

An epic failure in packaging from the delightfully silly Fail Blog.

Beckett For Babies made me laugh.