Studio Diary
A visual record of goings on during May and June 2025
At the start of May the Worcester Arts Collective had a table at CMYK Festival of Print and Illustration, an annual event which takes place at Hereford College of Arts. Four of us from the collective had zines, prints and badges for sale.
I made a short video piece in response to a call for entries for works to show as part of the ArtCan installation ‘Growing under one sky'. It’s due to be shown at Creative Climate Fest, 5 July – 31 August 2025 at Scolton Manor, Pembrokeshire.
I’ve finally managed to review and curate my shallow tin pictures for the year-long Revolve project. With a month to go I still need 15 shots to have a full set of 52 but, as ever, a deadline focusses the mind and so even though behind a bit, I feel that I’m back on track and all is in control. Famous last words…
The annual fundraising auction of postcard sized original artwork for ArtCan (the international arts organisation that I’m a member of) is almost upon us. I made a split Polaroid piece ‘Three Silver Birch Twice Over’ from two images of the same scene overlooking Worcester racecourse taken in January and March this year.
And on the design front I was asked to come up with a new logo and branding for the event. The background lettering is ‘with love’ in the languages of the 30 countries that ArtCan has artist members in.
Up until now my tin pictures have only been printed postcard size, as that’s the main rule for the Revolve project. However I had the opportunity to exhibit some in a local gallery so framed up half a dozen printed at approx A3. The tin is about 4.5 x 6in so the images at A3 are bigger than life size and that makes a huge difference to the impact that they make.
The gallery is only open until the end of this month – it was a popup in a shop inbetween lettings – but I’ll have them on display during Worcestershire Open Studios which takes place at the end of August.
We’ve been busy at the Collective with community projects. We had a visit from art students at the local college where they learned about collective working and our individual practices whilst looking around our studios. We’ve had our monthly social lunch and informal networking sessions (chat and gossip, essentially…) and had a half day putting together the latest batch of creative packs for children which are distributed via the Worcester Foodbank prior to the summer holidays.
Amongst all that we’ve also started looking for new premises for our studios and the collective activities. The lease on the building, which we intended to renew in September, has come in with an enormous rise in the cost of the rent which is unaffordable. We’ve seen a couple of potential buildings, and aside from the hassle of having to pack up and move, it is actually quite exciting. So watch this space…