B.Right festival Brighton

So here’s how it happened. I went into a cafe in Brighton where I used to clean the floors and asked for an art exhibition. The owner liked my work but said it was too political for his business. A friend knew someone who knew someone at the Jubilee Library – I got offered an exhibition there next February. I’m going to paint BANNED across the main window in dripping blood. In the foyer exhibition space there’ll be some of my visual poems, and giant speech bubbles from the OUT140 project, telling coming-out stories in 140 characters: ‘Mother said I’d rather you were a prostitute than a lesbian’ or ‘I told my parents I was bisexual when I was 16. They said "go to your room."

Then someone said do you want to see round the Town Hall – some lovely Old Police Cells, and a basement fitted with shelves, both ripe for exhibitions, performances, just saying – and I ended up saying “Yes!” to the Atrium, the perfect place to hang the Hankie Quilt, a memorial to those we’ve lost and those living with HIV. I’ll be representing the 482 HIV+ people who have died in Brighton since 1982 with drops of red blood, and the 1,895 people living with HIV in Brighton today with fresh lime leaves. Please update these figures if you know better. A quarter of the people living with HIV don’t know it yet – early diagnosis = longer life.So then I asked if anyone else wanted to help celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans History Month in Brighton next February. First, National Co-Chairs Sue Sanders and Tony Fenwick said yes, and then Gscene magazine said yes, and Brighton Council LGBT Worker’s Forum said yes, and the Jubilee Library said yes, and Bear Patrol said yes, and Emmaus said yes, and Lunch Positive said yes, and artists said yes, and poets said yes, and choirs sang yes, and Disability Arts Online said yes, and Barefoot Wine said yes, and I Am A Poem turned into we are The B.Right.On Festival - now with added Arts Council England support! Thank you all for your enthusiasm! Needless to say, I’ve thanked the café owner for saying no.So far we’ve got Launches, Adopt-A-Pansy, Trouser Wearing Characters, Make Them Eat Cake, a Queer Brighton Tour, a Human Library, The Small Frayed Knot, The ‘L’ Word, and How Gay is Your Pet? We could do with more wall space for art and photography. If you’ve got other stuff planned, let me know and we’ll put it in the programme and let as many people know as possible. Think what you can bring to the party, not what you can take.I’m calling it a celebration of Queer History Month – I don’t care what your sexuality is, or your preferred gender - I just insist you’re not straight, white, and able-bodied. Only kidding. It’s a celebration for everyone who realises everyone is worth celebrating. As Oscar Wilde said, “You don’t have to bat for us to admire our balls!”Get in touch if you want to get involved.Vince Lawswww.iamapoem.com

New Eco stop junk mail stamper

Stop junk mail has brought out a new "Stamper"! The stamper prints "Return to Sender" on envelopes that get sent to you from junk mailing companies.
I use to live in a block of 3 flats and the amount of junk mail that was delivered made it hard to open the front door. This stamper is perfect for people who live in flats.
Estate agents would benefit from a having a stamper to when they get piles of mail from a previous tenants.
Businesses would also gain from having a stamper when they get junk mail from other businesses.

The stamper is made from recycled bottles. The ink pad is replaceable too.

The stop junk mail campaign is a non-profit one stop shop for information about how to cut down on your junk mail. I help out with the campaign as I am very keen on saving trees and there Eco system.   

Cake tin 2

Here is about my art work the film was made by Clementine doll and was sponsored by The Cake tin foundation in Manchester.
Last year I had an exhibition of creative drag Queen portraits at Franks Bar in Norwich as part of the Norwich Pride arts trail for Norwich Pride. Clementine doll was making a film about the day in the life of Norwich's famous Pequlia Bigtopp. Pequlia went to Franks bar to see her portrait and that is where Clementine doll had the idea of filming all my my paintings.
The Cake tin foundation in Manchester is a charity that helps LGBT performers outside of London put on shows.

Norwich Rising film makes it to international news

One little film made on the spare of the moment with a camera on a phone by Shelly Telly of Norwich Rising has made it to international article about one billion rising in the Guardian today.

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• • Jane Martinson
  • The Guardian, Monday 28 January 2013 19.30 GMT

Indian women in a protest this month against violence towards women. Photograph: Harish Tyagi/EPA

Since Eve Ensler launched the One Billion Rising campaign to end violence against women she has been repeatedly asked: is it a dance movement or overtly political? A protest or a giant global celebration? Just a few weeks before 14 February, the date that Ensler, activist and author of The Vagina Monologues, designated the "day to rise", she says: "I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime."

One in three women around the world are subject to violence at some point in their life, a statistic that prompted Ensler, who wrote the Monologues in 1996, to set up One Billion Rising. With such violence encompassing domestic abuse, gang rape, female genital mutilation and war, it is perhaps unsurprising that the campaign has taken on a different hue in each of the 190 countries where events to mark 14 February are planned.

"It is something that has gone across class, social group and religion. It's like a huge feminist tsunami," she said on a stopover in Paris.

Local protests range from the first ever flashmob in Mogadishu, Somalia, to the town square in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute and encompass Maori women in New Zealand and an estimated 25m protesters in Bangladesh. Ensler's idea for One Billion Rising came from her work in the Congo, where she set up the City of Joy to help female victims of violence and where she plans to be on 14 February itself, a day chosen partly to take back the idea of love from the soppy commercialism of Valentine's Day. Her last stop before Congo will be London, with a sold-out event at the Café de Paris including Thandie Newton and other campaigners.

Ensler says a combination of social media and the world's grassroots feminist movements have driven the way the campaign has taken off globally. In south Asia for three weeks over Christmas, she was struck by how much the horror over the gang rape of the 23-year-old medical student Jyoti Singh in Delhi had given impetus to the campaign. "InIndia, One Billion Rising is at the centre of the biggest breakthrough in sexual violence ever seen," she says.

Kamla Bhasin, a feminist campaigner in the continent for more than 30 years, says each country is taking a different approach – from the astonishing mass movement in Bangladesh, organised by Brac, one of the world's largest NGOs, to Afghanistan, where "there will be no dancing and no singing but people still want to say, 'Enough is enough'".

The idea of dancing to stop violence has understandably attracted naysayers, even among committed supporters, but two videos, among hundreds, sum up how Ensler's idea inspires campaigners. The first is the one that launched the new anthem written and produced by Grammy-award-winning Tena Clark, Break the Chain , with a video choreographed by Debbie Allen, who went on to make her own accompanying "how to" dance video. The second is one produced by campaigners in Norwich. Without the involvement of the sort of Hollywood A-listers – Robert Redford, Jane Fonda – usually associated with Ensler, it's still hugely effective. Local organisers were keen to show that the campaign is supported by men and boys as well as women.

Much of the effort in the UK has been concentrated on changing sex education in schools to embrace relationships and violence. A cross-party group including Labour MP Stella Creasy and Conservative MP Amber Rudd is hoping for parliamentary time on 14 February to vote on making "personal, social and health education a requirement in schools, including a zero tolerance approach to violence and abuse in relationships".

Efforts to get the government to recognise the campaign itself have so far failed to gain much ground. In the latest parliamentary debate, foreign office minister Hugo Swire restricted himself to pointing out that the government took such violence seriously and warned women to be careful when going abroad.

In the US, veteran campaigner Pat Reuss is also hoping to use support for OBR in every state to resuscitate the Violence Against Women Act that provides protection for victims, yet which Congress failed to reauthorise last year.

When asked which country she has been most amazed by, Ensler rattles off a list of action – from those protesting against sex trafficking in Mexico to mass activity in the Philippines. She adds that the 50 cities preparing events in Italy took her by surprise. "That was a real turning point for me," she says. "Fifty cities in Italy!"

Campaigners are already wondering what will happen after V-day. "The dancing will be amazing but more important is what's happening to move violence against women to the forefront of the agenda," says Ensler. "It will never be a marginalised issue again ... At this point it really feels like a wave with a life of its own."

Norwich rising rehearsal January 2013

The Rising dancers on the steps of the Forum

The Norwich Forum and Rising dancers

Sunshine breaking through the winter clouds as we practice the dance.

Sunday morning at 10am outside the forum we practiced the dance moves for Norwich rising which is working towards ending violence against women. One billion women have violence against them on the whole planet. Like rape, child abuse, getting beaten, verbal abuse, the list goes on. Generally women are still back in the dark ages. Doing 99 percent of the worlds work and earning one percent of the worlds money. Well not for much longer on the 14th of February this year 2013 the world will be a different place when women will rise up and dance and and make a stand. 

Queens history society

Art exhibition at the NNUH hospital in the corridor cabinets of International famous artist Eloise O'Hares creative drag Queens from round the world. Mounted watercolour paintings will be well hung by hospital arts long standing volunteer Eloise O'Hare.
The portraits were painted for the Queens Jubilee last year and shown at Franks bar as part of the Norwich Pride arts trail 2012

Queens and cake exhibition film sponsored by the cake tin foundation and made by Clementine doll. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qxwLocBm8dc

The exhibition is part of the Norfolk LGBT history month and is supported by the Norwich hospital arts project. The exhibition runs for the whole of February 2013

The exhibition is for the 6000 staff, 600 volunteers and the 1000's of patients and visitors.

The hospital has wheelchair access. Buses available from the city centre. paid parking, cycle route short cut though the UEA and a walk through Eaton park then by the UEA lake, down past the Sainsbury Centre and along a public footpath to the hospital.

Norwich Rising 2013

This photo above was taken by Shelly Telly. Norwich Rising website

Every Sunday morning at 10am women and men meet outside the Forum in Norwich to rehearse a dance piece that is designed for the 14th Feb 2013 at 1pm outside the Forum. All over the world on the same dat, people will be doing the same dance to end violence against women. One billion women on the planet have been subjected to violence and we now want it to stop!

After the dance we have a cup of hot chocolate or coffee and chat at the Marzano's cafe.

The event in Norwich has been organised by Shelly Telly and she has made a film trailer of us all dancing. I took a photo that is in the EDP today.

I copied the whole article by David Freezer onto my blog. but if the film isn't working click or copy link  here. http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/video_dancers_brave_the_cold_to_practise_steps_as_norwich_prepares_to_take_part_in_one_billion_rising_1_1801790

Video: Dancers brave the cold to practise steps as Norwich prepares to take part in One Billion Rising

By DAVID FREEZER

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Practice of Norwich Rising dance outside the Forum in Norwich Photo by Eloise O'Hare 6:30 AM

  Dancers braved the cold to practise for an upcoming local event supporting the One Billion Rising international campaign at the weekend.

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Norwich Pride is still looking for people to take part
in the event, which aims to raise awareness of violence
against women and hopes to get one billion women,
and those who love them, to dance on February 14.

This is based on United Nations estimates that one
in three women on the planet – roughly one billion 
women – will be raped or violently assaulted in her
lifetime.

The Norwich Rising event is planned as a mass dance
at the Forum at 1pm on February 14 and organisers got
in some practise for the event on Sunday morning.

There is a campaign dance called Break the Chain
which can be watched and practised at www.norwichrising.wordpress.com/dance

Here is a Link to YouTube video
of Norwich Rising
by Shelly Telly http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=TsOhG6SGm_A