Dandifest Jumblesale

New website launch!

My new website has been launched today with a shop. Yippee!! Thanks to Beepmode website development that specialises in artists and writers websites for working so hard to make it happen.

Big row cartoon

A cartoon of Mark Holford in the bath listening to Excess baggage on the radio when he hears all about the Chauncy maples hospital ship restoration. Cartoon was drawn for the Big Row fundraiser booklet.

Crap Towns Return Launch

Crap Towns Return Launch at the Book Hive Independent book shop in Norwich. Here the book sits in the local book collection with the little Out140 book. Today my photos are on the MSN travel website and well as in the book 

Robert local and International web designer is waiting to get an autograph from Sam Jordison. About 10 years ago the original Crap Towns book came out. Robert got his first book in Holland. He likes reading about towns  

Sam Jordison signing Roberts book. Sam also has a local publishing company called Galley Beggar books. I asked Sam if his publishers could help out the hospital arts for a future project

Watch this space to find out more

Exciting signing times

Roberts holding up one of the Galley Beggar additions which he is bought.

A beer and a book.

Crap Towns spread of books. My Bradford photos made it into the Bradford section. I went to college in Bradford and worked managed/cooked in the Java cafe/restaurant. This was 20 years ago before everyone called there cafes the Java. The Java cafe was very successful and employed 20 people at a time which is a lot for Bradford. But the City council was jealous and had the building pulled down. The council got demolish happy and pulled down lots of beautiful buildings and replaced this with a giant puddle. The most successful thing now is the film museum and they want to close that too. Bradford had an amazing festival till the council got hold of it and ruined it

Crap Towns Returns at the Book Hive launch

Crap Towns Returns at the Book Hive launch and the locals

Books and a buzz

Get your books from the Book Hive or website

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

Rough Guide to Sydney, "Thank you"

Just discovered that I get a "Thank you" in the Rough Guide to Sydney book. Nice, that I might have helped in some way towards ideas for the writer.

I have always had a habit of not bothering to read up about a new place, before going and then just seeing which way the wind takes me. Which makes things happen in a way that one does find on the rough sides, to the place. But planning and reading up, takes the roller coaster edge off the rough and helps make the journey, cheaper and easier. As places to stay in a new place, can be booked the day before instead of after ten at night, on the night after walking around the streets looking for a better deal.

Bolt to Holt

A trip out to the countryside for some fresh air with Emma Jarvis. This is inside an amazing antique shop in Holt. Emma is holding up the magnificence magnifying glass.

Out side the antique shop in Holt even a Cromer crab tray in front of the union jack flag.

A cafe with some solid wooden stools and delicious pasty's.

For a small village they all drive these enormous 4 wheel drives. I wonder if they realise that they have legs and feet. 

Looking out of the cafe window at the rain which it looks the rain is on the inside.

Emma chilling out at the cafe

A broken drain pipe and a sign directing oil painters.

A photo taken by Emma of me trying the make them laugh film star technique.

A lady working in a window of another antique shop in Holt.

An early start to Christmas with this cute little shop.

Larner's shop in Holt has everything a household needs.

Including these fondants that would normally be seen in Fortnum and Masons sweet counter.

Time is ticking and its still raining

The apple yard in Holt where the Book shop lives.

Here in the window is a book published by "The Galley Beggar press" and is by a local author Simon Gough, his first book called "The White Goddess". The book is flying off the shelves like Mary Poppins's umbrellas in the London Olympic opening ceremony.

This a view of the book shop in Holt.

In this photo I have discovered another clock. This town really ticks with time.

A barrel of flowers loving the rain.

Galley Beggar at The Book Hive

The new buzz word, my photo of "The Book Hive" in Norwich, made it to the Galley Beggar website. 

I have been busy taking photos in the rain, which is something I learnt from going to art college in the North of England is to take photos in any weather condition and carry a poncho in your bag or buy a bin bag if you haven't got a rain coat. 

I really like the reflections in the windows upstairs in the building and the shape of the corner building which sits on a busy pedestrian intersection below Norwich Castle. The Galley Beggar publishers first book "The White Goddess" by Simon Gough, is selling like umbrellas on a rainy day. Go out and spend, your saved up penny's and visit the Book Hive today an independent bookshop heaven.

Pig Flu leaflet

I found a link to the pig flu government leaflet. It states that we must blow are noses and dispose of the paper tissue in the bin. Have they thought who might be emptying the bins. Have they thought that cleaners have to clean the surfaces of where the virus might be. What about the dustbin men too who collect the rubbish and empty street bins. Washing up in restaurants, after costumers might have it and the big one handling money. 

Have they thought about the amount of trees that would be felled to make paper tissues. Paper tissues causes burst blood vessels on your nose and scratch the nose. Cloth ones would be better, that you take home in a plastic bag and wash in the machine or soak in Tree tree oil.

What about all the people that spit in the street or drop there gum or cig buts.

What about all the people who are too drunk to wash there hands in public places.

Thinking about it is enough to make one very ill. 

Nearly all children eat mud in garden and baby's like to taste nearly everything they get there hands on and crawl around on dirty floors. Why this sudden need for hygiene once your in your teens and adulthood?

Business  as usual.

 

International Collaboration. #blognor09

Norwich pole dancers.

Working table

Over the last few years I have watched all the businesses in Norfolk and the UK move out to India as there only way of saving there business. Norwich Union was one of them they use to be a huge employer in Norwich. People left school and either went to college or got a job at Norwich union.

Since I have been living back in Norwich after being in OZ for nearly a decade. I have struggled to get anything happening. I even designed ideas to fit in with the local community. Like my plastic bottle green house in schools. You would think that would be perfect for schools it teaches carpentry, reusing, and growing veges all in one. When I got in contact with all the schools after doing a Neat business course,  there was not the enthusiasm that I imagined. They said we only get funding for digital things like DVDs.

So the government has complete control over what the teachers teach. So the chance of a kid in a rural farming area growing a tomato is very slim. So the infrastructure in this country is completely set up to fail. 

As a desperate measure to find work in Norfolk I went on line, to search outside Norfolk and to find the like minded enthusiastic people.

I searched the whole planet all over. Starting with a websites, I have 3 at the moment and 10 I helped with the design and layout of writers and artists sites.

Then I went on Facebook, joined over a hundred groups. Then my friend Rebecca in Ireland started her sustainable living blog and I got hooked on the idea of having one. 

Then I started my own art related groups on Facebook. 

Then Anand found me on my cartoonist group. Anand lives in Mumbai India and has a animation porthole website called animation xpress. He knows all the animation studios and has been to Norwich for an Animation conference. He is also a journalist and writer and has joined forces with me to collaborate on a children's book.

The story I like a lot it sparked my imagination straight away. After absorbing the information and exchanging messages with Anand. I then draw lots of sketches and made up 3 paintings for the story and emailed them off to Mumbai.

I am trying very hard to get the pictures to be the best. The book is set in Indonesia so I have drummed up the imagination for being there. 

The illustrations have been accepted as brilliant, so this week I painted another page and have weeks a head of me to carry on painting. 

I wish I had a grant to do art all day I haven't seen a check since last year. I seem to work very hard yet no one wants to pay me in the UK. So I have joined the large boat of businesses moving to India, where they seem to be very on the ball, enthusiastic, embrace and use talented people. 

Ireland had the same problem in the 1970's of talent leaving the island. Francis Bacon, Samuel Beckett, to potters, traditional artists etc. The government acted on this straight away and let all artists be tax free. Then art and the music scene boomed, there was one year at my school that had six bands including U2 . When U2 started earning large sums of cash the first thing they did was repair Dublin, starting with a theatre at the school which was built.

So the best way Norfolk and the UK could start getting things going would be to support the talent instead of letting them rot in the gutter. A tax break would make no difference as artists don't earn anything. But grants  and management teams would be a good idea, to get the potential earnings working.

Or a basic government salary.

Maybe this country has come to a standstill because of all the rules and regulations, which fill up peoples in/out trays.  A sample of this is if I want to borrow a ladder, I need insurance, a letter of permission, public liability. A car with a roof rack, traffic permit to park. Health and safety certificate and a police check and a certificate course in how to go up and down a ladder, ow and someone to hold the ladder at the bottom.

I don't remember all these show stoppers in the first 2 and halve decades of my life. 

In the old days you just got up the ladder did the job and came down again. Falling off the ladder is down to pure circumstance and all the show stoppers listed cant stop or help fate.

When I was teaching stilt walking in Little Snoring a little boy said to me, my mum said I am going to fall of these stilts today, it was affirmed by his Mum that is what he is going to do. So I showed him how to fall safely. So he could fall off his stilts over and over again, like his Mum wanted him to. 

The same applies to everything, the news is constant failings. More jobs going to go this week. etc. then the I told ya so afterwards.

All I want is a life that I can get on with and not have boulders put in the way or hoops to jump through.

Best get back to painting, all this writing is eternal. Will keep you posted on my Mumbai/Norwich collaboration.

I 

Eco Norwich #BlogNor09

My first attempt on making normal bread look like fruit, experimenting with different herbs and spices. Kiwi turned out well with dried parsley coating, oranges and Mandarins were spot on with a turmeric coating. Just need to work on the banana and going to use blended spinach for the apples next time and make the bread have the fruit flavors adding zest. 

Norwich is so green that people can grow plants from the tips of there fingers. Its all greening off this week. Its the Queens birthday today and Prince Charles her son and heir as brought out a book called Harmony, the Prince says were all loosing touch with nature.  Well I am looking forward to having a greener future when Charles becomes King. Maybe he should be King now, to speed things up a bit. 

Sandringham gardens should be open for the summer, they grow a lot of produce at Sandringham and are turning organic with a percentage of organic produce.

Norwich has several organic shops, the Green Grocers, the Greenhouse trust shop, Anna's farm shop, Rainbow and the main city markets, where stall holders are out right through the winter selling vegetables, when it is freezing.

The Veg shop on Gloucester street, Fred & Yarham veg shop is my nearest veg shop and they have plants and small trees. I have a big blueberry bush now, which can grow up to 6 ft. They also have paper bags and fish.

There is also a new little coffee shop on the corner across the road, so you could if smart, give a list of veges you want to the veg shop and butchers and bakers then go and have a coffee at the cafe and pick it all up when you have read the paper.

There is also quite a few organic delivery services in Norwich. 

I like fresh herbs so I always have a kitchen garden on the window ledges of Rosemary, oregano, sage, coriander, mint and chives. I would like my wild strawberry's to spread this year so I have composted around them and live in hope. 

End of summer I get baskets of windfalls from my Mum and its apple pie season. With flour from Letheringsett flour water mill. 

Last summer I went on a big bike ride with friends out to find the oldest tree in the Uk a Hawthorn at Heffal. Instead we found buckets of blackberries and Lotus car factory. At the moment I got wind that there is a wind energy fast car being made there by a team of experts.

Ecotricity are on to it, the power company that reinvests in green energy and matches the bill with other power company's. Norfolk is a good spot for windmills being flat and coastal.

This summer I plan to go out walking in Norfolk and take with me a book I have just been lent by a friend called "Free for All" a wild plants as a source of food book. I will then have ago at cooking with nature.

Wild oats for breakfast!

Outside there changing the street lamps one would hope there going to make them solar. I wonder if a sensor system would work. a light switch for pedestrians to turn on the street lights when walking home in the dark or as you walk past the light or drive past the next light gets turned on. Just ideas.

I ride my bike everywhere and take it on the train. I have two bikes an inner city posing bike with big basket and a country rides one with gears.

I could rabble on all day about all the Eco things in Norfolk. I got my green party posters this week from my local green councilor. They want to go for sending one of our green councilors to Europe so voting Green is a good idea this year.

All Norfolk needs now is lots of funding to start up more Eco enterprises, that could create more jobs. I have lists of ideas if your stuck for one.

Must get back to making my art money to send off to Denmark. That's another story will tell you later.

Keep reading my blog today I have put out a new blog page every hour as a Norfolk Spring special show and tell. 

   

Blogging Norfolk 2009

Wow! I am truly honoured to be accepted as a writer by the BBC and the Writers centre Norwich and the arts council for this unbelievable amazing collaboration to put Norfolk bloggers on the map. I can feel an enormous overwhelment that is going to bring on writers block. Its like being watched by your boss suddenly I have forgotten what to write about.

This reminds me of an idea had for a public sculpture I want to put in Norfolk, because there are so many writers hidden away in the woods, writing away through the night alone, night after night. Then when they finish there book there brought out into the daylight to meet the public in a book shop and sign there name over and over and again on the inside cover.

So getting out is hard for a writer as the pen and solitude keeps them in there own imaginary world. but occasionally they stumble across writers block on able to drum up a few words or tap into the imagination.

My idea for a Norfolk public sculpture would be a writers block "big white concrete block". Writers then can come out and sit on the writers block for reflection and inspiration and write a few words on the block, to get them back into writing again.

I better write about whats been happening in Norfolk today. I been listening to future radio all day. The fringe festival was mentioned with all the acts, performances, bands, shows happening. Quite a lot is going on St Gregory's art centre in Pottergate.

Also Art on the railings is on again this year at St.Peter mancroft church. Come along and buy some art, become a collector of local artists work. Collecting art work is going to become a national thing this year. As in you don't have to go to London to collect artist work, you can collect it from an artist here in Norwich, added bonus there is one right here on line with her paintings for sale have a browse through my past pages or look at my website.

I have decided today I am going to Indonesia this year to help Kath Ellis build something huge from bamboo, it is a voluntary job for a month creating an arts festival. All I need is my fare and food and my rent paid for here, plus take 5 other Norfolk artists with me. Fundraising starts from today, any painting sales go towards getting there in October.

I have hundreds more pictures at home if a buyer wants to see more then whats on line.

All day I have been painting an illustration for a collaboration in Mumbai India. It was one of those pictures where I impressed myself and patted myself on my sore hunch back.

Tomorrow I will go out to the front pavement to photograph the illustration, where I usually draw a crowd. The neighbours come up behind me when I am just in focus to take the picture.

They are all fascinated with my artwork and want to know why I am doing each picture.

Blobbing Norfolk

I treat my blob, like an open book with no brief or formula or label or time, chapters and so on. So that it leaves it open for anything to be written or any pictures put on it. I have had one spell checker in Oz called Zio, who checked me words while I was living in Oz, and being a cook, the general public always told me I spelt things wrong on the black board, for me to put right. Robert was my editor for quite a while, but got to busy with more important work. So for quite a while I been writing with out help so please excuse my bad grammar, spelling, English, opinions and do comment, if you spot something spelt wrung, etc.

Crikey! So the BBC are going to put Norfolk blobs on the Map for blogging Norfolk 2009.

 I don't know what the locals are going to say about this, we all know that people living outside Norfolk doesn't know exactly where Norfolk is and were all happy with that. It isn't a discrimitrary thing, its stems far back when trading stopped happening on the waterways and then the only way out of here to trade with other people elsewhere was on a little road. So spreading ya wings can only happen if you have wings and feathers. Norfolk is like an isolated island with in an island. To get a touring band here we have to beg and bribe them to play here. Its just that little bit far off the beaten track that makes us a little bit out of touch.  

Janie Hampton

Auntie Janie Hampton, author of the Gold medal winning book that covers the post war Olympics in London, that was built on community spirit. The Austerity Olympics makes a great Christmas present.
Janie has written lots of great books that cover a whole range of her interests. Her website is http://www.janiehampton.co.uk/ The website was built by easy openings which is my in house website company.
My first memories of Auntie Janie was her coming to visit one Christmas, she gave us all home made pillow cases and my Mum had bought a giant jar of lolly pops, which I over indulged in.
A few years later my family cycled to her house in the south of England and there I experienced the feeling of self sufficiency, homemadeness and invention.
She made my whole family blanket coats with big hoods, which we wore for nearly a decade, my brother and I both sewed secret pockets into ours so we wouldn't get pick pocketed.
I have have had the urge since I was little to make a duvet coat. Think I might make it this winter.

Rachel Anderson puppet

Auntie Rachel Anderson one of the family collection of hand puppets, I especially enjoyed making her glasses, she has always worn glasses with a bit of sparkle in the frames. Rachel is a prolific writer and wrote her first book when she was just 17 years old called Pineapple which my mother illustrated for her. Her books range from children's stories to real life events. She manages motherhood and grand-motherhood and one of her sons, Sang, is my favourite cousin, who came with his parents to visit me in Australia. Sang is a brilliant and works at Norwich Cathedral and the Forget-Me-Not cafe. I sometimes join Sang in song at his wild karaoke nights.

Rachel has got a new book out every time I visit her. My last visit I was picking blackberries with her grandchild in her woodland garden.

Tip toe to her website, built by Robert.

War Is Over If You Want It.

You can see more of Yoko Ono peace message. Here http://www.imaginepeace.com/
You can start you own poster campaign today. You can't save the Post offices in the UK till you end the war. The UK has funded every war through the profits from the post office, since the postal service was invented. Stopping junk mail is not going to end the post office but spending billions on a war will. Stop junk mail now its a waste of money, resources and is killing animals and rainforest's and humans in Indonesia. http://www.stopjunkmail.com/
Peace needs to happen from every angle on the planet.

Yoko Ono part two. The big frieze 2008

During Yoko's question time these two lads were performing with wool, measuring it and putting it in a glass jar at different speeds.
This I like because I am working with wool at the moment, knitting my artworks. Wool is organic, biodegradable resource and fleece's from sheep are not used enough.



Yoko's last piece was a big clay vase on the stage.

This is what we were suppose to imagine happened to the vase. We were told to all take a piece and put it back together later on in time.



The start of the frenzy for her broken vase.



This where they go crazy, I sneak in between there legs and head butt someones nuts on the way out.



Meanwhile Yoko has sneaked out the back door. So I missed out on having my photo with her. People were bagging them up, when it was a piece each. This lady is posing hoping a camera will catch her with her piece.
It all reminded me of an old trick that Jesus might have done to keep away his fans. Have this rock I have touched. Although a pottery vase is a nice touch, organic clay, no harm to anyone, not a stolen rock from Wales or mined gold. A piece of fired earth to help us remember peace.
Go to Part one here.http://eloiseohare.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/frieze-talks-yoko-ono.html

The Big Frieze 2008 Talks Yoko Ono Part One

Yoko Ono

Well I am certainly suffering for my art tonight as I have just spent my money on going to London to see other great artists work and there is no money in the gas metre so the big freeze is a happening right in my own home tonight, while I write up my blog about the big Frieze.
What an organization I had to get a train to London the night before the Big Frieze so I could get to the Frieze early to book a ticket to see Yoko in action. Only to be told by several security on the door that all we had to do was turn up 30 minutes before the talk started. So my friend Claire and I wandered around Regents park looking at the art that was on general public display.
When we got in we walked and walked all around till 3.30 then pondered across the auditorium where the talks were held and asked about Yoko's talk, they replied it had sold out. Still with hours to go, we were raging. They said they would hold any tickets that came back. We wandered some more and went back. With luck on side this time there were two tickets held.
We were so exhausted we hung around till the talk began standing in a zigzag que. 5pm we were in and I ran to the front and there seats with names of Princesses and reporters and art critics on and two empty seats. I grabbed mine and put a bag on the other for Claire. There we were front row right in the middle, with big cheesy grins on our faces.

On stage is a projector and a pile of hats a blank canvas and two hammers and a chair. Yoko Ono comes on to stage and looks no different from my image I had as a child of her in the imagine video. She puts on a hat and tells us of her child hood wearing hats and how her mother said she looked good in hats. This hat gives me memory's of her in the 2nd world war her as a child begging for food with her family after her city has been bombed. Wars don't leave you in one piece they take away something or everything. My mother was also bombed out in London as a child and has been deaf from the sound of bombs and has many other dysfunctions of war.

Yoko puts a white veil on that reminds me of a wedding veil or spirit and moves around on stage under the veil while her film is showing. Her film is about peace and her love for John.
John's birthday was on the 9th of October and Yoko celebrated by building a giant light that beams love in the SOS signal to the whole Universe. The light sculpture was thought up decades ago and has only just come into real life.

This an image of the light in action on the Johns birthday. Iceland has an 80 percent ecotricty energy from water, so its the best place for the light to go and Yoko says the north of the planet is more intelligent then the south and the light will spread the intelligence to the south of the planet. I like the way Yoko has taken a spiritual creative approach to creating peace on the planet. Yoko and John had a more media approach for the Vietnam war which they had a international poster campaign, saying the war was over. Which he did end, but not for long new ones have cropped up. We need to end them for good as in forever and stop letting the maniacs rule the planet.

An art critic gets up and stage and helps with he questions and answers. She had good answers for all the questions. One of the questions was from a Mexican female artist who was concerned about female artists in Mexico getting a hard time. Yoko's answer was write what you want in life down and put it in a draw and the brain heals abuse. But also Yoko has a wishing tree in Iceland and all our wishes can be sent there. She gave everyone in the audience a stamp and a parcel tag to write our wish on and our own miniature light to use to do the S.O.S I love you on everyone we meet.
Continue post at Part two here.http://eloiseohare.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/yoko-ono-part-two-big-frieze-2008.html http://eloiseohare.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/yoko-ono-part-two-big-frieze-2008.html