Norfolk and Norwich Festival The Chipolata's!

Chipolata's


1. 2. 3. Jasper Juggling sketch at the Theatre Royal Norwich. Drawn in the back row in the dark. Sketched with feeling and expression. 3B pencil. 39 years of practice drawing. In 1986 Dick Condon who ran the Theatre Royal when I was at City College, let me, Holly and Becky draw from the Audience the shows and the inside of the theatre for 3 weeks solid. This is where drawing shows all began for me and here I am reunited with my starting out point in life and this time with the performance group who gave me my first costume job in Bradford 1994 on stage and here I am drawing them. At City college Brenda and Mike taught us to also draw blind folded and wonder around the college blind folded.

Magic! Sketch of Chipolatas at the Theatre Royal Norwich.

Timing is everything! Chipolatas sketch Theatre Royal Norwich.

Oh Nose! Chipolatas Sketch Theatre Royal Norwich of Jasper.

Bloomin Heck! Sketch of Chipolatas Norwich Theatre Royal.

A festival is about joy and to take time out from are ritualistic lives, stuck in the domestication of our mundane habitual numb self reliant reality that is put upon us by the system.

At some point in a narrow minded general system, steam needs to be let off. Thanks to a handful of nice people in the UK that devote there time to organizing festivals for everyone to enjoy, local or visiting we can have an opportunity in the system, to let off steam and have some fun. General happiness is a good cure for a happy life is my motto. If everyone is happy I am happy.

One group of people that came together thanks to Norwich festival was the Chipolatas and was I pleased to see them. The chips had found me all over the world and cheered me up in previous decades and if it hadn't been for the chipolatas I wouldn't be where I am today.

Bradford Festival 1994, was the first time they got me out of strife. I was up to my eyeballs managing the Java continental cafe, it was long hours and very much 24/7. The only vegetarian restaurant in the north of the UK, so it had ques all the way to London and back. I was thrown a job one night, By Linda and Joe The Elderly Blind Date Show, sets and costumes. Crikey. When do I make all this. Instantly I took up juggling, from making coffees, cooking, doing the till, to making costumes on the 20 metre long vegan cakes counter and managing the festival cafe with 10 metre wide queue and so thick I never saw the end. 

When the costumes were needed I took them back stage to Sam and Chips and they wore them on stage and the local press gotta a cute picture of the winning blind date contestants with Sam hosting as Cupid. Down under and beyond I was walking down the main drag In Sydney I bump into the chipolatas, who jumped off a moving bus, upon spotting me on the pavement. We hung out on the roof top of the old weetabix factory in Chippendale and saw a whole view of the moon and Sydney where I lived with Sydney artists and performers. Then I am up at Woodford festival in far north Queensland building a giant whale tent and see them again. They all stayed with me when I moved to an old bullet and lucky charm factory near the harbour. The place was so big with giant corrugated doors and enormous sewing room and giant group workshop space and a shop front that I renamed with Phil Free the poet who helped me take the sign down and painted and my shower in the nude for a free feed, wine and some poetry.

The sign became polluted planet and had all sorts of rubbish stuck to it. The kitchen was in a stone cave that was underneath the shop. I had no shelves so everything was kept on the floor. The place was a hive of activity, Stephen juicing fruit in the kitchen, me sewing, the trapeze swinging, Esmeralda making things, Burkurr being a chicken, music being played and huge party's and circus's stopping over while they were performing in town and cousins staying and were cooking in top restaurants.

The Chipolatas blended in so well at the warehouse I didn't even notice they were there, plus they were out doing shows in Sydney. Wow! So they played in Norwich to for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. I got in contact with the chips via there website and I organised a wee gathering of a barbie in my back garden.

I took a group of friends along to see there show at the Theatre Royal and I was really happy to see my friends joining in with the show and having a whale of a time. The chipolatas show was top class, down to earth. There comedy, music, performance can be matched with all the greats but better. Chipolatas is a trio group that have been together for 17 years, hopping round the world. For Norwich they put on a special show with 3 extra performers.

Tune in tomorrow for photos of the chipolatas having fun in Norwich.

Jont Recording

Tonight while a big firework displays were going off at the Norwich festival, I was being boring and a workaholic but also too exhausted to venture out into the night.

I was looking at my Myspace for Creative artist, Eloise, which was set up for my band and performance side of drawing live bands and performances. Managing now 5 groups on Fb, two myspaces, 3 websites an many other social networking sites and my blog is quite a handful. All just get a peak look at for a few minutes every now again.

While I was at my myspace today I came across an old message from Jont and thought I would click on his page to see what he is up to. Jont has a single released called Sweetheart and a has a photo slide show of his Album recording in Wandsworth. The photos are on the left side of the page and there is me doing my spontaneous drawing of the recording.

Jont has a gig page with Unlits and gigs on his myspace and a link to his main website.

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.

 

Hospital Arts project furniture.

The hospital called me in to day to have a full on long one, sorting out paper works, exhibitions and the new Children's Jenny Lind ward. Working in the office with Emma Jarvis is like trying to keep a jumbo jet in the air. Emma wears a head phone piece and is typing like playing a classical fast piece, I can barely see her fingers touch the keyboard, as they tap at 5000 words per second. The office door is open only because it is bursting at the sides with art which is also stacked up along the corridor and in any where there is space. Paperwork sits in piles on everysurface. The voices from the other offices sorting out all the running functions of the whole hospital system. So there all working faster then beavers. Trying to focus on the job is quite some task for a me who normally works in silence.
After a morning of untwining the paperwork. At midday we had a special treat of going over to Acre Joinery and seeing the finished computer console table. We went in and said Hello to Barry Wakefield big boss and Ivan Eves, then we saw the table, in the large woodwork space with lads were chiseling and sawing and sanding. There it was, shining like a star. It was amazing beyond believe, unimaginable and so well crafted. I was dumbstruck and overwhelmed by my designs turning into something so brilliant.
We then greeted and thanked the talented carpenter Richard Horner who made the table.
The table also had special metal pieces made to join the game boys to the table so they don't get stolen, John Rackham came over from the metal works Rackham engineering and showed us the amazing metal craftsman ship, which was also state of the art and well crafted and matched the colours of the table.
We worked out a plan of how to ensemble the metal pieces and decided I need a space somewhere to paint the legs of the table.  Then back to the hospital for a long after noon of putting up a Amnesty International exhibition with pictures drawn by different illustrators.
I took down the staff awards photos that had lined the corridor and came across Mr.Innes my consultant who did an brilliant operation on my ear. The last check up I discovered he had retired from the hospital. I wish him a fantastic and well deserved retirement.

I then went home Robert cooked my dinner and I kneaded bread for a picnic and finished painting a couple of illustrations for children's book.

Jasper musician and friends, helps fund new equipment for School

Table Eleven Bungay Primary School in Norfolk. Destination Swing. Spontaneous sketch. 
Jasper at Bungay Primary School, Norfolk. Playing with Destination Swing. Fast sketch.

The full band Destination Swing at Bungay Primary School, 1st of May 2009. Super fast sketch.

Tonight I went out to Bungay with picnic in toe and few bottles. Bungay Primary School was having a fundraising night for there playground to build a playhouse. Emma had told me that we would be sitting on little chairs at little tables. When we arrived there was golden chairs, tables, tablecloths, candelabras, a big stage and back drop. We were at table Eleven, the table number was made by the children and the pictures that lined the walls were by the children.
We unpacked our picnic and I had made guitar shaped bread buns to go with a humus dip and many other bits. The table was already covered then the rest of the group came to sit at the table and brought an even bigger picnic. So we just pretended it was Christmas and indulged.
After the raffle ticket break and Kate at our table won a bottle of wine. We cleared the table and done some drawing, other drawers moved to another table to spread out.
The music was the best Jazz I have ever heard live. The night went so fast I sketched very fast to get the whole band in one song. After the evening we hitched back with Kate and dropped into the Alex pub, people were all outside because of the warm weather.
I had a coffee as I was juiced to my limit and the others indulged in some local beers.
It was a nice night then to walk home and on to my street with Syfi blue Led street lighting which I cannot yet make out if it is a good thing or not. I suppose its the next level to getting solar.