Photobooth Favourites

Birthday Stop-Motions

George Bernard Shaw quote

"This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."

There's More to Life than Lists Exhibition

Crystal Maze geodesic dome

There's More to Life than Lists

When: Friday 9th Oct to Thursday 15th of Oct From 10AM-5PM daily

We are building a two-man wind machine. Thousands of To-Do lists, collected from anonymous donors will be circulated in this machine, and participants will be trying to collect these flying lists. This is surrounded by an accumulation of grocery lists covering the walls from floor to ceiling.

The uncontrollable nature of wind is a metaphor for the chaotic and the unpredictable way that life is. The attempt to grab these lists parrots the way in which we struggle to maintain a sense of order – to discern a meaningful pattern in our lives.

The grocery lists raise questions about the disparate way in which we, in our society, live in such an atomised way. Disintegration of kinship and communities is reflected by how we eat; in small numbers or alone.

A warning to Arts Graduates: The Creative Times

After my London Free Range degree show, I recieved an email from 'Bird River Love God' who goes by the email editor@thecreativetimes.co.uk and the website http://www.thecreativetimes.co.uk/

He told me how much he loved my work, and that he wanted me to feature in his magazine, The Creative Times. I stupidly handed over £200 after speaking to him on the phone, and deciding I could trust him. BAD IDEA. There is talk of Bird having done this before, taken about 20 young artist's £200 and giving them nothing in return.

He approached me in July, it's now May, this magazine was due to be produces at the end of 2008, distributed to all the arts galleries in London, sent to major art dealers, it sounded great!

"I now envision more of a collective effort. Not least reason being that I don't particularly like being responsible for everything. Once the mag is printed, I'm going to be asking you guys to distribute it."

So let this be a warning to everyone, I hope if he contacts people, they will have the sense to at least google his name, (like I did - but nothing was found when I was searching) DO NOT give him your money. I have given up hope with this Creative Times, what was once so exciting and flattering to me, is becoming more and more of a scam. I wonder if i will ever see a magazine, and if it'll be any good at all.

Birthday

What a lovely birthday party! Gorgeous location, amazing friends and family, and beautiful weather. I could not have asked for anything more.

The pinata went down very well, lots of bashing, here's a sped-up vid of the bashing, the original is 8 minutes, but that's here too.

More pinatas coming soon I think, in the fruit/veg form. It took Mia and I ages, but It was so beautiful! and so fulfilling to wack.

Stop Motion

I really love doing these. Here are three from today's roof-top visit with Lucy.

Spring Studio

Some pictures of my studio... Here are some gorgeous frames, the ornate one is a frame that my step-dad donated to me (thank you!) and the solid wood frame I found in a skip outside the Architecture Center, by Arnolfini, here in Bristol. Complete with map! (Which I hope to sell on Ebay)


Here is where I do my sitting down. I treated my studio to a big tidy-up this week, It feels fresh and spring-cleaned. Must keep it like this so I don't waste time tidying. You can see more frames here, under the school desk, got to fill them up.


Some text pieces, I have had a development in that area, as fantastic online shop Hunkydory Home want to sell my text project! I'm selling 'You're My Cup of Tea', 'Love', 'Hello', and 'This is it' with them, and want to get lots ready and in-stock as I'm being optimistic about them selling like hotcakes (that would make another nice text piece! I'm going to start talking in idioms only now)
Some Receipt Mountains on the wall, and my monsters are hanging around too.

Receipt Mountains

Here we have the Receipt Mountains. Barfoot and Duggan have acquired thousands of receipts, all from one person who has collected every receipt from every purchace in their life. We're working with PVA and getting messy, scrunching it all up and creating a terrain. We're enjoying the process, and plan to fill a space with them, a whole floor of them.

Blind Drawings of Lucy's Nanny

Here are some blind drawings and cheating-blind drawings (glancing every 10 seconds of so) Lucy's Nanny. Drawing old people is much better for blind-drawing. All those wrinkles and expressions. So much to draw, but they do keep still for longer!

Vic and Bob

I have been watching 'Bang Bang. It's Reeves and Mortimer'. This was especially strange:



And 2 things which pop up in my mind quite often:



The second, I can't find online, but it's from Dirty Dancing, when there's an old lady, who also looks like a little girl, and she's singing by the piano and she's bouncing up and down in her chair.

Fruit and Veg

So, this fruit and veg fancy dress shop will specialise in:

• Brussel sprouts
• Leeks
• Strawberry's
  
• Aubergines
  
• Limes
• Bananas
• Lychee's
• Fennels

There is obviously a gap in the market - look at this I found here. Oh dear!

Artists Statement and Deviantart

My Artist's statement on my website:

"Hello I am Lucy Barfoot, I have a degree in Fine Art and it feels good. I live in Bristol and have done since graduating in 2008 with a Fine Art degree from the University of Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey

I create a large variety of work, but my love is within sculpture-installation. I enjoy making stuff from ready-made stuff; apples, syrup, lists, petals. I like to make tiny sculptures, sew little lines onto paper, make ink + PVA molds, and blind draw.

The word 'quirky' is often used to describe my art - I'm not sure if I like that or not, but it fits. I combine process-led, repetitive actions with a satisfying, sensual aesthetic. I'm greatly attracted to objects, I feel a compulsion for things, and I listen to my intuition - this is my starting point.

My work is mostly ephemeral and I like to mix the natural with the man-made."

I used to spend a lot of time on DeviantART, an online community for artists which provides a place for any artist to exhibit and discuss works. I used to upload all my art to there, since i was young till the first year of uni, and my gallery has culminated over 13,000 page-views. I'm heavily mentioning my website on there, so that the followers of my work can have a look, because for 13,000 people to see my current work would be really exciting. Anyway, My deviantart thingy is HERE if you want to have a look.

What I really want to have....

Is a fancy dress shop specifying in fruit and vegetable costumes.

I saw this display in Harvey Nichols in Bristol and it reminded me. Look at the leek!!!

Cupcake Stripes

This gorgeous dress is by Twenty8Twelve and has delicious colors. It's made with meters and meters of fabric, looks like a tent, but oh the color! It has inspired me to buy food coloring in candy/acid colors instead of the usual primary blue, red, green, ugh.

Materials

Happy April! My orchid has five flowers now, and 15 buds.

Here's a very old picture of all my materials spread out. I want to re-do this, I still have the same old stuff, but never use it. I'm all pens and pencils and inks and scalpels.

Cats and Dogs

...Always make me laugh.

Glue Reciept Mounains begin!

Barfoot and Duggan in action! Lucy and I are using Trevor's reciepts (he has collected every reciept ever since he was 16) to create some kind of mountain. We're working out the aesthetics and concept continually, but getting close to the material - covering it with glue, pushing it around, into cracks and peaks.

We're making small ones, well not really small - 4ft x 3ft mountains, and then taking them on location, on a sunny day, filling in the gaps to make one big mountain, then after lots of photographing and thinking, deconstructing it and bringing it
home.

Eggies

http://www.eatock.com/project/manifesto/ I want to do a manifesto

Here are some eggs

My website is nearly done!

Make It

My studio is homely now, shelves to be put up this week (made by Nigel)

Making:
- Reciept mountain with Lucy
- Text pieces: 'Persevere' particularly
- A mess
- Tidying that up

Nigel Sawing

Here is a video of my fantastic father doing what he does best! The sight and the smell of him with his saw takes me back to being 7 and dusting the saw-dust off for him, and being terrified of the saw. His dry woodwork hands and concentration face.

More collaging

I have such a big stock of collage images from magazines, I could make anything with them. I need to cut out more heads, hands, legs, body poses, trees and less square-shaped things and blocks of colors.

Snowmen

I have enjoying the abundance of snow here in Bristol. I have made six snowmen in total. Look at these skinny legs. These two are five days old today. And also pictures is a beautiful lady which Mia and I sculpted, complete with lipstick and mini-snowball hair.

No pics

My camera died and I feel like it's not a real blog post if it has no picture.

Barfoot and Duggan have sent off 2 grant applications, for lots of money. Will we get it? Yes! We should hear anytime between now and March.

I took the carpet up in my studio, sneezed a lot. Found mouse droppings and brown patches. It's not less granny's lounge and more nice wooden floor. Thinking of putting down some latex flooring though, wipe clean.

I love Bristol, this is really my home now, I have met great friends, I have met my muse! And it doesn't get much better than that.

Room 212 + New Contemporaries

This Saturday I showed my apples in the window of Room 212, which is a tiny Art Gallery in Bishopston, on the Gloucester Road. Three in each window, close to the glass so that people could peer at them and wonder what they are. This great little place is usually brimming with paintings; i got a few funny looks. Here's my profile on the Room 212 website.



Today i was at Fairfields Art Gallery in Basingstoke setting up 'Sense' to show as part of the 'Young Contemporaries 2008' show. The circle or apples look a bit ridiculous to be honest. It's tiny! There is no impact. The original circle of the 1,200 will be included in the catalogue, so there will be a history shown.

Supertoys

I went to the Supertoys exhibition at Arnolfini for the second time this Friday with my family. There is a workshop where you can take apart old toys and make them into hybrid new ones. Amazing. Crab-Girl is mine and Dino-Scull is my nephew Ben's.

Sea scape

Working on this triptych for my Mum's Christmas pressie. It's your usual seascape - she lives in a place called Lilliput, by the sea in Poole. I haven't properly painted in ages! It feels strange, but good.

Studio Space!

Finally, i have decided to get a studio! This may not look like much, but once i lay some white lino flooring down, put some shelves up and get my stuff in there, it will be just the kind of space I need! This is so exciting! It's in Stokes Croft Studios, right in the center of it all. Shared with lovely people too. I move in tomorrow!

Stall success!

Lucy and I had our stall! It was hugely successful, not just in terms of making a little bit of money (Enough to cover the stall and buy balloons and mulled wine) but it was also SUCH a fun weekend, I haven't laughed so much in ages.

Angela & Yannick came to visit, they did some Blind Drawing workshops with us. Elena came too, I drew her and her wild hair a few times. Nicole came on the stall for Saturday. We were the ever expanding stall! We got a star for being the smiliest stall too.

Lucy's bears were really successful, they have such character. We're going to make some more of them together for the next stall. (Start the Bus has free stalls on Sundays?) No one bought my Nice, Love, Yes of Cup of Tea, but it was not the right place to sell those i think - they were quite expensive too.

Carboot Circus

I am working on the things I'm going to sell at Carboot Circus. So much to make, and it's limitless - I can make as much or as little as I like. Feeling like this is not the thing i want to be making, but knowing that it's not far off.

The aesthetic is simple, but i am keeping to the three important elements of the things I make;

1. Accumulation obsession
   
2. Color importance
   
3. Labour intensity

So that's good! Thinking about studiospaces - There are possibilities of finding a free one here in Bristol, run down buildings and disused basements. If i had the space, i would make the big, messy and scary things.