Explore at Bristol

I had a fantastic day out with my brother’s family at the Explore Center in Bristol. It’s so interactive and playful, and the observatory show was great, I finally can name some of the stars! I brought my camera and photographed some quite strange things during my visit; views in mirrors and through microscopes. Button-pressing, long exposure in the fiber optic lights, virtual volleyball and a face in a machine.

Favourite Photobooth Pictures

How I love playing around with Photobooth, on the Mac. It never fails to make me laugh. I wish I could make a larger Photo booth camera – one which could capture you from head to toe, with a screen the size of a cinema screen – you’d be all legs and arms, and you could use horses as extra props.

Flyers and Business Cards

The time has come for me to print flyers and business card. But it's so expensive! I decided to go with the option of photo printing, using matte instead of gloss photo paper. Boots Photo have a deal where if you join, you get 40 free prints. most big photo developers like Tesco and Asda have this deal too, but Boots seems to be the only one who can provide matte paper.

So I've bought over 900 photographs, which was about £50, these will be flyers for 'There's More To Life Than Lists', flyers for my Text Project, Barfoot & Duggan business cards (4 on one photo, which i have to cut up) and Text Project business cards. AND photos from the last year and a half to update my photo album. I'm very pleased with the finish too, thanks Boots. Thoots.

Oh, I much prefer Moo Cards, they are gorgeous, but quite expensive, so next time, little moo cards.

Lucy Barefoot?

SO apparently my name is Lucy Barefoot, Thanks A-N magazine. How excited I was, featured in A-N! I can put this in my C.V, loads of people will come to my exhibition! But woe is me, I am Lucy Barefoot apparently. And It shouldn't have even been 'Lucy Barfoot', It should have been 'Barfoot and Duggan' But still, mustn't complain! There's More To Life Than Lists is getting free advertising!

The Invisible Circus presents Carny Ville!

Wow I had a great night out last night. Carny Ville is a 'circus theatre extravaganza' and I was on of the lucky ones who could manage to get a ticket for the sold out show. The Invisible Circus and Art Space Life Space have transformed the Old Fire Station for the last time to create what feels like a circus village and reminded me of visiting Universal Studios when I was little.

There were 350 performers and apparently only 1000 tickets were on sale. All kinds of things were going on; tours of the police cells, Portrait photography, tightrope action, amazing live music played from a prison cell in the sky, silly dancing, a sit-down theatre, Carny Ville shops, everything... It was a real experience, I want to go again! They have just announced another weekend's dates - the 2nd and 3rd October. the tickets are not yet sold out, but will be, so move fast! Book tickets here

Oh and everyone was in fabulous fancy dress. I felt like I was in a time warp.

In their words: "The spectacle inhabits every aspect and environ of the site with interactive installations and performances ongoing through out the evening from dizzying high wire walkers across the gaping yard space to twisted sideshows, huge Fire spectacles and flame breathing lamp posts alongside an army of deranged walkabout characters who inhabit this bizarre other world."

See the video on You tube

'There's More to Life Than Lists' Invitation

There's More to Life Than Lists Preparation

Here are some pictures from Barfoot and Duggan's exhibition preparation. We're displaying the lists hung from thread from the tall ceilings of Centrespace Gallery, Bristol. And also inside a canopy. There are articles on the walls and displayed on plinths; letters from list donors (including letters of 'no donation' from the Queen, Prince Charles and Armando Iannucci.) We will be asking for list donations throughout the week of the exhibition, to add to the show.

*Exciting News*

'There's More to Life Than Lists' is going to be a featured exhibition in the 'Spotlight' section of the October issue of A-N Magazine. How exciting! I'm predicting lots of people through the doors of Centrespace!

Barfoot and Duggan hard at work.

We have been working really hard to get our Centrespace exhibition ready. We have under a month to go now, and plenty of lists to display; threading and pinning. We are making more reciept mountains and getting some lists and letters framed. There's a lot of work to be done, and we're having fun doing it. Apart from when the list-thread gets in knots!

Walk On The Wild Side

I have come across this amazing TV show - 'Walk On The Wild Side', which is like 'Creature Comforts', but with real animals. It's on BBC 1 on Saturdays at 18:30, and there are lots of clips on youtube. It really makes me laugh, animals are so funny, here's my favorite clips from it:


1. Alan



2. Frog Conductor



3. Owl Burping



4. Night time/Daytime

The Surface/Space/Time Exhibition is on now!

Lucy Barfoot
Ladle Moulds 2009
Glues, Watercolor ink, water, wire

My colours are sickly and my matter is sweet. I want to satisfy. I want to fulfil the materiality of objects, allowing them to talk. What is it to sense the texture, shape, and the smell? The viewer forms a unique relationship, which I have no control over.

The letting go and holding onto control has a powerful effect on my work. The process of gathering objects is something I 'have to do', similar to my compulsion to repeat actions. My practice is obsessive and process-led. I am physically absorbed into a daze of making.


Images:

1. View from the door - I wanted people to enter the space, get close to the sculpture. I worked on the lighting to create a semi-lit, eerie feel. The Crypt is such a haunting place, I thought I could dull-down my bright sculpture to fit the space better - but once people got close, the piece was more vivid.

2. Detail of ladle moulds with light shining through. Reminded me of stained glass windows. The color was different from behind.

3. Me in the sculpture. Hello!

The Selby Blog

I love this blog - http://www.theselby.com/ by Todd Selby

Gorgeous home interior photographs of major and minor celebs/the generally rich and fabulous. You can get lost in the site for hours.

Comments!

Hello Blog readers,

I love following my blog statistics using Google Analytics. It;s an amazing tool for anyone with a website/blog. I can see my page hits, where the traffic has come from; which sites refer me and what keywords people are searching for to get to my site on the search engines (Quite amusing sometimes, eg: barfoot fruit, trazzer, perfect puss.

So my point is that lots of people are reading this blog, which is brilliant, I like knowing that I'm not just writing this for myself.I also love receiving comments, so if you're out there, say hello, what's your blog and who are you?

Rankin Live

Whilst in london for the Surface/Space/Time exhibition, I went to see the Rankin Live exhibition at the Old Truman Brewery. Here's the website - Rankin Live. It was fantastic, and really well set out, with the different groups of shots well defined - Photos of Rankin's self portraits, Kate Moss, Heidi Klum (I definately have a thing about Heidi and Seal, how gorgeous they both are, their kids, their yearly anniversary fancy-dress party. I'm thinking of buying 'Heidilicious' by Rankin - only £31 on Amazon!)

Copyright. Image courtesy of Rankin

Rankin himself was there doing his Live Shoot, the website is constantly being updated with the new photographs taken every day (up to about 25 portraits a day) The gallery was empty whilst I was there, so I was 2 feet away from him and his team, watching him at work, it was quite surreal, a great experience. I would love to be an artist working away at my big exhibition. Here you can see the Live Shoot page.

The Old Truman Brewery is where I had my London Free Range Degree show, back in June last year. At Rankin Live, you walk in from the street, up two flights of stairs and then into the room (he's split it up with lots of false walls) I was looking for my apple circle - when I exhibited 'Sense' there, I set it up without a floor protection, and a dark circle was left in their place. But the circle was nowhere to be seen - they must have scrubbed away at that floor.

One of my favorite things ever is Photobooth photographs - the ones which have four snaps in a vertical line. You could take your own photobooths at the exhibition, and only £2 a go! I NEED to have a photobooth for myself. one day! I have quite the collection of found and acquired photo booth pictures, maybe it's time I did something with them?

Some things:
Great Andy Warhol Photobooth shots
Square America has some old ones
The Old Truman Brewery is right by 93 Feet East
Photoautomat was the Rankin booth. You can hire it!
Photoautomat's Flickr group

Tobacco Factory Sunday Market.

Oh hello Tobacco Factory Market! My first one, what a lovely place, great atmosphere, lovely customers and fellow stall-holders, I'm going to book up some more Sunday spaces. Lots of interest in my Text Project, but I realise it's time to think up some new words/sayings.

Sneaky Preview

I have just completed the preperations for my Surpace/Space/Time exhibition at the Crypt Gallery, St Pancras Church, which starts up this Thursday 27th.

I've been busy heating up my ladels, peeling the skin glue layer off, and then trimming them down and planning out the shape/color distribution. Draining work, heavy concentration, but now all the glue bits are packed away, wrapped up separately (they stick together awfully) in a bag ready for my travels to London on Wednesday.

Hope to see some of you there at the exhibition, I certainly am excited!

Big Balloon

I went to a lovely wedding, and someone had this massive balloon.


GOOD BYE, I'm holidaying in Sardinia for a week!

Ladle Wall

I have about 40 ladles in my possession. anyone want some soup? I cleared both Tesco and Pearce's Hardware out. I'm speeding up the drying process today (hopefully) by letting the glue dry in the afternoon sun. The microwave drying failed - too bubbly and toxic. I'm off on holiday soon and have to set up a lot of ladles ready to meld together upon my arrival, before the 'Surface/Space/Time' exhibition at the Crypt in St Pancras. Come on glue!

Dr. Ph. Martin's water color

I adore Dr. Ph Martin's radiant, concentrated water colors. They are in all good art shops, and I have found this great online shop: Graphotism, which sells them in both 15ml and 60 ml sizes, for great prices. AND great speedy postage too. I'm very pleased with their shop!

I'm using the ink for my ladles, they have really vibrant color, which has minimal fading, and can easily be mixed with both glue and water. I also will use them for drawing with and for color washes.

And what gorgeous packaging! I don't know if i am more excited about the inks themselves or having the empty bottles when the ink runs out.

Tim Knowles and drawing on trees

I am always inspired by process. This combined with an 'absence of artist' is what compels me to make art. One of my favorite artists is Tim Knowles. I wrote a chapter about him in my dissertation (titled 'Absent Artists and Performing Materials')

"Tim Knowles is plotting the winds. His artwork relies on the force of nature to create his artwork. In his Tree Drawings, different species of trees are creating marks on paper from the pens tied to them due to the movement of the wind. ‘Weeping Willow on Circular Panel’ (2005) uses one hundred pens and draws on a five-meter circular MDF disk, which is separated into ten segments after the completion of the drawing. ‘Four Panel Weeping Willow’ is also separated: four segments drawn from fifty pens attached to the weeping willow tree."


Throughout all my years of admiring what Tim does, I have never tried a tree drawing myself. A couple of weeks ago Lucy, Orlagh and I had a go at it. We tried two methods - one is making a big pen out of a massive tree branch, and the second was to hold the paper up against a pen-holding branch and let the tree draw.

I realise that tree drawings take a lot of patience - especially if you're holding the paper up for the tree. once i get myself a big box or an easel, I'll get some proper drawings done

There's more information specifically on his Tree Drawings here. As well as Tree Drawings, Tim also created Vehicle Motion Drawings, Postal Works and Balloon Drawings, amongst other projects.

Rainbow umbrellas

I love rainbow umbrellas, and I want them, but I want to choose the colors in the rainbow. I don't like red/orange/dark-green!

Womad 2009

My weekend at Womad was amazing, Womad stands for World Of Music, Arts and Dance. The sun was shining for us on the Saturday, but not on the Sunday, but it didn't really matter. There was glorious music (I did not see enough of it though) beautiful surroundings - the festival is on Lord Suffolk's estate, amazing food, great company and great camping, camping's always fun.

The flags were mesmerising. They are a signiture of Womad, designed by artists, if i'm not mistaken. And they are especially lovely when everywhere is silent - like when I hiked up to the festival arena toilets to escape the camping site queues. Can't wait for next year!

Bristol Zoo

Yesterday I had a lovely time at the Bristol Zoo. It's great going with kids, the three of us were discussing what we'd do if we were trapped in a cage with a hippo, and which would be worse; being trapped with a hippo or with a gorilla. I say gorilla.

Lots of exciting things happening at the Zoo, music nights (Like the Migrations African Dance Party) and they even have an 'overcoming arachnophobia course: 'Living with Spiders' Yuck. Why would anyone need to overcome the fear??

Lots going on in Bristol in general at the moment, with the Bristol Balloon Fiesta this weekend. I'm sad that I'll be missing it for the second year running. Here are my zoo pics:

Drawings for Sam

Yesterday I had a great full day in the studio, the first dedicated day in a long time. I found myself doing the very important things (London exhibition prep) and then the stuff which has no serious deadline (presents for people, friend/family commissions, tidying) It was great to get both of those categories of things worked on.






These three are for my great friend Samuel Rogers, who sent me a delightful package recently. I am starting to gather things to send back to him. The drawings are mono-print replicas of Warhol's 'Unidentified Male' 1957.