Redland Girls Summer Fete + Lucy Survey

ARE YOU CALLED LUCY? The online survey is up online, please take part if you are called luck, and please don't if you are not called Lucy! Here's the link: How lucky are people called Lucy

This Saturday I had a stall at the Redland Girls School Summer fete. What a gorgeous school! Claire and I set up the most delightful table, the 'Love' and 'Laugh' are the first two text pieces I ever made, It was nice to have them be part of this. I was commissioned for three artworks (amazing!!!) and had a lovely day out in the sun with my friend

Here's the stall:

And a caretaker let me photograph his amazing key bunch:

Free Range Eggs Logs

Thank you to my friend Will Ablett who took a photo of the 'Free Range Eggs Logs' sign for me!

Trazzer Fazzer

I found this in the toilets at a De La Soul gig in the O2 Academy, Bristol. It's a discarded envelope reading "Trazzer Fazzer." I love finding things like this.

Beautiful Graphs

Lucy Duggan found this article in The Times Magazine, written by Jonathan Richards. You can view the full article by clicking here, it's about the popularity of different baby names, but I was just amazes by the beauty of these graphs. I wrote to Mr. Richards and he told me about the graphs:

"The Baby Name graphs were of a type known as a Stacked Area graph.

It's actually a relatively rudimentary graph type. You use it when
you're trying to how the share of a given set of fields changes over
time. You'll find it as one of the charting options in Excel, among
other programs."

Studio rooftop

Views from the roof of my studio in Stokes Croft. You can see over all the rooftops, it's one of the highest rooftops, apart from the tower-blocks. I like the roof a lot, apart from the pigeon bones and poo.

Walcot Street Market in Bath

Yesterday, my friend Holly and I set up a stall at the Walcot Street Market in Bath. It was a beautiful day, and our first time selling on a stall together. It worked really well, we think our illustration and artwork is not too similar to drown each other, and not too different either. The work contrasts and compliments each other.

We aquired stand-things from a lovely lady called Rachel. She had 2 great tables, tablecloths, card stands, boxes to lean prints on and a trestle to hold more prints. As this was my first market stall, it was great to be lent everything we'd need, otherwise the cost of all that would have outweighed the profit. I may have to look into getting some of this equipment if I choose to persue selling at stalls. We also put up some beautiful bunting which my nan made for me, and pegged some greeting-cards to the front of the table.

The location was pretty good, not excellent though. the hussle and bussle of Bath was at the end of the road, and all the passers by were just doing that - passing by. Our stall did catch some peoples eye, but we were not pitched in the main market area, which could have made it more successful, but who knows. We're planning on trying out another market in Bath soon, we're trying to find the one which suits our work best, has the right people attending it, and is the most successful.

Holly's website is HERE and she keeps a lovely blog on blogspot HERE. The 'Walcot Street market' is also called the 'Bath flea market' and HERE is a link to more info about it for sellers

Interviews and Questionnaires

Blimey, I'm on fire with my blogging today! I received an email asking me to complete an artist's questionnaire online, which is funny because I am collaborating with my lovely friend Samuel Rogers in an interview. Coming soon!

So this website is: Whohub and I have started answering questions, you can see my own little page here: Lucy Barfoot at Whohub. How I love free publicity! It's interesting reading other peoples answers too

Also, I came across Authentic Happiness which has lots of tests to "Develop insights into yourself and the world around you through these scientifically tested questionnaires, surveys, and scales." There are so many to do. You have to create an account to take part, but this allows you to keep a lot of the results, to easily look back on.

Tests which measure: Overall Happiness, Depression Symptoms, Current Happiness, 24 Character Strengths, Appreciation about the Past, Character Strength of Perseverence, Optimism About the Future, Forgiveness. It's so interesting to know these things, from a scientific point of view. Here are my results for the character strengths. I'm flattered!

Top Strength: Perspective (wisdom): Although you may not think of yourself as wise, your friends hold this view of you. They value your perspective on matters and turn to you for advice. You have a way of looking at the world that makes sense to others and to yourself.

Appreciation of beauty and excellence: You notice and appreciate beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in all domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience.

Capacity to love and be loved: You value close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and caring are reciprocated. The people to whom you feel most close are the same people who feel most close to you.

Humor and playfulness: You like to laugh and tease. Bringing smiles to other people is important to you. You try to see the light side of all situations.

Kindness and generosity: You are kind and generous to others, and you are never too busy to do a favor. You enjoy doing good deeds for others, even if you do not know them well.

Eggs Logs

I love this sign, It's the best farm sign I've ever seen. This is in Bournemouth, and in this direction it's 'Eggs. Logs' and in the other direction it's 'Logs. Eggs' I love the lettering, positioning, the direct message. This is about five years ago, and I hear that now it's 'free range EGGS LOGS'

Please appreciate these farm signs!

My Birthday Polaroids

I miss my birthday, I had such a lovely time, the best ever birthday! And today it's Trevor's birthday. Happy Birthday boyfriend! I bought him a fake turd.

Polaroid websites:
Fifty Rooms: Mostly naked polaroids (Adults only)
Polanoid: We are building the biggest Polaroid-picture-collection of the planet to celebrate the magic of instant photography
Polapremium: the best place to buy Polaroid and other film

Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain

I love the film Amélie, It's so heart-warming and romantic. It's about time I watched it again I think. When I was about fourteen I made a zine, and this was a page in it - all the notes I made whilst watching Amélie; everyone's likes and dislikes and other little lists. Click on it to see it bigger.

Pinhole Photography workshop

Yesterday I attended a Pinhole photography workshop, lead by Justin Quinnell (who has a great pinhole website) we made three camera's and took some pics with the beer can cam, and took away a camera made from a film canister, which is a 6-month pinhole camera, which I am going to set up somewhere in Bristol. Where?? I have to set it up on June 20th, on the Summer Solstice, pointing south. the sun burns into the photo, here's an example of one of Justin's: Clifton Suspension Bridge.

The workshop has given me loads of ideas.... putting a pinhole in a helium balloon in the sky, on my car whilst driving, posting one, putting one in a clock, photographing a yoga class, tying one to Trevor's bike, putting one in my mouth, playing tennis with one.

Glue Quilts

I have been prolific today. I was in the studio till 8pm, inspired, I kept finding more things to do and I'm only home now because I'm hungry for fish and chips mmm. A Friday night treat from Bishopston Fish Bar!

Today, I have: caught up on last night's Big Brother with my neighbour Mia, taken home all the crockery from my studio and put it all in my dishwasher, recycled, taken rubbish to the dump (I'm the 'head housekeeper' of the studio you see), done a layer of papier mache on the balloons ready for the Big Lebowski festival tonight at The Lanes, Bristol, put up a wall in the studio, painted that wall, watched 4 episodes of the L word whilst doing most of the above, made a friend a birthday present collage, bound my birthday blind-drawing papers, wrote this blog, started my glue molds,

So these 'glue molds', they are for my my exhibition: 'Surface/Space/Time' at The Crypt Gallery, London (26th Aug - 9th Sept) which is curated by and also showing the work of Sam Clift who is a nice chap that I went to uni with.

I have been meaning to get on with starting the glue molds for months. I created some whilst at uni, and made this small quilt with them:


The idea I have for the exhibition is very similar, but with edited colors and on a much larger scale. The patchwork is made by filling big spoons with a mix of PVA, water and ink. They take AGES to dry, and the final stage sewing the patches together (but i'm thinking about spray-mount??)



Today I started working out the quantities of glue to water I need to make the perfect mixture for the molds. I have five plastic cups, 1-5, 1 has 30 parts water to 70 parts glue, 2= 40:60, 3= 50:50, 4= 60:40, 5= 70:30 I need the mold to be the perfectly supple, and not brittle. I have poured the liquids into 5 different ladels, and I'll wait (about a week?) to see which mixture makes the perfect consistency of mold. Process! It's been a long time since I focussed on process. It's where my heart lies with my art, and it felt really good to get into this again today.

Win Green Play-tents

I once did a little bit of work for Win Green who create play-houses for children. Here's the barn tent which was what I mainly worked on. It's great to see drawings and hours on photoshop turned into a real object. Nice chicks!

Do you know anyone called Lucy or Lucie?

Dear Lucy,

You are invited to a picnic for Lucys/Lucies. We are holding this picnic because we are both called Lucy and we have an interest in social connectedness, human behavior and fun.

PLACE: Brandon Hill Park (off Park Street), Bristol – follow the balloons…
TIME: 14:00 – 17:00
DATE: 4th July 2009
BRING: There will be food and drinks available, but do feel free to contribute in any way you can.

There will be games and quizzes plus the unique opportunity to meet dozens of other Lucys who share your wonderful name.

Please ring/write/text/email to RSVP so that we have an idea of numbers, but feel free to invite any other Lucys that you know, We want this to be as big as possible. NB Don’t bring anyone who is not called Lucy! (With the exception of carers and guardians)

We hope to see you there

Lucy Barfoot & Lucy Duggan

Barfoot and Duggan mega-meeting

Yesterday's monthly Barfoot and Duggan meeting was incredibly productive. We spent ages thinking of the name for our empire - what is referred to as the 'Central Arts Project' It's so hard to think of a good business/charity name, without sounding too children presenter/life course/ironic/apprentice. We read through the dictionary, thought about alliteration, rhyming, syllables, looked at lyrics, the best film titles, band names - all as inspiration. And still we did not come up with the final name!

However, We did design our Logo, which looks great. And now it's time to look for more funding options, and to design the website.

We also made a little trip to Harvey Nichols where we took some photographs of us in very expensive designer clothes. Here we are wearing £1300. This picture is on our new business cards.

Bank Holiday

Thinking about joining here: https://www.bouf.com

And some monster fingers:



Weird skyline in Bournemouth this weekend. What a straight line!


I am trying to get into rollerskating. Planning to join in with Skate Bristol. I have bought some knee pads on Ebay, And my friends Nicole and Lyndsay now own a pair, so I'm going to get skating! Here are a couple of very short vids Trevor took on his phone of me skating:

A List for today

Some things on my mind:

• I miss Sex and The City
• I would like a dog
• When am I going to go to New Zealand again?
• My favorite word is egg
• I can't wait for the sun to come out properly and to stop wearing tights
• I want some tights from Tabio
  
• Want to write some haiku's
• I think I need a better scalpel
• James Joyce's love letters
  
• I like really big oranges, but not small ones which have lots of 'pith'
• Pith is a silly silly word

So not much then!

Mono printing

I have been working pretty hard on my 'Text Project' and needed some escape from that. I've chosen it to be mundane and repetitive, and I love that, but sometimes I do need to release some more creativity within some other format. And yesterday, this came through mono printing. I used my little roller, and a piece of acetate to ink up, it's so easy and mess-free. I used some sequins too, and got involved with drawing a lot of small squares, again - very repetitive, I can't get away from it! The little pictures are not hanging on a washing-line type of structure in my studio - I have always wanted a studio with things hanging from washing lines, and now I have it. I'm so lucky.

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!