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