Friday 13 October 2017
Self Portrait study task
This self portrait is heavily influenced by the way I’ve mostly been working recently for COP. The text / image combination is still something I think is in the developmental stage of my practice, but I’m enjoying playing around with the different configurations. The text used is kind of my mantra at the moment, and is taken from the album title of the Norwegian band Sløtface. I work a couple of jobs throughout the week on evenings to help get through uni, and sometimes it can feel like freaking out is a large part of my daily process, but I’ve been trying to find balance between work and more work and occasionally sleeping, so I thought the line “try not to freak out” sums up where I’m at, both personally and professionally right now.
Monday 9 October 2017
Slotface @ The Brudenell / Soup Kitchen
.Slotface brudenell
Over the weekend I met the band Sløtface that I talked about in my last post, at their gig at Brudenell social club on the 30th September. I ended up going to the gig alone because my friend was ill, and honestly I didn’t expect to be relating the night to my practice whatsoever, I just expected to go listen to some Norwegian punk on my own and see off some cheap beer.
However, the performance was one of those that you see, and it enhances the music you were already familiar with, and you suddenly become aware of a whole new slew of ideas relating to it that you didn’t previously consider. After the show was over I was talking with the band at the merch table and eventually turned to illustration and the course I was doing. They saw a couple of the music based designs I worked on over the summer, and said they’d like to talk more another time. As they’re on tour, and originally from Norway I thought that was just a polite thing for them to say, as who knows when they will next be in Leeds.
But the bassist, Lasse, said that they were playing the Soup Kitchen in Manchester on sunday night, and if I could come and talk some more they’d even throw me a free t shirt. I didn’t really mind about the free t shirt to be honest, I just thought the opportunity to have another conversation sounded really cool, as the band have done a lot of protesting and campaigning in Europe, and their music has recently been a driving force for some of my work. So I went back home and thought that that would be quite cool, and sort of on a whim bought a ticket to the gig and went to Manchester the following day.
Over the weekend I met the band Sløtface that I talked about in my last post, at their gig at Brudenell social club on the 30th September. I ended up going to the gig alone because my friend was ill, and honestly I didn’t expect to be relating the night to my practice whatsoever, I just expected to go listen to some Norwegian punk on my own and see off some cheap beer.
However, the performance was one of those that you see, and it enhances the music you were already familiar with, and you suddenly become aware of a whole new slew of ideas relating to it that you didn’t previously consider. After the show was over I was talking with the band at the merch table and eventually turned to illustration and the course I was doing. They saw a couple of the music based designs I worked on over the summer, and said they’d like to talk more another time. As they’re on tour, and originally from Norway I thought that was just a polite thing for them to say, as who knows when they will next be in Leeds.
But the bassist, Lasse, said that they were playing the Soup Kitchen in Manchester on sunday night, and if I could come and talk some more they’d even throw me a free t shirt. I didn’t really mind about the free t shirt to be honest, I just thought the opportunity to have another conversation sounded really cool, as the band have done a lot of protesting and campaigning in Europe, and their music has recently been a driving force for some of my work. So I went back home and thought that that would be quite cool, and sort of on a whim bought a ticket to the gig and went to Manchester the following day.
While this experience hasn’t necessarily ended in a big commission of work or some sort of project, I’ve found it a real confidence booster to just discuss creativity and work with a band, especially one from a vastly different background to myself. It’s helped me realise that there's a lot of opportunity waiting in unlikely places, the Brudenell is just somewhere I go with friends to listen to music and have some drinks, I didn’t expect to randomly engage with people who make music that I really enjoy and want to visually respond to.
Experiencing this on my own was also a really helpful experience as it’s kind of shown me the necessity of just throwing yourself into situations sometimes, instead of waiting around for other people. Normally I never would get a bus to another city on my own just to see what might happen, but in this instance it meant I was able to talk about creativity with some uniquely creative people that I actually look up to, and realise that a lot can come from being in the right place at the right time.
Ps.
Experiencing this on my own was also a really helpful experience as it’s kind of shown me the necessity of just throwing yourself into situations sometimes, instead of waiting around for other people. Normally I never would get a bus to another city on my own just to see what might happen, but in this instance it meant I was able to talk about creativity with some uniquely creative people that I actually look up to, and realise that a lot can come from being in the right place at the right time.
Ps.
I didn’t accept the free t shirt, as I’d rather they got some money for it from someone else, but they would not let me leave without a cassette. I thought it was a really nice gesture, and I hope to bring something more of this experience in the future.
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