Mike Watts & Sue LeCren - Books For Free

Sue LeCren and Mike Watts
with Patternotion
 

Two for the price of one!

Both the books and the lovers of art, culture and  'Duke Special' that are holding them here.

A big welcome to the fold for New Zealand's 'Sue the Librarian' and hope you enjoy Patternotion. Don't let your food get cold either, looks delicious.
Keep in touch with Sue on Twitter at @LiSu and as she says herself, 

"I'm an escape artist for a living... I live to escape... well OK, I'm a librarian. Same thing"

Catch her if you can!

 If any of you don't know the distinguished gentleman pictured here then let me introduce you to Mike Watts, who is both a Stem Cell aficionado at UCH and photographer on London's live music circuit. As well as bumping into one another in live music venues he recently accompanied us on all 10 miles of our Patternotion Blue Plaque walk across North London.

It seems he has got itchy feet once again and has travelled a little further than those 10 miles of Patternotion. Have a good time in New Zealand and keep spreading the Books For Free message!

Mike Watts is @DrFizzy if you want to keep abreast of his adventures in your Twitter walking boots.

AL.

Launching Patternotion in Style

Blue Plaque walkers at Books For Free NW5

We launched the Patternotion book in style last Saturday (9th March 2013) with a Blue Plaque walk around North London.

Well, the style was mostly waterproofs and walking boots, but what do you expect with the threat of a 50% chance of rain.

We were hosted by some very stylish walkers (Jacquelyn Guderley and friends) though. Volunteers from Books For Free NW5 joined us too and sections of our procession resembled a fashion runway with these North London beauties in tow.

The artists and authors who started the walk we're Bill Mudge (with Gina and Harriet), NCRIPT (Steve and Victoria Cohen), Myself with Jessamy, Effie and Natalie Low, Mike and Gail Watts, Ella Penn, George and Sally Low, Peter S Smith, Melanie Ezra, Daniel Leek, Harvey Wells and Geraint Evans. And not forgetting Jacquelyn Guderley's BFF group of course.

The route (right) took us up hill and down dale and through some of the smartest corners of London. We picked up people and artists along the way including Tanya Kreisky, Katie Stone and Dawes Gray.

It was a strong pace so we could get round the full 9.5 miles of the walk and return to BFF in time so that the furthest travellers, Mel and Dan, could catch their train back to Swansea. In future though I'll be choosing a modest launch for next Sampson Low Ltd book. After this hot pace and tackling North London's hills we we're all glad of the 'breathers' we got when reaching each of the 17 plaques on our route.

We placed around 50 magnets along our route and you can view the whole day in the slideshow (right). If you'd like a closer look then click on the images and peruse at your own leisure.

Thanks you to everyone who walked with us and contributed all the photos (Peter S Smith, Harvey Wells, Mike Watts, Tanya Kreisky, Jacquelyn Guderley, Gerry Evans and Melanie Ezra). I'm going to have a well earned rest now because we have several Sampson Low Ltd books in the pipeline or at the printers including Harvey Well's Therapeutic interventions for mental health professions and Epsom UCA's The Future Bound Project.
But the one that will really test my stamina is SMartwalks' 'The longest Gallery in the World' book. They'll be putting out the call to artist's on April 1st, so keep your eyes peeled.

Hope you have enjoyed the Patternotion project and Blue Plaque walk. We'll be keeping up the reviews of artists work by our intern Philip J Deed and check out our latest reviews on our press page, including our most recent from Rainlore's World of Music, Art and Letters.

Goodbye,
Alban


Tanya Kreisky with her plaque and where she lived in 1971

Patternotion - Life's delicate balance

Life is a delicate balance. Drift in a perfect bliss of ignorance and you can find your personal Nirvana or find yourself lost. Structure our unpredictable lives and we harness our potential, achieve greatness or send ourselves to the edges of insanity.

So when I contacted our 1000+ artists with the book’s theme, I felt more like a therapist and just a little bit unhinged myself. The task was to analyse their lives and to root out the personal systems that helps them function in life and work.  I suspected that artists and authors were excellent exponents in the secret art of system making, with the flair and skill to explain them. What I hadn’t expected was such a swift and varied response: within 6 hours of the call-to-arms we had to close submissions and the pages of the Patternotion book were all reserved.

We at Sampson Low Ltd are unusual in the way we select our artists and authors..... Everyone is welcome. We run a first-come first-served basis and have never rejected an entry. This has given the book a varied palette of ideas from artists, authors, children, train drivers, research directors, company bigwigs and unemployed geniuses from all over the world including England, Scotland, Wales, Denmark,  and for the first time The Democratic Republic of Congo (see Thomas Yocum's submission below)

Thomas Yocum

The book is split into two sections. The first contains both prescriptive and open systems that may require some thought. In the second part I asked 9 artists to interpret systems from the previous section. With a mix of instinct and structure they have channelled their intellects, producing fascinating and unexpected results.

Read the book and you realise that a good system contains as few ingredients as possible and has a short shelf-life before being re-invented or adapted. In this book you’ll find over 60 recipes to inspire and amuse you. In its best known form a life system is the New Year’s Resolution, where the participant declares their intentions and like a social gladiator lives or dies under the gaze of the populace.

Patternotion is not a dramatic ‘do or die’ ultimatum of course, it is just a book. Read it though and the ideas inside could influence the next chapter in your life.

The Book is now at the printers and we have removed the slideshow with all the submissions, so you'll have to wait for the real thing. It will go on sale in the week of the Blue Plaque launch which is Saturday 9th March.

AL

Patternotion Blue Plaque Launch - 9th March 2013

Citizen Skwith

Virtually all the pages have arrived at Patternotion HQ and we're busy sorting out the order of the pages and front cover. Today we finalised the details of our launch event and we're excited to share them with you now.

Patternotion is lucky enough to team up with the Books For Free organisation and in particular the inspirational Jaquelyn Guderley. Between us we've organised a Blue Plaque walk with a difference on the 9th March 2013.

We will be starting our walk from the Books For Free bookshop, 147 Fortess Road, Tufnell Park, NW5 2HP at 10am.

All are welcome. So come along!

Our route will take us past 18 authors and poets that have lived or worked in the area. Including Sir John Betjeman, JB Priestley, DH Lawrence, John Keats, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, HG Wells and George Orwell. We'll be finishing back where we started from in Tufnell Park, where we'll be signing and leaving 10 First Editions of Patternotion for eager collectors to snap up for FREE.

But we're providing you with a little twist........

We'll be placing our own magnetic blue plaques along the way like this one from world renown street artist Citizen Skwith (above). There will be more than 80 plaques of people nominated by the local community and Patternotion authors. Celebrating what is great about Books and the local area!

We wanted to support the scheme that has taken a beating in the last few weeks. In fact English Heritage's blue plaque scheme has been under threat because of budget cuts ( from £130 million to £92 million).
So why doesn't the local community (especially one with such a rich literary past) take up the reins! Guardian Article

If you'd like to nominate someone in NW5, NW3 or NW1 for a blue plaque then tweet Books For Free at @BooksforFreeNW5 with your suggestion, before the 15th February 2013.

If you'd like to join the action via the internet then look out for the #patternotion hashtag on twitter, where we'll be posting 'live' photos as the magnetic plaques hit the streets. We'll also have live GPS tracking of our every move at the SMartwalks website.

London Smartwalk 2011

 Our last book, FreedBook, worked with the brilliant Books For London, who maintain more than 7 book swapping libraries on London's transport system. So its with equal enthusiasm that we find ourselves happy bedfellows with Books For Free and Healthy Planet.

But do they really give away books for Free!

Yes they do! The "Books for Free" initiative rescues unwanted books otherwise destined for landfill or pulping. They redistribute these throughout communities via the Books for Free centres nationwide. By visiting the centres and taking a book, you are reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfill each year and helping to recycle valuable resources. There is no catch and the only restriction is that a maximum of 3 books are taken at any one time.

So we hope you join us for our unusual Blue Plaque walk on the 9th March and support both Books For Free and the Patternotion Book.

AL