Artist Series returns - David Bushell

David Bushell's ill fated 'Rate My Menhir'
website

 Today the Patternotion artist series returns with a post about author Daivd Bushell from Philip Deed, who will be our guest writer/blogger for the next few weeks.

David Bushell

Following the withdrawal from bookshops worldwide of his controversial “The Scotch Egg Diet” David Bushell retired to Penzance to reconsider his position. There, with his wife Edith and young son Mark Edward Smith Bushell, he enjoys the delights of the cornish countryside and in particular the prehistoric sites which are so plentiful in the west penwith region. His popular “Rate My Menhir” website was voluntarily closed down in 2011 to avoid legal action.

He continues to work on an autobiography which may once again prove too hot for the world of publishing to handle. Excerpts from this along with his forthright views on music, lifestyle etc appeared in early issues of a certain publication. It’s editor, dismayed at some of the subject matter and fearing that his own job might be at risk, decided to discontinue Bushell’s contributions. On the subject of his dismissal David has no comment beyond “The man is an arse”.

Now Sampson Low Ltd have thrown caution to the wind and decided to include excerpts from “More Farted Against Than Farting” first in their delightful Freedbook collection and now in Patternotion. I applaud their good judgement.

PJD

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

60 Artist Blue Plaque Cover

Its been a long week making Blue Plaques for the Patternotion artists and it seems half of Facebook too. When Jacquelyn Guderley of Books For Free and I conceived the idea of a Blue Plaque walk to launch the book we never thought these little blue discs would mean so much to so many.

Like every good system we take it for granted when it works as smoothly as this one.The Blue Plaque scheme is a shorthand for pinning an identity and history to a specific place and it seems everyone would like to have one. After all we all have some Great moments in our lives.

Well here it. The cover of the Patternotion book. We're a few days away from sending the full manuscript to the printers so still some time for a few alterations.

Then it will be full focus on the launch on 9th March 2013- meet at Books For Free bookshop, Tufnell Park, NW5 at 10am. We'll be walking around the area, visiting 18 blue plaques from local authors and poets. Hopefully we'll have a couple of wild cards as Dick Muskett is currently researching some more blue plaques in N7 and N19.

Well finish our walk right back at Books For Free and cut the ribbon on the Patternotion Book. Where we'll leave 10 signed First Editions for people to pick up for FREE.

Hope you can join us.

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

 

Siobhan Tarr - The Mystery Mosaic Tour

Siobhan Tarr - 2013 Destination Unknown

Siobhan Tarr has always been one of those pleasant mysteries for me. An artist who I have worked with for two years since Nottingham's Lighbite exhibition in February 2011. I've exchanged numerous emails with her and she telephoned me once from her home in Germany, totally confusing me by talking with a Euro-Antipodean twang but we've never met in person.

Siobhan is primarily a mosaic artist but obviously has a flair for design and a keen sense of humour. Like many artists she posses destructive traits. She starts her artwork by smashing up plates and cups and decapitating porcelain figures. Although this might make her feel better, it is not the sole reason and is part of her overall system of working. She finds inspiration from the piles of porcelain chaos and her sometimes chaotic family life as a mother to then create order through her beautiful artworks.




(second from left) Siobhan's magnetic artwork
Rarities 2011, Hastings, England


Siobhan has exhibited widely in Germany and the craquelure of her work spreads slowly around the globe, but that isn't anything too unusual for this well travelled artist. Siobhan was born here in England (Maidstone) before moving to Australia. After a life-changing encounter with a handsome German backpacker she was destined for a life in the land of Lederhosen rather than skimpy swimming trunks. Now she's happily ensconced in the little village of Seefeld, near Bad Oldesloe, Germany with her husband and 3 children.



Siohan Tarr - Headline artist

In 2011, after we'd finished a mammoth year of exhibiting over 1,000 magnets on the streets of the world I hit the internet looking for new adventures and formats in public art. I stumbled across another mystery, a series of German towns had been invaded by a night time artist who had placed....yes you guessed it.... mosaics in public places. As I read about it on the popular Landsberg Blog one place name seemed vaguely familiar, that of Bad Oldesloe....now could it be?

So I contacted the local council and they directed me to their site specific map.
Right place but was it the right artist.....?

Unlikely?

My romantic heart had blurred my usually canny judgement. This was an underground mosaic art movement whose web stretched across the whole of the world. If Siobhan had been the 'Goldfinger' of tiled art then surely I'd have been inducted into this clandestine fellowship, with my street-art credentials.
So this meant Siobhan Tarr wasn't the 'Banksy of Bad Oldesloe'. Drats!

 

Back to reality and Patternotion.

Siobhan has kept up her air of mystery with her latest submission 'Destination Unknown' (top of the page)

She says

"This year, once a month, one of our family of 5 will plan and

organize  a day out to who knows where. 

 You can´t beat a good old mystery tour,  there´s a special thrill in not knowing

where you´re going or what´s in store .

 Lots of unknown fun and adventures to be had by all."

 

I'll be looking forward to hearing about where they all end up!

Hopefully I'll get a knock on the door one day, I'll be the last stop on the mystery tour and I'll get a chance to meet Siobhan and her family.

 

AL

 

Robert Good - Art, Yes, No Way, Yes!



Robert Good - Affirmative Action

 
Many of you will know Robert Good's work already, just a few weeks ago he graced the front cover of our first publication FreedBook with the excellent 'Affirmative Action'. Books seem to be the natural playground for his ideas and once again he makes us think 'Yes' with his current submission to Patternotion.
Good is fascinated with society's need to impose order and to construct systems, and his work deals with the frailties of language and the attendant possibilities for art.
He is an artist and recent convert to conceptual art who works with image, text and installation to explore the boundaries between visual and verbal, theory and practice, art and life. He is a recent MFA graduate and the 2011 winner of the Searle Award for Creativity.
www.robertgood.co.uk.


Robert Good - Patternotion Submission



 I first met Robert while participating in his thought provoking public art exhibition Text and Context in September 2012. He was brave enough to join myself and SMartwalks as we walked 8 miles through the streets of Cambridge, carefully attaching magnetic tweets to metal surfaces.

He told me about one of his current themes working with largely forgotten Pelican paperback images and authors. Taking books from the last century and juxtaposing them within our current digital framework. There was a suggestion that he's even reincarnated these authors on twitter. You could be cynical about this, thinking that Robert is playing the classic irony card but spend just a little time with his work and you'll find at its core there is humour, celebration and most of all optimism.



AL (left), RG (right). Photo H.Wells


As if to reinforce this point we walked past his installation on the Cambridge streets. And yes you guessed it, Robert Good had released another 'Yes' into the world.
And yes it did feel like the real thing.
I could feel the force.

And true to his name I felt better because of Robert Good.

AL.

Mark Lomax - The Art of Waiting




Mark Lomax - Walking and Waiting

  This is an exciting time for me, as the 1st February 2013 deadline slowly approaches, the artwork for the Patternotion book arrives in my inbox.
Part of the inspiration for this book was the work of Mark Lomax.
An artist who I've been lucky to exhibit with since the early magnet installation at The Arndale Centre, Manchester called Freezchester in 2010.
Mark plied his trade as an illustrator and photographer during the 1990s before moving north to Scotland. He is now a part-time lecturer at Inverness College. His  industrial style was honed in part by his collaboration with experimental electronic band Attrition. Whose dark waves of sound emerged from the 1980's post-punk world of an unforgiving industrial Coventry.
He is a excellent artist whose rich ideas take him happily from 2 dimensions to 3 and back again. Although each photo is created as a stand-alone work, when grouped together the individual elements compliment and enhance each other to create something new with power and narrative.

This is what Mark wrote about the system for the Patternotion book -

“Walking and waiting” records the frustration and boredom of waiting for someone who is three quarters of an hour late for a meeting.  The pattern created, with its zig zag rhythms and sense of movement, documents the erratic pacing and growing concern I was experiencing at the time.  The images for this composite were taken using an ipod, this has since become my camera of choice."

He's definitely an artist I'll be keeping an eye on in the coming year and hope that we'll be exhibiting together for a long time to come. 

Check out his photo work at

http://marklomaxphotoworks.wordpress.com/

AL.