unpopular

I Tried It, I Liked It, I Loved It

I Tried It, I Liked It, I Loved It, originally uploaded by unpop.

Today's drawing was made whilst listening to Decoration.

belle and sebastian marcus garvey ticket

belle and sebastian marcus garvey ticket, originally uploaded by unpop.

One of the 'special guests' was a chap called Elliott Smith... he was good, as were B&S, but the venue was awful and so many people insisted on talking loudly through both bands' sets. Why didn't they just go to a pub?! Damned hipsters...

citizens

citizen, originally uploaded by unpop.

Today's drawing was made whilst listening to Josef K.

Despite leaving London with streaming colds, it’s been a good few days. We had a notion of going to the newly re-opened London Transport Museum, but the queues outside suggested that everyone else had much the same idea so instead we headed to the National Portrait Gallery. The Pop Art Portraits show looked interesting, but after running a SSAT toolkit workshop on just that topic recently (and having done it to death with my students for several years now) I think I’ve had just about enough of Pop Art Portraits for a while. The real appeal instead lay in the photography exhibit, which was almost worth wading through the crowds. Several gems in there, including a stunning shot of Alex Higgins that is utterly beguiling. Also quite liked the exhibit of female singers and musicians. Some great names in there, and it reminded me somewhat of a John Carney series, which can’t be bad.

Elsewhere, we dropped into the newly opened Patrick Keiller exhibit at the BFI Gallery space on the Southbank. I was keen to see it after reading about it in the Indie the day before. I have to admit it was a slight disappointment, though that may have been down to poor curation. The context or intent of the work was not really clear, and it felt more like a simple historical interactive display from a museum. I mean, some intriguing old film footage, sure, but the whole notion of the re-cycling of old film footage has become so embedded in our culture that it doesn’t resonate in the way it was perhaps intended to. As I understand it the intention is something to do with the birth of the modern city – how the urban fabric was formed largely by industrialisation and how by the early 20th Century (or indeed late 19th) was more or less cemented (literally) in place. The outcome being that, although we think of urban regeneration altering the landscape of our cities, it actually hasn’t to significant degree, and that much of what we experience has a permanence which we may not always perceive as such. The exhibit, in my eyes, doesn’t really communicate that though, which is a shame. I think too that we may be duped by a couple of the promotional images for the exhibit which place stills from a couple of the old films within a contemporary image of the same place. There is surely some marvellous digital installation work lurking in there, but it’s not in ‘The City Of The Future’, which seems like a missed opportunity.

The ‘Painting Of Modern Life’ show at Hayward however is terrific. Some excellent pieces in there, and as a whole the show hangs together well. I’m not sure if it was just my recent indulgence in their old records that made me particularly sensitive, but it was intriguing to see the multiple reference to The Rolling Stones in many of the paintings. From Richard Hamilton’s ‘Swingeing London’, through Franz Gertsch’s ‘Luciano’s House’ and Peter Doig’s ‘Buffalo Station’ to Johannes Kahrs’ ‘La Revolution Permanente’. All very cool, and I half filled a sketchbook with drawings. Yay!

Now I just need to shift this cold...

swinging london

swinging london, originally uploaded by unpop.

Today's drawing was made whilst listening to The Magnetic Fields.

This Love is Fucking Right!

This Love is Fucking Right!, originally uploaded by unpop.

Today's drawing was made whilst listening to The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, originally uploaded by unpop.

Today's drawing was made whilst listening to Vampire Weekend.

It’s been one of those weeks for sure. One of those where you barely catch your breath, but whenever you do it is charged with a thrill of delight. It’s the pleasure of feeling you made a difference, that all the things you seemed to spend forever working on and planning go off without a hitch and are appreciated by those involved.

Like the Travels In Time website launch on Tuesday evening in our new school Library. We did the project itself way back in the summer term, but as is the way with such things we have only just managed to publish the results. I think they look quite cool, and certainly all those gathered for the launch seemed to agree it was worth the wait. What was most special about the event, however, was seeing multiple generations in the school sharing experiences. From twelve year olds to ladies and gents in their nineties, everyone was clicking away on our iMacs and enjoying the website we put together. Plus there was cake. What more could anyone want? I think it is crucial that we get more adults from the community into schools to experience what a (mostly!) exciting and positive atmosphere it is. Destroy the myths of the media about hoodies, virtual bullies and a youth gone to waste. And openness, in all its forms, is the only way to do it.

Or what about the student press gang workshop on Tuesday morning? I put my ‘real life’ hat on and talked about writing and publishing and running a record label and all of that… And then proceeded to run around like a loon, working with the multiple small groups to achieve their targets. Sure, there were problems and things rapidly skewed from the original timetable and plan, but that’s part of the fun, part of the learning experience for all of us. Still, we had video interviews with staff going on, reviews being written of other enrichment activities, calendar planning, illustrations and goodness knows what all else. It was ace.

And then on Wednesday I had my Exeter Goes Pop! hat on for a year 11 Leisure and Tourism class, talking them through the design process for the posters as a way of modelling the design process. I really do think it is invaluable to be able to show students that you have a life outside of the school day, and how that life can enhance their learning (and your teaching) experience. And did I mention the animation work I was doing with a Year 8 Modern Foreign Languages class? It’s really exciting to be able to move outside the comfort zone of teaching Art, or at least to bring something of the creative process to other curriculum areas. One day all learning will be like that… Perhaps.

On Wednesday too we had Michael Brennan Wood in, working with a group of Year 5 and 6 students from local Primary schools. It’s great to have such established artists working in schools, and even if I was too busy to really engage much with the day, it was still ace to be involved even a little.

Oh and then of course there has been all my regular lessons. Year 10 making their digital collage robots based on the Douglas Pledger’s digital illustrations (always a hit), Year 11 doing photos inspired by Cindy Sherman’s ‘Film Stills’ series. The robots are looking superb, with a lot of young people getting into details of burning and dodging sections to add highlights and shadows, spending ages arranging tiny screw heads. The devil is in the detail, and all that. The Sherman inspired photos meanwhile are awesome. Fabulous stuff, and all of it done with digital cameras they have at home, or cameras on phones. It’s great to watch them Bluetooth their work to and from their phones, sharing their work with each other in the same way. Of course if the Tories get in all that will go down the pan, as they plan to ban mobile phones in school. What a bunch of kneejerk reactionary rubbish.

Anyway, now it’s Thursday morning and I am rattling along in a train from Waterloo to Southampton (off to the Apple RTC Managers’ Meeting), high on way too much caffeine and the pleasures of the past few days. The pleasure of last night too, for even given the fact that the blare of a TV playing a soccer match and the roar of a small but vocal (and ultimately dejected) audience made talk rather tricky for much of the evening, I still had a most pleasant time in the Royal George with J and Y.

I’m looking forward to the weekend even more though, when C comes over to meet me in London and we get to visit the newly reopened London Transport Museum. I also really would love to see the portrait photography show at the National Portrait Gallery, and the new shows at Tate Britain and Modern. So much to fit in…

It Brings Me Down

It Brings Me Down, originally uploaded by unpop.

Today's drawing was made whilst listening to Billy Nicholls.

belle and sebastian raffle ticket

belle and sebastian raffle ticket, originally uploaded by unpop.

I am fairly rubbish at keeping little bits of ephemera. Or rather, I am pretty good at it up to a point, and then I get all cross and bothered and throw it all out. Or drop it on a big bonfire. You know how it goes... Anyway, I do have a few bits and bobs kicking around and I think it's about time I started to kind of catalogue it in some weirdo way. So, after the B&S promo photos, this post kicks off my 'other' B&S ephemera. It was my raffle ticket at the Shepherds Bush Empire show that the group played in September 1998. If I remember correctly (unlikely) the prize was an original vinyl copy of Tigermilk. I didn't win.