Art
Arts & Culture in Birmingham This Bank Holiday
This weekend I’ve been enjoying Birmingham’s arts and culture offerings and my how the city has delivered.
On Sunday I attended Swingamajig, which was outstanding – the UK’s first urban festival dedicated to electro swing, gypsy folk and vintage mayhem, taking the sounds and styles of the 20′s and bringing them up to date with dance, electro and a dash of dubstep. Read the rest of this entry »
Birmingham Artists Quarter
Today (for the first time, to my utter shame) I visited Birmingham’s creative hub; The Custard Factory. Including having a mooch in their awesome new Mr Birds Emporium which I’ve been intending to visit for months now.
What finally lured me there was their Bicycle Basket Bazaar; described as “A unique array of retailers, all cramming their wares into bike-baskets and pannier-racks. Kind of like a car boot sale, but more compact and kinder to the environment.”
Below are some images from the Bicycle Basket Bazaar area, which was in the central courtyard and surrounded by quite a number of shops, and of course, Mr Birds (which is like a indoor market of independent traders) is situated at The Custard Factory also. Read the rest of this entry »
The Magic Book Of Nightmares
I love this!
The Magic Book of Nightmares is an illustrated book published by Belly Kids; an illustrated guide to the creepy and weird, with each A3 illustration spanning across a double page spread in this A4 sized book. Read the rest of this entry »
Birmingham; City of Culture
It seems only a few short years ago Birmingham was commonly hailed as an industrial toilet, and yet suddenly we are now City of Culture.
I breezed into our fair city Sunday afternoon to enjoy it’s ‘cultural delights’, and will drop the sarcasm from my tone from here on in 
I only jest, it’s become a really lovely city of recent years – we have the Bullring shopping centre with I’m sorry to be a philistine, but one of the greatest things ever to come to the city; the ground floor of Selfridge’s, of course just turn a blind eye to ‘award winning’ architecture of the Bullring, our new monolith of a library, apparently the biggest in Europe (I’m impressed), and today I visited the very swanky Ikon Gallery, my second visit.
More about my day in our City of Culture … Read the rest of this entry »
Friday Night
I may, or may not have drawn this last night (Friday) 
Somewhat a case of ‘art playing out at the same time as life’ than art ‘imitating life’
The panels deliberately become more ‘drunk’ also, as the story unwinds.
Coningsby Gallery London
Oh hello, I just discovered the Conningsby Gallery in London via news of the Inky Goodness Beermat Character exhibition which will be showing there from the 29th April to 4th May.
Birmingham based (they are based two streets away from me!) Inky Goodness operates as a showcase for artists working across illustration, character design and more, providing a platform for new and emerging talent as well as established artists.
May the 4th? Hang on a moment, is that that geeky Star Wars fan day where fanboys and girls say ‘May the 4th be with you’? Read the rest of this entry »
Mr Birds Emporium of Vintage, Culture & Art
I’ve known about Mr Birds for months now but keep forgetting to visit it, I guess I’ve been a bit busy of late as I’ve been moving home. MAYHAPS this blog will remind me to finally go one Saturday.
Mr Birds Emporium is a relatively new (launched in October last year), concept put together by the teams behind Urban Village & Sutton Vintage & Arts Fair (now I have been to the Sutton Vintage & Arts Fair, as it’s on my doorstep). Read the rest of this entry »
David Bowie – The Stars Are Out Tonight
I’m really liking the video for David Bowie’s new song The Stars Are Out Tonight. The song itself isn’t bad, but it’s the actual video that is impressing me.
Tilda Swinton is amazing in it, and I adore the nod to his delightfully eccentric movie ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’ on the magazine cover. If you’ve never watched The Man Who Fell To Earth, do so, it’s a cult classic.
And also, if you’re a Bowie fan, V&A have released what looks like a pretty cool book to me. Read the rest of this entry »
Hospital Nurse Romance Comics
I’ve been standing in Waterstones fondling the ‘Love On Ward B‘ book for some time; drooling at it’s 1960′s comic heroine illustrative style. I haven’t seen anything like this before as a new publication/reprint, so I decided I had to have it.
‘Love on Ward B’ is a hospital nurse picture library romance book made up of six different stories that feature nurse Sally Brown as matchmaker. The character Sally Brown starred in around sixty adventures published in the Hospital Nurse Romance Library between 1964 and 1966. Read the rest of this entry »
Vintage Childhood Books
I moved home very recently and today I was lovingly unpacking my childhood books (which are over 30 years old), and placing them on top of the vintage suitcase pictured above.
The suitcase is also a childhood treasure; I’m pretty certain it is the suitcase I packed full of teddy bears and such like when ‘running away from home’ one summer afternoon in the late 70s. I believe I turned back because the hard pavement was hurting my bare feet.
Anyway, I digress. Vintage books! Read the rest of this entry »
