Film Photos from Cala d'Or

So Amy and I landed back in Leeds last Tuesday after an amazing, well deserved break in Cala d'Or, Majorca, where we enjoyed sun, swimming and seafood. We stayed in a cool little apartment which included a small kitchen area and access to a pool which was perfect for our casual holiday. It was my first proper sunny holiday and our first holiday together so we loved being able to chill out and do what we wanted. Every day we would cook up fried eggs for breakfast, relax by the beach, read a book, swim in the pool and then go out for an extravagant meal in the evening where we would try food like octopus and squid and we LOVED it! I took my Nikon FA film camera my Dad gave me last year and three rolls of film so I could capture snapshots from our holiday. I thought I'd share some of them with you here:

Departures - Degree Show

A couple of weeks ago the level six students at Leeds College of Art put together Departures, a Fine Art exhibition that was part of the Degree Show. I would have bogged about it sooner but Amy and I went to Cala d'Or for a well deserved break (of which I will post some snapshots of in a future post) the same week so I've not had chance to do it until now. The exhibition featured the work of over 62 graduating artists across three main strand areas; Painting, Drawing and Sculpture and the standard was fantastic! I definitely feel that there is some pressure on me and my year group to produce a show next year that can be just as good, if not better than this year.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to attend the open night because I was staffing the Art Market stall (which was a huge success, again!) so I was unable to experience the mass of visitors in the studios. However, it did mean I could get some pretty good photos later in the week without anyones elbow or foot making an appearance! I couldn't get photos of all the work because it would have taken me all day but here is an insight into what the show had to offer.

Lydia Blakeley

Molly Brocklehurst

Sam Burke

Bertie Chapman

Paige Cottam

Charlotte Harvey

Ella Holland

Charlie Hubbard

Terry Lister

Hugo Samengo-Turner

Roxanne Shanks

Mikkel Ullah

Johanna Wragg

Holly Youngs

The standard of work in the degree show was fantastic, you could tell everyone had given it their all and put in 110% effort. The work and display was executed with the professionalism you'd expect from a degree show and it has set the bar very high for us to follow next year. There was also eight graduates selected for the Aon Community Arts Award which is amazing news and I wish them all the best of luck! It will be sad to see the level six students leave this year because of the friendship bonds between the year groups but I wish them all well on their next chapter of life.

I hope some of you managed to visit the degree show and found it as inspiring as I did. Now I have next year to look forward to as I will be preparing for my own degree show. Exciting times lie ahead!

The Art Market

It's that time of the year when the level six students at Leeds College of Art are preparing for the degree show to conclude their three years of study. 2015 was the first year when students at the college organised and ran an Art Market alongside the degree show and it was a huge success! 2016 is following suit with a bigger and better Art Market containing work from over 40 artists and it opens today at 5:00pm. There is a huge variety of merchandise for sale including prints, notebooks, cards, canvas tote bags, cushions, magnets, plushies and jewelry so there is plenty for you to have a look at. Below are some photos of the market to give you a flavour of what's on sale.

Amy and I have spent the last few weeks putting together some things to sell on the art market in hopes to make a bit of pocket money. Amy is selling some A5 notebooks, canvas bags and some pineapple cushions and I am selling my handcrafted pewter pug pins, canvas bags and some CMYK prints so make sure you look out for them!

The market will be open Saturday 11th, Monday 13th, Tuesday 14th, Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th June so there is loads of time to come see what it's all about. 

Parterre de Rois #4 - Artist Magazine

Parterre de Rois is an Italian-curated biannual magazine combining erudite and popular culture co-founded and co-edited by Molly Molloy and Gianni Tozzi. The latest issue #4 of Parterre de Rois is themed around Happiness and seeks to ask the question: 'What is happiness for you?'. High quality reproductions of emerging and established artists work are combined with interesting interviews and articles providing for a beautifully constructed journal. 

Upon discovering Caroline Walker was being featured in the magazine alongside a short interview I was very keen to purchase a copy. At the time I was trying to get hold of the issue it wasn't yet available through the PDR website and was only in two UK stores, both of which were in London - a little too far to travel for a magazine. I contacted Parterre de Rois directly to find out when the issue would be made available to buy online and I received multiple replies which were both extremely helpful and professional. I was very impressed with the high level of customer service and that makes me respect and love this magazine more than any other I've bought.

Molly let me know that their magazine was being stocked at MagCulture in London so I sent off for it straight away. I was super excited when I received my copy of the #4 Happiness and was delighted to find that Guy Yanai, an artist whose work I also admire, was featured in the magazine too.

As well as Caroline Walker and Guy Yanai, twenty-eight other contemporary artists are also featured in the magazine across the 224 coloured pages including Mark Wallinger, Jo Ann Callis and Chental Joffe. For more information about Parterre de Rois you can visit their website here and for a full list of the featured artists or any other past issue you can take a look in the online store here. As someone who struggles to read and concentrate on large amounts of text, this image heavy magazine is perfect for me and it's put together flawlessly. If you are interested in contemporary art and are frightened by the endless advertisements and dense sections of difficult-to-understand text in magazines such as Art Review I would encourage you to purchase a copy of Parterre de Rois, you will not be disappointed! I will definitely be buying their future issues!