I neglect this news blog and when I remember about it's existence, whatever is happening already happened, too busy eating crisps I guess!!
What else have I been up to? well...
I've been working on zines and workshops and a couple of pieces of new work, like this piece that I created for an Alan Menken evening as part of Manchester After Hours...
And this piece, Brown Girl In The Pit, that has been exhibited as part of Girl Gang Manchester's See My Selfie Exhibition and at Decolonise Fest in London...
I've also taken part in an event for the See My Selfie exhibition that saw me life modelling dressed as Josephine Baker (again) as part of a drink and draw evening. I also Whipped out my Poly Styrene dress I made for my 21st birthday to life model at Bury Art Museum as part of their Identity exhibition.
It also coincided with the launch of my What, Is She Black Now? exhibition at Bury Art Museum, which is up until mid July!!
My Rad friend and super artist Alison Erika Forde is also opening up her home as a gallery for an afternoon. So Manchester people can pop down on June 25th to see work by her, me, Kandy Diamond and Lee Crocker!
I finally managed to make it to DIY Cultures and tabling there was a blast. I also tabled at the fanciest venue to date, Tate Britain!!
Workshop wise, I've been doing zine making workshops with the Whitworth youth collective and a felt portrait workshop at International Slavery Museum in Liverpool.
I will be doing two more zine workshops over summer, one sees me returning to International Slavery Museum on August 5th and another one for Tate Britain on July 22nd!!!
PHEW!
right off to go work on my favourite issue of Brown Girl yet!!
I thought I'd do one of those yearly round up things, more for me to see what I've done in the past year and to think what I'm hoping to do in the next year to come!
To start off with, I've just put a new zine up for sale in my zine shop! Before it sounds like I'm super productive and managed to knock out a zine in the first 4 days of the new year, fear not I made this last year. It's a colouring book A-Z for my friend Nickie that I made for Christmas. I thought whilst I was getting a few printed up to gift to her, I might as well print a few more in case other people wanted one!
Speaking of zines, 2013 was a good year for me making them. As always 2 issues of Sugar Paper came out (both some of our best too).
A zine I collaborated on with Alison Erika Forde came out. I wrote a story and she illustrated it. I worked on Putrid Paints a while ago, but came out in 2013.
I also collaborated with my friend Em to finally get collective zine Poor Lass, of the ground. We put out 2 issues of that and currently working on getting the third done, whilst taking submissions for the fourth!
I also made a for A charitable scheme, NUM (National Ugly Mugs) who work to keep sex workers safe. I got to take all the literature and information about the project and put it into a cool little zine to be handed out at an event they were having. I really enjoyed working on that.
I managed to put out two zines of my own, both ones I worked on real quick. I'm currently working on a few zines now, as well as contributing to others. I think 2014 is the year I put the word FAN back in fanzines. Hoping to make a couple with my oldest zine friend Holly Casio, mostly about being fans of things!
It wasn't just zines I was making. I managed to bag my first exhibition! A lot of the work I was showing was quite old (some of it I made when I worked at The Beadshop/ pre Black Parade post revenge (for those who don't know my CV or the MCR discography that's around 2006)) so was keen to work on lots of new things.
I got to do that by forming an art collective with Kandy and Alison, Yiiikes! We got an installation quite quick after we formed and it was really good to work on something in a short space of time and see it shown quite soon after. That's definitely how I like to work.
I also got to work on a few commissions, which I always like to do, hold some workshops for post 16s and get some products up in my shop (who doesn't love a badge and postcards!).
2014, I hope you have all of this and more, much more!!!
Yiiikes! is a brand new art collective I started with my two friends Alison and Kandy.
We are going to make stuff to look at, stuff to listen to and stuff to do!!
Check us out HERE
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