Brown Girl in the Pit

My new exhibition, Brown Girl in the Pit, opened at Nexus Art Café on September 5th and runs until October 5th.
The lovely Thamanna Choudhray (Instagram: @banarnphotography) came down and filmed the whole thing!

Here is the end result:

 

Round Up, end of Summer!

Hey again, another sporadic post!
Been super busy this Summer, with more workshops: Pride Party for Superbia and a Felt portrait workshop at Bury Art Museum.

I was also on a panel of Queer artists of Colour for the Superbia pride events. Manchester Pride weekend also some new art feature in a group exhibition, Queer art show #5, Revoke, at The Penthouse HQ!


I also have a brand new Solo exhibition on at Nexus art café, in the nook until 5th October (more of that later!) called Brown Girl in the Pit.

I also managed to squeeze in a zine fair, last week tabling at Leeds zine fair where Brown Girls #3 made it's zine fair debut!

I'm having a mini break before getting back to it In Autumn, where so far October is looking like the month for performing!

Round up!!

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!!

Things to buy.....

I now have a place to buy all my zines, which is HERE!

And an Etsy stocking original art, art prints, postcards, stickers, notebooks and more! Including this brand new enamel Enid pin......

Etsy can be found HERE.

What, Is she Black Now? Exhibition

I have a new so exhibition next month....

Running Monday May 16th - Saturday May 21st
At Z-Arts in Hulme, Manchester.

Featuring mostly new work with themes such as growing up mixed race, WOC in popular culture and hair.

Opening night Tuesday 17th 6.30-8.30pm, with a stall selling zines, postcards and more!

Drawing Strength / International women's Day

A few weeks a go I got to take part in an event At Bury Art Museum.
In conjunction with the Wonder Women festival, there was a costumed life drawing class, pop up exhibition and zine stall. I got to take part in all three!

Got to sell a bunch of my own zines as well as some of my favourites like Shape and Situate and The Chapess and BAM's own zine!

My remaining All Of Them Witches pieces got to be shown in the gallery for the night

and I chose to dress as Josephine Baker for the life modelling part

Colouring Outside The Lines Zine #7 ....

A new issue of my favourite zine is out now and I'm in it!!!

COTL is a zine featuring in depth interviews with all different types of female artist and is always an excellent read.
If you ever wanted to know how I got into making art, my views on art and class and what inspires me, then get a copy HERE.

Wonder Women: Drawing Strength. Bury Art Museum

As part of the Wonder Women, Radical Manchester Festival (events running over Internationals Women's Day, in the first two weeks of March 2016) Bury Art Museum is holing a costumed life drawing class, pop up exhibition and zine stall, and I'm taking part in all three!!

Happening Friday 11th March....

The event itself is free (with the life drawing costing £6pp including materials) running from 5pm-8pm.

Copies of my zine Brown Girl, alongside Shape & Situate, The Chapess, Poor Lass and many more will be available to buy.

A selection of my All Of Them Witches collection will be there for one night only!

For more information go HERE.

Black History Month

 

Every year October rolls around far too quickly and once I get over the excitement of the fact that Halloween will soon be here, I remember it's Black History Month and I haven't done anything for it, even though every year I tell myself I will!
 
This year is no exception, but I thought I don't have time to make something new, so why not talk about the things I have made in the past that directly link to me being brown, so.....
 
The Angela Davis

In 2011 I made a postcard sized work to be included in an auction. I found this postcard with pictures of 70s ladies with bouffant hairstyles. I then stitched afro hairstyles on top of them and called it The Angela Davis.
I have since turned the image into 3 badges I sell online and at zine fairs. This piece has caused much confusion from 'isn't that racist' to 'oh, that's not the Angela Davis I was thinking of'. All said by white people!
I find it sometimes make people feel uncomfortable, I don't think that was my initial intention, but I like that it can do that.
I most likely did it just on a whim, but I suppose it's a commentary on how such a political figure and daring icon, can just be reduced to a hairstyle. Or the age old stealing of cultures from POC and sold on by white people!

 
 
What, Is She Black Now?
In 2013 I decided I wanted to do some felt portraits instead of sculptural work. I came up with the idea of taking some of my favourite fictional characters and making them POC!
It's a comment on how the majority of pop culture I love is white (a commnet  on the world AND myself) and how more often than not, when a character of colour is included it is conducive to the plot. They don't just happen to be black, it is somewhere along the lines to raise an issue.
I decided what if Enid Coleslaw was a brown weirdo? That story could still be told the same!
I got some postcards printed up of these pieces for others to hang on their wall or send to friends, I later turned this into a fabric I made into a dress for my 30th birthday and later a still a notebook!
 

 







Brown Girl Zine
In 2011 I finally put my love of zine making and Jamaican heritage to good use and made a zine all about being a brown girl! With rants, feelings, family histories and more.
I made issue 2, Brown Girls, this year with some contributions from friends, and features a lot on art and music made by rad POC.
I'm hoping it's a zine I can carry on and feature voices of a whole bunch of POC!

If you only read one thing during Black History Month make sure it's something from Rainbow Noir they are posting some great stuff, from people who so often don't get their voice heard.
You never know next year I might have finished that project I started last year, in time for Black History Month! 

 

Things I made in 2014....

I don't often post on this blog, I think it's because I post more on the Sugar Paper Zine blog and don't want to feel like I am repeating myself.
But seeing as this is mostly a news place for the art and zines I make I thought it might be nice to see what I have done in the past year (and because I am procrastinating!)

Zine wise I put out the usual, two issues of Sugar Paper and an issue of Poor Lass zine.

 I also made a couple of more personal zines. One called Brown Girl, which was mostly about, me being a Brown Girl. It had a great response, so much so I am currently working on issue 2, that I want to feature more voices than just my own! the other one I made was a mini one page zine I did during International zine month about Becoming an Artist.

A zine first for me was making a zine mostly digitally! So no cutting and sticking or hard copy! this was the zine I made for the All Of Them Witches project I did at Halloween. It was good to learn new skills, but for now I am happy with a pair of scissors in one hand and a glue stick in the other!

Yiiikes! had another outing, creating an upside down living room for Baduncle at Sounds from the Other City and winter saw The glowing world of Snotboobs make another appearance.

I started on a new series of felt works that was a severed head with Medusa plaits under a bell jar, sadly life/being slow/other projects got in the way of completing this but 2015 is the year.

As mentioned the zine for All Of Them Witches was part of a project I did at Halloween where I made small felt depictions of 12 of my favourite fictional witches!

My favourite commission of the year was to do the cover of Weezer's Blue album! (sadly I am rubbish at taking/remembering to take decent photos of my work!)

In 2015 I look forward to more zine making (I want to write one about people's favourite spaces) finishing projects I start, making more art and noise with Yiiikes!

It might interest some people that I got modern and joined Instagram in 2014 and post pictures of my socks and snacks and cats and the art I make! Go follow me @seleenalavernedaye

All Of Them Witches

Halloween saw me launch some new art, All Of Them Witches.
A.O.T.W is a collection of 12 fictional characters who have all been witches at some point, rendered in felt form!

From Winifred Sanderson to Elvira, Willow Rosenberg to Grotbags and lot's more in between.

The original art (4x4" felt pieces) are available to buy, alongside an A3 art print and zine of all the works!

Get them HERE!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.....

Yes that's right!
This Halloween I will be launching a new project called All Of Them Witches!
It will include, limited zines, art prints and original art work of everybody's 12 favourite witches!
Coming this Halloween, all available HERE

The Importance of Becoming an Artist - new zine!!

I have done workshops, shown friends, and just generally played around with one page  mini zines, but I realised the other day I have never actually made one (that I can recall if someone pulls one out that I made when I was like 17, then well done, but I don't remember making it!)
So I thought seeing as it's International Zine month maybe now is the time!

The Importance of Becoming an Artist follows up a blog post I wrote a few years ago. It's a mini zine about being a self taught artist, finding my place in the art world and why I make art!

It's available HERE!

New York: the art I saw

Last week saw me take a solo trip to New York. I saw a lot of inspiring things, whether it was street art or just the sun! But I did also take in some art in galleries. This is all my favourite stuff....

WHO: Carrie Mae Weems
WHAT: Three decades of photography and video
WHERE: Guggenheim

I had never heard of Carrie Mae Weems until I saw her work here, in fact I didn't have a clue what was on at the Guggenheim, I went because I was given a voucher for free entry, I am so glad I did go.
Photography/video is not usually one of my favourites, I like it, but there is normally something I like more.
But this made me smile so much.
Weems is a black artist from Portland and all her work focuses in on race, gender, sex and class, so it was pretty much a given I was going to like it.
From her shots of children shot in black and another colour entitled 'colored people' to her kitchen table series.
One of my favourites was Ain't Jokin' which featured portraits of people with text underneath, the text ranging from playground chants to racist stereotypes.
Another favourite was work from the American Icons collection. everyday household items, shot within the setting they would be used, but just so happen to be racist paraphernalia.
SO GOOD!

WHO: Jessicka Addams/Lindsey Way/Lori Nelson
WHAT: That which does not kill you...
WHERE: Cotton Candy Machine

This show was one of the main reasons I made my trip to NYC and it did not disappoint.
So many great pieces of work I could get right up close to and stick my face in (I love to do this, getting so close I can see the lines!).
First up was Lindsey's work, which was a series of paintings (gouache on wood panel) featuring women, creatures and volcanoes. Far removed from her previous work of paper diorama's (that I too loved). The works were filled with sadness, adventure, empowerment, science and love. But most of all they made me want to go home and make the world's greatest quilt!
Then came Jessicka's work (now I  me be biased as she's been pretty much a hero of mine since my mid teens!) but when works of art feature cat's and girls, I'm most likely going to be a fan!
Acrylic on panel, vivid colours, cat's and girls looking forlorn and lost, fell totally in love. Especially with one piece called Sad Purple (yes it is the piece of a brown girl!).
Lastly was Lori's work. I was unaware of her until this show, and let's just say she made it a triple whammy of greatness.
Her larger pieces, which I think were mostly oil on wood and were like looking at illustrations for children's nursery rhyme books, but with a dark twist.
She also had pieces that were little plaques with a resin coat, of all sorts of creatures (reminiscent of carnival freakshows) children with scales or hair or several eyes, all in prayer, I loved these

WHO: Kara Walker
WHAT: A Subtlety (or the marvellous sugar baby)
WHERE: Domino Sugar Factory

This one BLEW ME AWAY!
Set in an old sugar refinery (a place where they turn brown sugar white!), that had previously had a fire there, so when you arrived it just smelt like burnt sugar, this was enough to win me over.
You step inside and you're basically in a huge empty warehouse and created by life size figurines of children carrying baskets, made from what looks like brown sugar!
At the end of space is a giant Sphinx/woman.
A sugar sculpture of a racial stereotype mammy face, with huge oversized breasts, fingers toes, vagina and all.
It is one of those seen to be believed pieces, speaking about race, gender, sexualisation, wealth and probably so much more!
I am so glad I got to see this piece (it was touch and go and squeezed it in just hours before my flight).