Sunday May 15th: DIesel School Of Island Life Dance Class with Percolate & T.E.E.D

Percolate Dance Class from Percolate on Vimeo.

"Diesel School of Island Life" is a series of nationwide lessons, field trips, screenings & parties held by inspiring industry experts and pioneers from creative and cultural fields. The music side of the activities are being headed up by Metronomy, Goldie, Mr Hudson, SBTRKT and Filthy Dukes. All events are free and open for anyone to attend, you just need a passport (ticket) which you can pick up in Diesel stores. Here you can see some from this weeks dance class in London held by Percolate who are part of the "Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs" troop. One half of the duo is Nina Ribena who is also known as "WeAreAllInOne" responsible for my gold and rainbow onsies and also T.E.E.D's dinosaur costumes. When Nina isn't running up onsies she's choreographing routines for tour dates with T.E.E.D and its these manoeuvres that the team were demonstrating on Tuesday. To get an idea of the types of steps you can pick up from the Percolate dancers, watch this video they made last year in their Lampshade era. I went to see T.E.E.D perform at The Camden Crawl which was a brilliant sonic spectacle and I can recommend checking out the London headline show coming up on the 16th June at The Scala........ which will go something a little like this ........



(All photos c/o Katie Palmer - see her own blog here)

Sat 14th May: Matthew Stone - Forever Rules (Part I)

Last evening Matthew Stone opened the first installment of two solo exhibitions featuring his new works of sculpture and digital photo-collage on wood. The images depicted in pastel hue soaked birch plywood are a soft and sensitive addition to his recent shift into lighter shades. Moving on from his signature shiny and darker palette portraiture, this matt medium has made the nudes even more visibly tactile. Graphic elements have sneaked in to the anatomy with the curves of the body formations dissected by slices of ivory white geometry. These architectural elements almost fall of the wall and end up echoed in a floor based sculpture “Forever Rules”. Matthew actually hand made the hinged dodecahedron himself, getting to grips with carpentry in oak and birch. Being a fan of Polyhedrons and all things geodesic and cosmic myself, I immediately fell in love with this piece. Not least for the evidently labour intensive canvas cut into squares and reassembled on cloth in a tiled grid.
The show is on until the end of June, so make a trip to Union Gallery to see this small scale delicate work up close and personal......

Matthew Stone - Forever Rules (Part I)
Union Gallery
94 Teesdale Street, E2 6PU
London, United Kingdom
14th May 2011 - 25th June 2011

Sat 14th May: Blog Off, Blog On

Those of you who use Blogger will be aware........ but others may not .......... Blogger decided to stop working for a few days. Mild panic set in but thankfully its now returned and back on. PHEW! Lots to catch up on.........

(Image - colourful building snapped yesterday on Brick Lane for me by Emily)

Weds May 11th: Eley Kishimoto Summer Sample Sale

Eley Kishimoto are clearing their studio and have set aside a stash of goodies for a sample sale in the process. The weekend bonazana opens its doors for a special preview to on Thurs evening as an early opportunity to raid the assorted archive of menswear, accessories, garments, shoes, trainers, prints, fabric remnants, wallpaper and furniture......... here are some original snaps of their studio which came to surface when Mark was moving boxes in the Spring Clean. Wouldn't it be nice to get your hands on an EK classic, possibly hand printed at this time ...........

MAURICE EINHART GALLERY
30A REDCHURCH STREET
LONDON E2 7DP

Thurs 18.00-21.00
FRI + SAT 11.00-19.00
SUN 11.00-17.00

Weds May 11th: DRAWING 2011 BIENNIAL FUNDRAISER AUCTION

Here is one of Julie Verhoeven's recent works on show "Smile and the world smiles with you". She has placed it in an exhibition and auction for the DRAWING 2011 BIENNIAL FUNDRAISER. This showcase offers the opportunity to purchase new, unique works by over 200 established and emerging artists at an affordable price point. Each participant has made an A4 drawing for the project which is a public, non-profit gallery dedicated to the investigation and presentation of international contemporary drawing. Other works submitted for this year's portfolio include artists Franko B, Tacita Dean, Grayson Perry, Paula Rego, Bob & Roberta Smith and Gavin Turk........
with the close of bidding happening at a silent auction event next Wednesday 18th May 18.30 – 20.30 ......... which means only one week left to scope the selection.....

EXHIBITION: 7 April - 18 May 2011. Open Tues – Sun 12.00 – 18.00.
VIEW WORKS AT THE GALLERY TUESDAY - SUNDAY 12- PM OR ONLINE
Drawing Room
Tannery Arts
Brunswick Wharf
55 Laburnum Street
London E2 8BD

Tues May 10th: CocknBullKid Posters

So excited to see these promo posters up in London for CocknBullKid's debut album "Adulthood" coming out on May 23rd. Get it in your diary! Read my last live review here. Read about the video Elisha shot for Anita's last single "Hold Onto Your Misery" here.

Tues May 10th: Toni's Got Sole

TONI'S GOT SOLE from Loren Platt on Vimeo.

The latest side "hustle" project from the prolific multi-tasking talent that is Loren Platt, is an Espadrilles enterprise "Toni's Got Sole". When Loren isn't working organising Work It, or guest dj'ing at promos, or curating The W Project or putting together production for other fashion brands........ she can be found selling Spanish sandals at Broadway Market school yard on a Saturday!! Here you can see Loren's leopard print legs modelling the wares and Renee' pins demonstrating a coral pink pair. Apparently they are "comfy to jump around on the dance floor and come in tonnes of colours" ............ so visit Loren at the weekend to choose a Mediterranean solution for your pieds to pad around this summer and then pop down to Work It on Sat 21st to pull some moves...........

(Ive included a picture here of Loren's home where she has put up prints from a few of the artists in The W Project .... Sara El Dabi's "Whoopi" & Vicky Langdon's starling)

Mon 9th May: Diesel Island / i-D Millinery & Clothing Customisation Class with Fred Butler & Katie Eary

Katie Eary and I are participating in Diesel's 'School of Island Life' event schedule as part of i-D Magazines contribution to the project. Inspired by the 'Land of the Stupid, Home of the Brave' campaign, Diesel have put together a series of workshops spanning the country throughout May. The aim is to open up opportunities for the public to join practitioners for a hands on experience to learn a few accessible skils. The classes span many disciplines ranging from debates, screenings, mask making, dance lessons, taxidermy, gardening and in this instance fashion customisation!

Inspired by the 'Island Life' theme, I will be demonstrating (Blue Peter style) how to make tribal feather head dresses and paper flower wreaths and garlands. Katie will be illustrating how to fuse leopard print onto denim using heat presses and transforming the fabric into toy animals. You can click over to i-D to see footage of us describing in more detail what to expect ........... here.

To get involved you just need a 'passport' from a Diesel store or visit Diesel’s Facebook page to sign up.

Thursday, May 19 · 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Red Gallery,
3 Rivington Street
City of London
EC2A 3D

Thanks to Katie Eary for these snaps from her HQ (Left to right- Laure Orbes, Sabrina Miller, Mairi Campbell, Katie Eary, & 'bunny man' Joey Turvey) beautifully modelling these RARE pink Leopard legs, which are being created next week for the EARY zoo.

Sun 6th May: Corrie Williamson Open Studio

One of my favourite jewellers Corrie Willimason opened the doors to her work space this weekend as part of an organised Open studio event. Her pieces were on show along with neighbours inc. printmakers / bookmakers / upholsterers / kinetic artist and portraits on a large format camera in a new workshop facility. This is just the first function for her family of creatives occupying Glyn road with more to follow......... to find out more see her facebook fanpage.

To see close up shots of her workshop from my feature last year, click here.
To buy Corrie's covetable pieces, see No One.

(I have included a photo of Corri here from a project "Portrait to self-portrait" by Antonio Nodar who takes a shot of artist and gives them the print to re-work)