Wednesday 24 February 2010

Artists for A Cheap Affair March

Laura Anwyl
Handmade jewellery inspired by every day things. Cards designed for every occasion. Each item is hand made to a very high quality, and can be personalized.

Cheap
The project started as an independent zine run by artists Tommy Eugene Higson and Nikki Marie Jackson showcasing emerging and established talents in art, illustration, design, photography, literature and other creative and visual practices. Cheap has been involved and represented in various events and exhibitions internationally and is distributed internationally.
As artists we work and exhibit both individually and collaboratively and our work addresses various subjects and themes with several constants; accessibility, relevance and aesthetics. Cheap is a reflection of these abiding concerns and an ongoing project to describe and detail developments in regards to the broader visual and creative
cultural landscape in the form of products, exhibitions and events and critical writing.

Email: cheap-magazine@live.com
Web:cheapzine.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/cheap-zine

Dolly Cool Jewellery (Clare Dutton)
Cool Jewels for rockin' Gals. A range of hand drawn, hand crafted tattoo and rockabilly inspired jewellery by Clare Dutton.



Web: www.dollycool.moonfruit.com

www.getinthepink.moonfruit.com
Carol Duncan
Carol works as a science teacher and is head of physics at the high school where she teaches. Her passion is making things, always has been, always will be. She call's herself 'scrappy bow', as everything she makes is out of scrap pieces of fabric. On the day of the show, she will be presenting examples of the hand-made hand bags that she has made. They range in sizes from small apple bags to large shopping bags. She also has a selection of patchwork throws, some of which are designed to look like cushions when not in use.

Email- carol.duncan10@btinternet.com

Julia Farnsworth
Sells only ethically produced organic and natural skin care; organic perfume as well as soaps.  Most of the products are manufactured by small UK companies.

Web: www.botanicalhut.co.uk




Debbie Greenaway and Katie Hanratty are illustrators/printmakers. They will be selling prints, badges, plush items such as robots, teeth and clouds and printed cards etc.

Web: www.theimaginationofladysnail.blogspot.com

Dawn Guest
Will be selling hand made cards and unique baking kits for both children and adults.


Ashley Fauguel
I have just recently graduated from Northumbria University. I am an illustrator/ creator of pretty things to brighten your day! I have a rather strange talent of making pretty people look freaky which crazily enough makes me smile :) I have just started work on my first zine which I’m frigging excited about, its called "All my Heroes are Weirdos" named after a club night I saw advertised that made me giggle! I like to have my finger in a number of arty pies as I love experimenting that’s why I am currently learning to knit so expect to see some of my haphazard knitted creations!

Jeny and Amber like avant garde fashion, creativity, making a mess (or so our parents tell us), making clothes, customising stuff, re making old garments into lovely treasure, newspaper and its recycling ... our bags!, re cycling cardboard to make 3d shapes, shiny things, photographs, sequins, singing, dancing, drawing, pop ups, painting, fairy lights.

Emma Kelly and Hannah Fray
Both are Studio Managers at The Bluecoat Printmakers in Liverpool and Hot Bed Press Printmakers Salford. Collaborating on several projects and offering skill-swapping sessions to printmakers of all levels in the North West region.

Emma has spent the past year backpacking around the world. Experiencing an unparalleled sense of freedom, meeting people from all over, seeing wonders of the world and experiencing first hand the varied cultures of the world. She will be presenting the journey through her prints and love of artist books.

Hannah combines printmaking and the craft of cutting and manipulating prints, using prints as a base to layer, stitch and cut up allows them to adopt a 2d and 3d quality. Hannah's work intersects the categorisation of art and craft.

Web: www.northwestprintmakers.blogspot.com
www.emmajanekelly.blogspot.com
www.emmajanekelly.com

Helmut Lemke


Jessica Marshall
I’m a full-time student based in Sheffield and I make colourful, kitschy jewellery using vintage components and vintage illustrations of animals and ephemera. I have also started making hand illustrated plastic brooches and should hopefully have some of my illustrations printed onto cards in time for the fair!

Web: www.jessicatt.etsy.com
Email: jessicamarshall@live.com


Moon monsters come in all shapes and sizes! Each monster is unique and is named according to their style and personality. As an artist I make costumes and these little creatures appeared as a side product to help me realise the shape and form of my garments. However they are works of art in their own right and make delightful gifts.     

Web: www.moonmonsters.co.uk
www.etsy.com/shop/moonmonsters

Not for Ponies (Beckie Andrews) sells recycled, re-worked vintage and hand made clothes at affordable prices. Visit our ebay shop to find gorgeous dresses, tops, t shirts and handbags that will be sure to get you noticed.

Web: http://www.notforponies.co.uk/
ebay.co.uk/not-for-ponies-boutique
facebook.com/notforponies 




 ONE MANS TRASH (Nel Boxall)
Vintage, recycled and Handmade clothing and textiles.

Web: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=143982065890

MISS PYBIS & THE BIG MAC
Artist/ illustrator Miss Pybis has joined forces with Clothing designer Christine Macaulay AKA The Big Mac, together they bring you smokin' hot collaborative project MISS PYBIS & THE BIG MAC. The duo are bursting at the seams with delicious limited edition screen printed tees, hand drawn illustrations/ prints, pin badges, greetings cards, postcards and accessories. The duo cited their influences as, art, rock 'n' roll, Japanese anime, tattoos, donuts, colour, vaudeville, evil looking animals, hot dogs, freak shows, 90's NYC, flowers, Gilbert & George and sunshine with a twist of bitter lemon.
MISS PYBIS & THE BIG MAC will be supplying cupcakes & happiness along with their witty, off-beat collection of loveliness, great times!
Miss Pybis
Email:misspybis@hotmail.co.uk
Web:www.myspace.com/misspybis

Christine Macaulay (AKA The Big Mac)
Email:christine@christinemacaulay.com
web: www.christinemacaulay.com
www.myspace.com/christinemacaulay
http://twinethpaltrow.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/TwinethPaltrow

Kyle Saxton
Photography is my main area of interest, long exposure in particular,i like to capture sides of Manchester in a different way. Working with light graffiti to produce prints that challenge the norms of conventional graffiti and photography, also i work with animation and film.

Email: kylemint@hotmail.com

Web: www.raggaphoto.co.uk
www.myspace.com/raggaphoto

Margret Saxton
Fabulous clothes and jewelery.


shesgotmedals & TangerinieAndPurpleHippos
Shesgotmedals sells handmade, unique dress brooches and apparel pins made from vintage and reclaimed fabrics. Pretty things for your favourite outfits, lovingly created with Liberty prints, silks and florals. All pieces are original designs with custom creations on request.

TangerinieAndPurpleHippos sell beautiful handmade silver jewellery amongst a treasure trove of knitted scarves, pillowcases and unique metal work pieces.

Web: www.facebook.com/shesgotmedals
www.folksy.com/shops/TangerinieAndPurpleHippos


Laura Skillbeck
Printed t-shirts, prints, zines, mugs, tea towels.

Veganicity
Home made vegan cakes. Yum Yum


We love Retro
We offer an affordable comprehensive range of 70s&80s Retro Airlines, Vespa, other Retro Flight/Shoulder bags, Retro T-Shirts and other unique designed accessories.

Web: www.weloveretro.net
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/weloveretro?ref=name

Emma Whetham

We also have music from the lovely Stealing Sheep
Web: http://www.myspace.com/stealingsheep

Monday 22 February 2010

New zine library at Islington Mill


Salford Zine Library is a new venture which aims to create a Library of self published work from around the world. The library is based at Islington Mill home to over 50 artist studios. Please send contributions to: 48 Landos Court, Gunson St, Manchester, M40 7WT, U.K

Friday 19 February 2010

EdgyCute: From Neo-Pop to Low Brow and Back Again Review


Nicolette Ceccoli
Ryan Heshka
Greg Gossell
Donald Roller Wilson
Kevin Scalzo


by Tommy Eugene Higson

From the start EdgyCute is friendly and relatable, it wants to be liked, which is not to say it is going to play nice, it is mean and it will make fun and it will rip piss out of the hand that feeds.

So what is EdgyCute? Well it is the work of certain contemporary artists and illustrators whose work comes from a marriage of obsession with graffiti, neo-pop, j-pop, various subcultures, mass; media, technology and consumerism, art history... and cartoons. Two fantastic essays and an introduction from Harry Saylor (of the Orbit Gallery) really appraise and contextualize contemporary image making, thus terming EdgyCute. Godfathers and components of the movement include Mark Ryden, Tim Biskup and the Clayton Brothers (just to give you a starting point).

Complementing the globalized, superflat subject matter and poppy, playful aesthetic the book also looks at the influence of illustrators on fine artists and vise-versa. It's something few will readily approach or even concede as the idea either muddies fine art with something so commercial and public or contradicts illustration's purely functional nature. Looking at artistic achievements in terms of commissions and exhibitions as well as auteurship and theory is refreshing and it sets it aside from other (still great) books such as The Upset and the recent Hi-Fructose Collected Edition.

Now with such diverse work in terms of both style and content it could have very easily resulted in an incredibly mixed up book, but it is broken up into broad chapters so it is digestible. This does not so much mean the chapters present work as generic, just a case of enabling an understanding of context and relating. For example: Disney Poison shows how evil is forgiven with an innocent, cute face but still contains a wide variety of artists such as Kathie Olivas and her freakishly deformed children and evil disney animal friends complete with halloween death masks, Brandi Milne and her sickly sweet bubblegum food critters and Nicoletta Ceccoli and her mysterious melancholy young girls. Other chapters include Evil Seduction, Mid-Century Nostalgia, Heroes and Surreal.

In the process of exploring this book I discovered several artists who I feel are of particular note who I had not previously uncovered (as well as a few old favourites). Ryan Heshka has been a favourite for a while, his paintings scream classic sci-fi, presenting small stories complete with dialogue, quotes or slogans reminiscent of comics or cartoons and distressed to give a true vintage feel. Gary Taxli's creatures are quirky, weird, vulgar, idiotic little things that bring a smile, reminiscent of early screen print design works on found objects. Greg Gossell's seemingly torn-up billboard paintings are laden with pop images and text taken straight from the collective conscious and rendered in a whole rainbow of colours. Brian Taylor's sci-fi-cartoon hybrid screen prints are thoroughly entertaining in their immediate simplicity and quirkiness. Gerd Dagne's paintings draw you in at first glance with their skill and initial recognizing appeal then disarm you with their subtle complexity and darkly comedic and reflective quality. So I don't go on forever I will finish with comic book artist and illustrator Kevin Scalzo whose layered paintings contain samples from an infinite numbers of image, line and mark sources and belong to a very exciting discourse in painting of sampling and creating and existing somewhere between figuration and abstraction.

All in all this is another wonderful book introducing new image making and its context (and there aren't many or enough). It is thoroughly readable (and understandable), intelligent and fucking fun.

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Fashion Nouveau book Call for submissions


Brett Manning
Martyn Mills


Hello

We are making our first book looking at the influence of Art Nouveau on contemporary image making practices and Art Nouveau inspired work and are looking for contributors.

Art Nouveau has had particular resonance over the last century affecting the development of fashion design and architecture and up until today and can still be seen today in contemporary design and illustration, fine art cross-overs, business art, lowbrow, poster art and most areas of fashion. It is however - we think - something which is frequently overlooked and want to bring it back into consciousness!

So we are looking for artists, illustrators, designers, photographers, writers and any other kind of image makers help us make the book by sending us some images they think would be good contributions. They need to be a5 (and please account for bleed), colour or black and white, 300dpi, jpegs and please send 1-4 submissions. Anyone chosen for the book will receive a free copy and we are hoping to stock it nationwide (UK) with international posting possibilities and a release towards the end of summer.

The deadline is 31st March and please email with the subject header "fashion nouveau book" to:
cheap-magazine@live.com