The first WOW! of the year. Welcome to the new guys and welcome back to all you grizzled year 2s! Get your Lanyards on an put that chewing gum in the bin! As a brief reintroduction to the blog, this is your weekly guide to all things I have deemed to be interesting this week in the arts. Not just fine Art but all forms of creativity. Over the last three years I have strived to represent you all and try and inspire new ideas based on cultural trends or national focus. This year we would like the Cultural context to be much more clear in your work, so you can use the blog should you need to discover something new. The blog is a starting point for your own curiosity, watch a programme and explore the artists they talk about or visit the place they mention. Each week I will offer 5/6 creatives or competitions for you to explore, that should be enough to get you started. So, enjoy the college, it's great to have you on board and I hope you'll find some inspiration here. Please come and find me in Art, should you want to share something with the creative cohort of the college, you can have a feature in another blog!
Trip: THE LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL 2023
Next week on Thursday 14th ALL Year 1 Expressive Arts students have been invited onto the trip to explore the Liverpool Biennial and the incredible art on show across the city. (Parents need to sign the permission slips on Parent portal, if not done already)
We'll be visiting a range of art galleries and museums, including the Tate, Open Eye and The Walker and giving you an understanding of what Liverpool has to offer. A fantastic trip and one we'll all really enjoy.
Get a flavour for the event by watching the video above. All the places we will visit are shown on it. Looks amazing, I hope you agree.
TV: 8 BAR: THE EVOLUTION OF GRIME
I watched this programme when it was on last week and it is really great. It explains the cultural reasons for the Grime Scene and how it developed out of Garage music. everyone you would want to here from or about is in the doc.
Great to watch to see how you can make the passion of a few people into one of the biggest cultural phenomenon of the 2020s.
A MUST WATCH FOR ME!
PODCAST: MY OWN GARMS
Named after a line in Wiley's No Quarms, this podcast/ Youtube Channel explores how clothes are important to people.
What they wore, how they wore it, how did it make them feel and what did the people around them think.
I have really enjoyed all episodes, Tom Griffin, (host/producer/content creator/ model/ hiker/ my mate) has gathered a wide variety of people from stylists to artists to magazine editors. All sharing how they have been inspired by a broad spectrum of creative output to inspire their clothing choices. Whether it be a bands music video or the local youths on the park. Inspiration has come from everywhere.
A great one for anyone who likes to look individual, full of inspiration and advice about being yourself and not caring what others think.
Each episode also has a fit pic breakdown where the guest explains some key looks and how/ why they were inspired to wear the outfit in that way. A great one for all you budding stylists or anyone who just fancies some fashion advice.
I personally enjoyed the Neil Summers (Proper Magazine) episode it spoke to my experience in life. I wonder which ones will inspire you?!
GENIUS: VERIFIED
PLEASE NOTE: There is lots of swearing in the videos as it is artists talking candidly about their lyrics. Please be advised before having a listen.
A new discovery for me is The Genius Youtube channel. This is one aspect of the work. It's artists, usual from hip hop explaining the ideas in their lyrics. They explain their inspiration and what that bar really means to them.
It's really insightful and some of the videos are funny, they are often really quite sweary so please bare that in mind. There are over 400 videos so enough to keep you going and the range of artists is incredible. Enjoy!
PODCAST: BROKEN RECORD DAMON ALBARN (Gorillaz/ Blur)
Listen to the podcast on youtube, or download it to your devices via your podcast apps.
This is a great podcast where Domon Albarn explains his inspirations in Music and how he likes to work. He is constantly interested in new things and tries to find fantastic new artists to collaborate with. Hopefully you know all about Blur and Gorillaz already but if not he has and incredible back catalogue to explore. For all you Artic Monkeys/ Courteeners/ 1975/ Sam Fender/ Liam Gallagher fans out there, I'm unsure how you've missed them but he has been a big influence to all of them.
A good listen and he seems like a decent bloke too which is always good.
Competition: Grantham Art Prize 2023
DEADLINE 22nd SEPTEMBER
A great opportunity to enter a piece of work in a competition, create something new or reuse a previous work. With a prize of national display and £500 this would be great for your CV and UCAS as well as allowing you to buy some great, eco friendly I'm sure, gear.
The 2023 art prize theme will be climate action to ensure a more sustainable future world.
The Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London is running it’s biennial project, the 2023 Grantham Climate Art Prize, with sponsorship from Octopus Energy. The prize invites young people, who will be most affected by climate change, to create bold designs for outdoor public murals focused on the solutions needed to tackle the climate crisis.
Three winning designs will become public murals across the UK, painted by professional artists, and they and six runner-up designs will be displayed on billboards in London ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), starting in November 2023. Winners will each receive £500 and runners-up will get £250 each. The judging panel will be made up of representatives from the Grantham Institute, Octopus Energy and the Turner Contemporary.
Palette for the Planet: a greener, cleaner, cooler, future
All artforms are welcoming including painting, drawings, graphics, photomontage, collage, typography – except artwork generated by AI. The closing date is 22 September.