Fraud- Capodimonte museum, Naples

The phone rang. I had just returned from a week in Naples and Sorrento.
"Have you spent 700 euros on books in the Capodimonte museum in Naples?"
"Pardon?"
"And 500 euros in an Italian supermarket?"
Well, I had just been congratulating myself that despite all the horror tales of crime etc in Naples I had returned without being robbed or mugged. Now this. I had reckoneed without the new crime of credit card cloning.
So how did it happen? Well, the most likely suspect is the museum itself since I had bought some books - a mere 30 euros - there on the day of the first illegal transaction and had lunch in the museum cafe- that's when the waiter took my credit card away for rather a long time.....

Panther found with sheep!

Phone call from Bridge of Allan police.
"We've found your panther.It was in a field with sheep."
Well, I'm delighted to get it back, only slightly damaged, and to learn it has been used for an art installation, well a site specific one, though I suspect the pranksters ( students during Stirling University Freshers Week?) were unaware that what they were doing could be construed as a work of art.
Wonder what the sheep thought of it...
I put a poster up in the village( Bridge of Allan) offering a reward and it seems a woman walking her dog spotted it .

Stolen Sculpture!

"Where's your black panther?" said a friend this morning looking around the garden. I looked across into the wooded area alongside the road and - no panther. This is a life-size black resin sculpture I made some years ago which I am very fond of.
That's when I realised it had been nicked. This is not the first time I've had work stolen- the other occasion was a vcr/tv and tape from a gallery. But at least I could claim on the insurance and go out and buy another telly. As it was a digital work I still had the mastercopy.
But sculpture is different. It's a one -off.
The police were quick off the mark and two arrived within an hour taking statements etc. Maybe it will turn up on e-bay......

SIBOS -Atlanta

Well, my little seahorse video is certainly getting around!.... I filmed it in The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago (www.sheddaquarium.org ) a few years ago while on an international student exchange to the School of the Art Institute.(www.artic.edu/saic/) It was one of the films I showed recently in the Mission gallery, Swansea and while there I met Sue Foley of Peter Evans, (www.peterevans.com) the software company specialising in web security.
She asked if they could use the video when they go to SIBOS in Atlanta this month. Now I must confess I had never heard of SIBOS - international annual conference for the world's financial sector.
I understand the video will be shown on a plasma screen and there will be over 5,000 delegates. Phew!...my wee digital fishes are certainly seeing the world.( I tweaked them with some digital effects).
www.swift.com/index.cfm?item_id=40406-10k-4Oct2004
www.swift.co/index.cfm?item_id=40524

Art Scam - Scotland

Who says you can't make money out of the internet? well, there is a very clever scam operating out of Nigeria that is working its way through the Society of Scottish Artists. It is a money laundering scheme. They e-mail members and say they want to buy work. They send too much money and ask you to send the surplus on to a "shipper". You do and the original cheque bounces.
Anyway, its worth visiting our site:www.s-s-a.org

Crowsteps

The Crowsteps exhibition in Blairlogie has just finished. Well, I guess we can all learn a few lessons from it. To start with only about ten pieces of work sold and the reason is n0t hard to find: the prices were far too high with some work in the £1,000- £7,000 bracket.
Folk don't expect to pay those prices when they go to an art exhibition in a small, conservation village on the edge of Stirling. Still the aim of the exhibition was to bring together again a group of artists who had shown there over twenty years ago when they were in the early stages of their career.

Chinese art.
A recent trek through Mongolia and the Gobi desert by artist Hock Aun Teh has resulted in a stunning exhibition which opened yesterday ( Sept. 18 ) in Edinburgh at the Phoenix 369 Gallery.
I had just trawled through seven Edinburgh galleries and was on my way home when the sheer exuberance of Hock Aun Teh's colours caught my eye across a busy Edinburgh street. There in all their splendid glory was a new exhibition by this Malaysian born painter who came to study at Glasgow School of Art and remained in the city. The gallery, unfortunately, does not have a web site but its worth a visit to the following sites to check out the work of Hock Aun Teh:
www.gpsart.co.uk www.tukido.co.uk www.eapgroup.com/china2.htm

South America.
How often do you talk about this vast continent, or even think about it? In my case very rarely. Except to-day. Had lunch with Sue who had just returned from spending a year travelling around the world and raved about South America,especially Chile and Argentina.
Along with her partner Wolf they belong to the new breed of Gap year travellers- older people who have downsized and used their money to travel the world. See their web diary at:www.angelfire.com/trek/wolftours.
This evening saw Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevara's travel diaries up the South American continent. Great film.

Well, the Crowsteps exhibition opening at Blairlogie attracted a good turn out of people including one of the leading "movers and shakers" in the art world , my former Head of Dep. at Glasgow School of Art, David Harding.www.davidharding.org David is the original pioneer of environmental art and the following interview with him is worth reading. www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archive/ca/roth-harding.php .
He made some favourable comments about my video "Matriarch" which deals with three generations of women's hands.

Keeping a blog is bad for your health!
Well, according to psychologists at a conference in Edinburgh yesterday they said that keeping a diary of traumatic events and re-reading them could be bad for your mental health.
But what if you don't have traumatic events to record and you don't re-read your entries every few days? Well, that was not covered . This research strikes me as positively weak, full of loopholes.
See The Herald for full story:www.theherald.co.uk

Have been helping Lys Hansen with setting up the Crowsteps exhibition this week in Blairlogie. See her website:http://www.goartists.co.uk/LysHansen.asp.

Fiona Ross, an artist friend, has just come back from Edinburgh where she delivered some work to the Solo gallery in Dundas St. She's taking part in a group exhibition opening on Friday Sept. 10th.
She specialises in the Fife coast and her paintings of fishing villages are cheerful and colourful, not surprisingly they sell well.www.tartangallery.com

Just discovered some videoblogging sites. Must work out how to upload some footage. Trawled through the South American site of the Dutch filmmaker- despite the glowing report given it by The Guardian I found it not as informative as expected, more geeky than travel. See for yourself:www.Rhizome.org Luuk Bouwman

Decided to revisit Craig-y-nos, former home of world famous opera singer Adelina Patti which became a sanatorium. Spent some years there as a child. This was a very emotional trip down memory lane. The castle was more like a prison than a hospital.http://www.opera-singer.co.uk/adelina2.htm.
Today it is used as a hotel.www.craigynoscastle.com

Returning to my home country of Wales is always full of surprises. Just back from a joint wedding anniversary and birthday party of my cousins Ken and Ann Powell. They have a farm near Maescwmmer and the party for 130 people was held in the garden. We were lucky in that it didnt rain because they have had a very wet summer- Wales is notorious for its rain- amongst the food, fireworks and festivities was Gerry Walker, magician. I promised him that I would put a link to his web-site on my blog diary. He didnt believe me. Well, Gerry here it is: www.gerrymagic.co.uk Enjoy!

Some good news! Just heard from Chicago that the meeting to discuss planning regulation changes to the The Three Arts Club has been postponed. Maybe they are having second thoughts now that they see the amount of opposition there is to radically changing this historic building.(www.threearts.org)
Visited Edinburgh Fringe Festival yesterday (www.edfringe.com) usual traffic chaos in the city. Wish had gone in by train.
Went to see Chronicles- Lamentations by the Polish theatre/music/dance group. Fantastic! no wonder it got a Fringe award. Deals with music on the edge between life and death.(www.piesnkozla.pl)
Called in to see a photographic/painting exhibition -21st Century Dream-French based work. Particularly liked Vanessa Franklin's work has a touch of humour about it - she takes famous French paintings and reinterprets them digitally. (www.vanessafranklin.com)

Guess you are wondering what prompted me to resurrect this blog...well I got an e-mail from a friend in Chicago to tell me that the Three Arts Club (www.threearts.org) faces a crisis. It closed for upgrading and now it looks as if the developers have their eyes on it.
I spent a great year there in 2000 while at the School of the Art Institute ..(www.saic.edu)

Can you believe it?....nearly TWO YEARS since last posted!
No, have not been asleep. Millions of problems starting with my beloved AppleMac getting itself all in a twist cause I upgraded ( big mistake) to OSX.
Anyway, this is just checking that the system works again.