Francis Bacon exhibition

After a week of video-editing I needed a break from the computer and decided to look at some paintings.....so I visited the Francis Bacon exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh which everyone is raving about.
Yes, its interesting but hardly riveting. He seems to have spent his life painting his succession of gay lovers. And they all looked the same.
Somehow it all looked so old fashioned. Are we really expected to stand there and admire in silence a bit of canvas on the wall? somehow now in the 21st century one expects more of art.

And I got that out in the corridor where I saw the gallery's newest purchases, a set of Damien Hirst medical prints. Now I could identify with that!

drawing

still trying to figure out file format for uploading drawing images...seems tif works.some more of my drawings can be seen on my website (www.annshaw.net)

Edinburgh Festival

Visited Edinburgh Festival.
Wanted a "cheesy" photograph of an icionic Edinburgh view and one of a piper. During the Festival there appears to be a piper on every corner so I followed the sound of this one to Princes St and found it was a blind piper with his golden Labrador. Feeling very guilty and voyeuristic I threw some coins into his box and took this photograph. Was I right to do so? if he had been sighted I would not have hesitated.
This raises again all the moral dilemmas about photographing people in public.

Paradise flower

This is just an experiment to find out what the new Blogger imaging software will upload. Photos are OK but drawings are not. The image is of a Paradise flower I was given which I have used as a motif for some thank-you cards.

Evening view from my home

This photo was taken last night from the kitchen window.

Katie, Changing Room gallery, Stirling

This is a photo of Katie watching a video I made of her grandmother's hands for a week I spent last year in the Changing room gallery, Stirling, part of their innovative scheme of inviting artists to come in and create work in the gallery. I chose to work with members of the public inviting them to have their hands photographed. (www.stirling.gov.uk/changingroom)

"The Journey"

I do believe that I have managed to upload an image, one of my digital photos, to my blog....here goes

Martin Parr, photographer

Heard Martin Parr, one of Britain's best known photographers give a talk on his work today in Edinburgh. He's a member of Magnum and there's a stunning exhibition of Cartier- Bresson's work on at the Dean gallery.
Martin is using the new Sony Ericsson k750 photo messaging phones- all two megapixels and sending it direct to the microsite website. Site not easy to access, to start with there is no section for the UK but those I did manage to get through to in Italy showed some amazing photos.

hope

This is my first attempt to upload an image from my digital sketchbook using the new Blogger software...here goes...

Does Virgin support Tiger?

Yes I know this is a peculiar question - unless you happen to own an Apple and have Virgin as your server.
This is not good news. I am sitting here with a state of the art machine - IMAC G5 and Broadband since you ask- and I can't acess the internet. ( I am writing this on a borrowed pc laptop).
So far all the technical helplines have hinted darkly that it cant be done, at least not yet.
Grrrr...........

Electronic spirituality

Electronic spirituality.
Is cinema the contemporary sacred space? on the radio this morning head about an Aid worker giving a poor Indian family money to buy food. Later in the day he saw all seven of them come out of the local cinema. He was furious and told them so. The Indian father replied:"We will always have to struggle to find something to eat but the money allowe dus to do something this afternoon which will remain with us for ever."

Artist to watch - Michael Visocchi

Well, it's happened.
I wondered who would be the first artist in our year to make a mark in the art world. Opened Scotland on Sunday newspaper to see that Michael Visocchi is one of five young artists singled out by art critic Iain Gale as "rising stars".
Congratulations Michael! you were always very hard working . He's a sculptor and actually MAKES THINGS!.....

The Good News and The Bad News

First, the good news...the pedometer works like a charm, clocked up 10,000 steps for the second day ( O.K its early days!) but one gets a sense of achievement and that's important in this fitness lark.
Talking of which...the bad news. TV programme last night on vitamin pills pointed out the dangers of overdosing on Vitamin A just by taking a vitamin pill a day, nasty things happen like damage to your liver and thinning bones. I have been taking vitamin pills for years! Did a quick check on the labels, horrified to find that Vitamin A is the main ingredient! Have chucked the bottle in the trash can.

Pedometer and video editing

Have just invested in a pedometer in order to encourage me to get away from the computer. 10,000 steps are recommended a day, that sounds like an awful lot of walking. Still, I need it. For the past couple of weeks I have been tied to the computer, editing my work from the Royston Road Project. Have got to reduce nearly 8 hours of footage to a maximum of 20 minutes. Help! need to do some walking to mull over ideas.

Lost posts

why have all my latest blogs disappeared into thin air?

Web Page

At last! my new web page is up! with thanks to Andy Allan who designed it for me.Now to make it inter-active...

Artist residency

Royston Road Project

Have just finished filming in Blackhill/Provanmill, Glasgow. It has taken a lot longer than I expected, a combination of bad weather and difficulty setting up meetings with people. The two women who had agreed to be filmed today failed to show up. However, found another woman, a local activist in the community, was very co-operative and allowed her son and nephew to be filmed too.
Now into the editing stage.....

this is an ink drawing of my cat 

Peer Crit- Glasgow

Some time ago a national Sunday newspaper did a survey on the best place to live in the UK - for employment, health, environment, children, culture etc.
Guess what? Glasgow topped the list as the most edgy place to live if you want to be a contemporary artist.
Well, after last night's crit at the CCA, organised by Steven Anderson, a young painter, I begin to understand why. He had gathered together a group of around 30 artists with four presenting work. These were Aya Iguchi, Japanese artist currently working with sound as artist-in-residence in Lanark musuem, Michael Wursteauer an experimental filmamker who showed a very creepy film made inside the pedestrian/cycle pathway underneath the Clyde and Rachel O'Neil a ceramic artist who has just negotiated an artist residency with Scottish Arts Council funding with a factory in Glasgow.
I showed some work I made during a week's residency in the Changing Room gallery, Stirling.

Glasgow - CCA

Tomorrow I have volunteered to have a free crit in the CCA - Glasgow. No idea what this will involve. Will it be like Art College where they proceed to rip your work apart?