Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n

Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n

Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n

Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n
Ernest Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea in this observatory/writing tower he built for himself next to his home in Havana.
Visitors are not allowed inside so I took this photo from the doorway while getting drenched in a tropical thunderstorm.

GMAC and Cafe Flickr

Just heard that Cafe Flickr, the monthly open cinema for new film makers run by Glasgow Media Access Centre in Glasgow has closed for at least six month.

GMAC has let the space out as offices!... seems they have got some serious financial problems.
In fact they have even let out their editing suites.

Travel blog- caribbean

Hi! Check out my new multi-media travel blog based on recent visit to the Caribbean.
I have used text photos and video. Bit of a struggle for a non-geek like myself but did manage it.
If I can anyone can ...

Ann's Caribbean travel blog

Why the peculiar name? As a child I was known as Titch and in the last year I have taken twittering under the name of Titchtwitter.
Thought you would like to know. Or maybe not...

Hope the link works. I am doing this on my iPad and it lacks some functions like being able to highlight sections and paste web links.
That said the iPad is the best gadget I have had for years . It allowed me to make an easy digital diary while in the Caribbean - bigger screen than an iPhone and not as heavy as a laptop. In fact the ideal travelling companion.

And I no longer have to carry books and magazines around . It's all online. In my handbag.

Video - Havana, Cuba

From hot to cold
Here's another piece of work based on my visit to Havana. This time I have mashed the video in my computer to create a film with a totally different feel.
Yet another experiment on my part.

guests.future.mov

Youtube link to Cuban dancers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAKnULKLstk


Still trying to figure out what it is about my work that suggests some folk may be upset by it. For months now when you google my Youtube channel it comes up with a warning.

What can I do about it? there's nothing there that could offend anyone.

Tropicanna nightclub- Havana

My channel on Youtube carries a warning that the site contains material which some people might find offensive.

I cannot figure out which videos they might be referring to since most of them are simple recordings of everyday events at which I happen to be present. The rest are either quirky or fall into the "arty" category.

This video, made on a recent visit to Cuba, was made using my new Flip camcorder which I bought online for less than a £100, its in high definition, dead easy to use, slips into my handbag but the sound quality is lousy.

Mexico- Mayan ruins

"The Waiting Game" - Tulum, Mexico
I took this photo on a recent visit to Mexico. It was terribly hot and it was the last photo I took at the end of a long and exhausting day exploring some Mayan ruins.

Only when looking through the files on my return did I realise that it had some unexpected qualities like the repetition of the curves of the iguana with that of the two figures and likewise the shadows replicated in both.

But it was the sense of something eerie and sinister about to happen that caught my eye.

Most of the stuff I shot in Mexico was video which turned out to be a disaster because I was using the much hyped Flip camcorder yes it is easy to use but it lacks a stabiliser and the sound quality is dreadful. Oh yes it is in HD and the colours are amazing.

Forth Valley Open Studios- Delta exhibition

We have has a meeting with Craig McKechnie, director of Delta studios and he has again very generously offered his studio space, one of the biggest exhibition spaces in Scotland , for our taster exhibition in June.

This allows members of the public to view work en masse from the studios before planning their itinerary .

Kissing stingrays in the Caribbean

Well, I guess I have been off line for a couple of weeks...touring the Caribbean and swimming with stingrays. Also popped into Mexico, St Lucia and Cuba.

Forth Valley Open Studios

drawn on my ipad using Brushes app


Last Saturday we held our first agm in the Smith museum and gallery in Stirling and we had a good response from the public.

A year ago Forth Valley Open Studios was just a bright idea …we had no database, no public money and a very tight deadline.
Just a bunch of enthusiastic and dedicated artists prepared to work their socks off.
The result? Last June 73 studios and over 100 artists participated in the first ever Open Studios nine-day event across the Forth Valley.

A subsequent survey revealed that it brought in over £44,000 to these studios.

Not bad for a first effort… now we are busy planning our second Open Studios for June 11- 19.

Our chair, Lys Hansen, pointed out that FVOS is now part of the cultural scene in the area.

Old media versus new media

view of Ben Ledi in the Trossachs from my kitchen window.

I despair of our local newspaper, the Stirling Observer.
It is read widely in the area so any coverage, however small, is welcome. Yes the reporter promised the paragraph I sent in on email about the agm of Forth Valley Open Studios which takes place this Saturday in the Smith Art gallery and Museum in Stirling would get in.

Open the paper this morning. Nothing.

Fortunately new media comes to the rescue. Have put it on Facebook, Twitter and emailed all artists on our data base.

'Appy New Year

Under the oak tree ...at the bottom of our garden


After Miro ...drawn on Brushes app


Guess the most sort after present this Christmas? my iPad! everyone from six month old baby to academics wanted to get their hands on it.
Why? because of the apps.
Here are some of the favourites: Brushes,(painting) Angry Birds ( game), LaDiDa ( reverse karaoke app), Myfry ( Stephen Fry's e-book) and of course the Koi pond HD and Virtuoso keyboard ( both interactive).

Is this our digital future for newspapers, books, magazines, music, films, shopping?

Garden - Bridge-of-Allan

(top) - twisted hazel branch,( bottom) spider


Organic

“Start with something organic!” said my tutor in Glasgow School of Art’s portfolio class.

I thought of that this morning when I photographed this spider, made during my second year at college, part of my first Public Art project (disastrous one as it turned out!).


My spider got short shift at Glasgow School of Art (“We are not having that here!” ) so my half-finished spider got relegated to my garden where it now lurks in the undergrowth.

Instead for my Public Art project I used electronic text and installed it in Borders Bookshop in Glasgow

Well, ten years later Borders no longer exists, my electronic text board has broken but my spider still lives in the garden.

Today I photographed it with a branch of a twisted hazel in the garden.

Garden - Bridge of Allan

This is an experiment - a slideshow of my garden in winter.



"Absence"
Whoops! We have a technical glitch ! Uploaded QuickTime movie yet it doesn't shown up now .Where has it gone?

My garden in winter

The recent heavy fall of snow has transformed my garden into something out of Narnia.

There's a story behind the Black Panther .

I had it stolen and I put a notice up in the local Post office in Bridge of Allan offering a reward.
Some days later I received a phone call.

It had been spotted in a field full of sheep...

Well it was Freshers Week at Stirling University and I reckon some students just lifted it - since then I have moved it to another part of the garden where it is no longer visible from the road.


"Black Panther" Ann Shaw, (fibre-glass)

"Furrowed Brow" ( lower image) by Dominic Clare is carved from oak. Now it lives beneath an oak tree in my garden.

Apple store Glasgow and exhibitions

Image created on Ipad.

I need to upgrade my computer ( Macbook or Imac? can't decide) so I visit the Apple store in Glasgow .

The place is heaving with young people , along with a sprinkling of oldies like myself.


I need sharp elbows to get to the machines. But a lifetime in newspaper journalism has equipped me with that and I am soon lost in the latest Apple dream machines.

Buoyed up with this vision of our digital world I stroll along to visit an exhibition which had good reviews.

But the gallery is empty despite it being a very busy Friday in the city . Not a good sign. I soon realise why.

After the moving images and inter-activity of the Apple store the work hanging on the walls looks, not to mince words, dead.

I am overcome with a tremendous sense of deja-vu.

The paintings just hangs there. They tell me nothing about the world I live in. In fact they could have been done 20, 50 or even 100 years ago.

It's said the average time spent in an exhibition is 45 minutes. I am in and out in less than ten.

Stunned I decide to visit my favourite bookshop, only to find it has been replaced by a mobile phone shop.

Welcome to the 21st century and the turbulent age we live in.


PS. Still undecided...do I need a laptop when I've got an ipad? but that's another story.

The Red Tree- Open Studio weekend

Josefina de Unamuno, a retired Spanish doctor based in Stirling and now a practising artist, was among the artists participating in The Red Tree Open Studio weekend.

Organised by artist Catherine Froy the event is a spin-off from
Forth Valley Open Studios. Others taking part were May Chipulina, Diana Hand and Libby Yule.

The consensus is that it was a great success in terms of visitors - between 60-70, sales, networking and in raising the profile of artists in the Forth Valley.

As one visitor remarked:"I think its great the way all these studios are finally opening their doors. This year I have been to ones in Perthshire, Forth Valley, Trossachs and now this. "

Take a look at her blog to view the exhibition:
www.josefinadeunamuno.blogspot.com

Trossachs Open Studios

(caption) Dave Hunt of Westerlix Studios, Killin with Rob Mulholland's mirrored sculpture of a human figure along with Kiera, Wenwen and Ann.


Well, the first Trossachs Open Studios weekend got off to a very wet start. We had some visitors that weekend from China so we took the opportunity to show them a side of British life they had never seen before.

They liked the friendliness and informality of the Open Studios where we just wandered into peoples houses...