Virtual reality,performance and music

Twice I have been into virtual reality – once at the University of Illinois,Chicsago and again at the Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh. Both occasion were startling to say the least. So I was particularly interested to see this exhibition in Liverpool where virtual technology and reality meet. Check out: Virtual reality Title: Where Virtual Technology And Reality Intersect

(Ipad image-Ann Shaw) Salads are not just for eating. Check out this performance piece: Title: Salad As Performance Art (This Is Not Metaphorical) Conductors have a reputation of going on for ever- or until they fall off their perch. In this case literally when 84 year old conductor Kurt Masur fell off the podium while conducting a concert in Paris. Check out: the fall from podium Title: Conductor Kurt Masur Falls Off Podium In Paris During Concert

How to make it in the art world: New Rules

I love this spoof column in the online Arts Journal on the new rules for making it in todays art world:

Art of the future?

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

Some iphone and ipad art

Title:"Happiness" created on my iPad

AN -last edition - now totally online

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Caption: Swinging Sixties

Resident dance artist Laura Smith leads an Older   group in the Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling which I have joined and I documenting as an art project through Blipfoto.com.

Our changing world

"Your past is always with you" -acrylic on watercolour.

I have spent the past week updating my web-site. It is a bit like writing your own obituary, trying to pick out the bits that you want

to be made public.

One of the most startling facts though when I had a good look over what I have done since I graduated over ten years ago from Glasgow School of Art is that I now work with digital technologies and social networks which did not exist then such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook,iphone and ipad.

And I am just about to publish my first e-book made on the new iauthoring software launched by Apple.

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Amy Marletta helps with hanging Glasgow Schools exhibition in Glasgow Art Club.



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'"Solar Engergy"'- Aruba, Venezuela

'"Solar Engergy"', Mixed media, 2 February 2012. Photo: Ann Shaw. Winning float/installation at the 2011 Aruba National Carnival Festival, an island off Venezuela. | Image | Artists talking | a-n

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Homage to the Chinese Year of the Dragon

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Over the years we have hosted many Chinese students and others from the Far East under the British Council Scheme. So this photograph is a homage to the Chinese New Year which this year is the Year of the
Dragon.

Ann Shaw | Image | Artists talking | a-n

Digital finger painting - "We do not know the future we are inventing."


Ann Shaw | Image | Artists talking | a-n

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

Blippers have all been asked to submit a photo of the saltire to create an amazing film for Burns Night 2012 called Scotland the World Over, an online global project organised by Blipfoto.com

This is my contribution.


Tomorrow night we have the first pop up networking event in Stirling organised by Joe Hall, a young woman new to the area.

She tells me it is already over-subscribed.
We are delighted.

For those of us who live in central Scotland this area is like a cultural desert for the contemporary art scene, in its widest scene, with little in the way of printmaking, digital, music, performance or film

OK there are little pockets of activity – MacRobert Arts centre and Changing Room- but no central hub for contemporary artists.

Everything happens in either Glasgow or Edinburgh.

Through Forth Valley Open Studios we created the first ever database of all artists working in the area- and there are over a 100 of us- but most work in the traditional arts and crafts sector.

Hopefully these series of pop-up art events will help create a vibrant artistic community in the central belt of Scotland so that artists no longer feel they have to go to migrate to Glasgow, Edinburgh, or worse, London on emerging from art college.

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

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

Elizabeth Blackadder at the opening of her exhibition in Stirling University.
Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n


I reckon we are fast approaching a “tipping point” for the arts in central Scotland.

Instead of being caught in a cultural wilderness between Glasgow and Edinburgh we are beginning to establish our own identity with a vibrant art community.
Last Saturday saw the opening of the Elizabeth Blackadder exhibition in Stirling University to celebrate her 80th anniversary.
This followed on the previous weeks highly success Bridge of Allan Arts and Crafts Festival- first ever for the area-and we have two “pop-up” events scheduled – one is a weekend exhibition by two FVOS members, Libby Yule and Catherine Froy in West Mosside and the other is a “networking/music evening in the former Changing Room in Stirling Arcade.

Meanwhile my own work involves finishing off “Sully” a book about Wales and I am about to dip into electronic publishing.

Eskimo knife

www.blipfoto.com/Libra


Some time ago I was in a Glasgow ironmongers looking for a new kitchen knife when a group of young Glaswegian men came in.

They were buying knives.


For the city is the murder capital of Britain and knives the weapon of choice despite the Cultural Renaissance during
the 1980s and 1990s when the city made serious attempts to reinvent itself with the Glasgow Miles Better campaign and the opening of the Burrell Collection, It also became the European City of Culture.


I once made an artwork based on this incident called
Getting ready for a Glasgow nite out”.

The gallery, not surprisingly, rejected it.

I bought this multi-purpose Eskimo chopping knife in Anchorage some years ago during a stopover to Japan.
It can be used for skinning animals, preparing vegetables and cutting meat.
Most of the time though it sits on my kitchen window ledge coming into use for chopping herbs.

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Gio Martin, sculptor with one of her quirky ceramics, at the first Bridge of Allan Contemporary Art and Craft Event.


It is ten years since I graduated from Glasgow School of Art. Here is a link to a blog about it:

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'Mystery object', silver and wood, 24 October 2011. Photo: Ann Shaw. | Image | Artists talking | a-n

'Mystery object', silver and wood, 24 October 2011. Photo: Ann Shaw. | Image | Artists talking | a-n

Back from Morocco. I bought this high up in the Atlas mountains and I would love to know what it was originally used for. The inside is half hollow and it stands abaout ten inches and 3 inches in diameter, made of wood and engraved with intricate silverwork.

'In memori: Steve Jobs', digital, 6 October 2011. Steve Jobs made our world a better place. | Image | Artists talking | a-n

'In memori: Steve Jobs', digital, 6 October 2011. Steve Jobs made our world a better place. | Image | Artists talking | a-n

Also on my blipfoto site:
http://www.blipfoto.com/libra

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"Nostalgia"
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I used to work on The Herald newspaper in Glasgow many years ago – before I took redundancy to go to Glasgow School of Art-

I was one of the writers for the Women’s page (OMG! that sounds so sexist…).
Anyway The Herald has now launched a weekly Women’s Herald magazine and I bought my first copy today.

Will I buy it again ( at a £1 a copy)? Well....most of my reading is done online. For free.

Venice Biennale 2009

Finally got around to editing , or rather should I say, "mashing ", some footage from the 2009 Venice Biennale.

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Still Life with glass bowl and fruit
www.blipfoto.com/entry/1418129

To view my site:
blipfoto.com/Libra

Well, we have signed the papers which will enable Forth Valley Open Studios to become a C.I.C – Community interest Company, a not for profit arts organisation dedicated to community interests.

This does not give us charity status – which would require us to jump through many more hoops- but it ensures we continue in perpetuity and opens the doors to, we hope, gaining grants and sponsorship.

Spring Fling Open Studios on the Scottish Borders already formed themselves into a C.I.C.some years and we are using them as our role model.

Unlike Spring Fling we have not had any public funding and the only reason we have been able to reach the stage we are at in less than two years is thanks to the internet. So much of the work from gathering a database to registering, design and marketing our Open Studios has been done online.

Another new venture I have become absorbed in is www.blipfoto.com

This Edinburgh based project has created an amazing online global village for photographers.
If you have never visited the site then I would strongly recommend it:
www.blipfoto.com

My work is on www.blipfoto.com/Libra

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

Visit Tate Modern

Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n
Sunset over the Thames - view from Tate Modern


Night light: silver birch trees outside Tate Modern


Just had 24 hour visit to London to see Miro exhibition. I love Miro's work yet I was faintly disappointed. It looked dated.
Why? because now I have come to expect more from art than a painting hanging on a wall.

I wanted to interact with it somehow. Afterwards I went out on to the balcony of Tate Modern . It was packed with people with their smartphones and digital cameras all busy capturing the scene.