 Doodlefest!Thursday 12th of November 2009 01:42 pm On the 11th Nov we had the private view event for our fabulous new exhibition, ‘Doodlefest’. This exhibition is a very special one as it is the first one we have had that has been totally conceived of and organised by our gallery volunteers! Steve, Jess and Kirsty have been working with me since the summer to help run the Hive gallery, and since getting the funding from Visual Roots to support their placement, I left the last slot in this year’s programme open for them to programme in an exhibition of their choice. The idea for Doodlefest came about following some discussions between myself, Steve and Eric Heath (a regular performer at the Hive and house favourite!) about ‘biro art’ (as Steve has a collection of drawings he has done in biro, and Eric knows someone who has done some amazing biro sketches), and whether drawings done in biro and other similar items one might find in a pencil case could be considered as art. The volunteers and I then had an epic three hour meeting where we talked out having an exhibition themed around ‘doodles’, which poured forth a stream of mad ideas including the team wearing t-shirts at the PV that visitors could draw on, having paper and pens in the gallery for the duration of the show so that visitors could contribute their artwork and the exhibition would subsequently ‘grow’, and having a ‘doodle-off’, where teams could compete against the clock to do the best group doodle! The volunteers spread the word about Doodlefest around town and got lots of people to submit doodles, throwing in a few of their own too! As well as the doodles, we also thought it would be good to show some work from professional artists and illustrators who had ‘doodly beginnings’, so show that today’s doodles can become tomorrow’s great works of art. Having one day mentioned Doodlefest to my partner Michael (an amazing artist who works mainly with digital media, check out his artwork heretakeo.org), he very kindly said that he would be willing to loan us some work by professional artists from his own collection for the exhibition, and came up trumps with some stunning artwork by internationally acclaimed artist and Banksy stablemate Anthony Micallef, popular contemporary artist Dalek and visionary Chilean surrealist Roberto Matta. Michael also donated some books and DVDs from Pictoplasma, a character design project, and the ‘Duudleville Tales’ box set created by artists Jon Burgerman and Sune Ehlers. I also put in my own copy of limited edition book ‘Knacker’s Yard’ by irreverent British artist, poet and musician Sexton Ming, a collection of daft drawings which comes with a set of crayons. Most of these items are quite rare and hard to get hold of, so come and have a look while you have the chance! Also we have on display some printed works and the website of the glorious Newtasty, aka Stevie Copter (based in Birmingham/outer space), a musician, illustrator and ‘plate-spinner’ who has done design work for Fused Magazine, Virgin, Levi’s, Channel 4 and many others. We have the fab 3D magazine he made to promote one of his bands, Copter, and the cover artwork from the limited edition version of the Wii game House of the Dead: Overkill (I’m sure the aspiring zombie-killers amongst you will already have your own copies!) so come check them out! Last night was tremendous fun with a lot of positive feedback, and the volunteers did a brilliant job getting all the artwork installed within a very short space of time, promoting the exhibition, and organising the entertainment and refreshments. These young people have come a long way since coming to the Hive and we are very proud of them! The gallery team would also like to thank the members of staff, volunteers and young people who dropped what they were doing and helped pull the show together at the eleventh hour, the musicians who were very patient while we hurriedly cleared a space for them and played so wonderfully, and the visitors who came to support the exhibition and gave us such lovely feedback, especially those who took part in the ‘doodle-off’, what troopers! It was such a fun and positive atmosphere and we were all really pleased that it was such a success. The exhibition will be up until early January so come and have a look if you haven’t already, and maybe even do a doodle or two! Talking of the number two (sorry), Doodlefest was also the launch of the ‘Toilet Gallery’, a move we have been talking about for some time to use the toilets as an extension of the gallery – you will now find chalkboards in the cubicles that you can draw on while you… well, you know… and other pieces of artwork that will appear in there from time to time as and when we receive things that we like! We are open to submissions all year round so please get in touch if you have something you think we will like. Also we would love to see examples of amusing or interesting toilet graffiti from around the town, country and indeed the globe, so if you have any pictures of ‘toil-art’, please send them to us and if we approve we’ll put them up. Links for some of the artists featured in Doodlefest: Pictoplasma Anthony Micallef Roberto Matta Dalek Newtasty Jon Burgerman Sune Ehlers Mark Weatherhead | ||
| Emma Puente |
