Finally: I have restored everything from my Something Creative Every Day project which got washed away last month.
It will never be the same but it’s as good as it’s going to get! You can see the fully restored set here, or you can just keep an eye on me on your favourite social networks, as I should be getting back into doing daily creativities again now everything is back.
Thanks to all for their patience and support!
For some silly reason I have agreed to partake in Hospital Bike Club – along with some of our officers, I shall be embarking on a two-wheeled journey from Hospital’s HQ in South London to Brighton on Saturday 8th October, before Hospitality Brighton that night.
I have been given the relatively easy end of the bargain here, because unlike my colleagues, my two wheels will be propelled by a tiny engine. This doesn’t make it much less daunting for me though – the trip from SE26 to the Brighton seafront in itself would be pretty much the longest journey I will have ever taken my tiny 50cc Vespa on in nine years of owning it, and my journey doesn’t even begin there, as I have a thirty-mile ride to the start line too.
Still, I can’t complain too much – Edgar, Riley, Zac and Tom will be doing this using the power of their own bodies while I buzz along with them, handing them sugary drinks and kendal mint cake to keep their energy up! Lilly may also be joining me to ride on the back, as it would be fun to film the event Tour de France style, with her facing backwards with a camera. We’re not sure on the legalities of that, but I will document the event one way or another!
So why are we doing this?
Well, aside from fun, we are doing this for charity! We are raising money for MIND, the mental health charity, which is a pretty awesome cause. You can donate money on our Just Giving page here. And if you don’t think my mammoth Vespa trip is worth it, then do it for the chaps who are actually pedalling the whole way!
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What a time for this to happen – just as this nice interview with me was posted, somewhere between upgrading my version of Aperture and my Flickr account, the past year of something creative every day has been completely wiped out. I don’t think I have much of a chance of reinstating it, but I have written to Flickr to ask for their help. In the mean time, please excuse all the broken images and links you will find with anything relating to the past year of something creative every day.
I made this little (or maybe not that little) ‘U Gotta B Crazy’ button today, to help drive a bit of interest in London Elektricity’s new Remixes!! album. Who can resist hitting a big red button like that?! It’s ridiculously simple, but the nice thing about it is it uses HTML5 for browsers that support it (AKA Safari and Chrome), and falls back to Flash for browsers that don’t support HTML5 in the same way (damn you, mozilla hippies!).
I’m told it also works on iOS too, but I can’t really confirm that – the old iPhone I have here is still on iOS 3.x, where it doesn’t seem to work quite as well as I would’ve liked.
Feel compelled to put it on your site?
Sure! Here’s the embed code:
U Gotta B Crazy!!
I was saddened to find that the greetings I painted and put up in the park last weekend have disappeared without a trace today.
The disappointing thing is they didn’t even last a week, but I guess this is what you have to expect in the topsy-turvy world of unrequited art. I am slightly reassured, though, that they have made somewhat of a clean getaway, because it doesn’t suggest vandalism caused their end.
The optimist in me wants to believe someone took them because they liked them, but as their disappearance is so tidy, it’s likely that the relevant authorities (perhaps whoever put the frames up?) took them down. I would be reassured by this if the frames are actually filled with whatever was intended of them in the near future though.
Oh well. At least I got some good photos of them when they were up, as visible in the aforelinked blog post.
It’s funny how you can get so used to some things that you forget they’re actually pretty unusual, then when it comes up in conversation, you remember how odd they are. A good example of this is my fridge.
When I was thirteen, my parents were refitting the kitchen. Instead of getting a new fridge, my Mum had the idea to get me to paint the one we already had like a Warhol soup can. I was learning about his work at school at the time. It was a great idea – thanks Mum! – so I went for it, and the fridge became what it is. It’s consommé not because it’s anyone’s favourite, but because I liked the second line of text on the bottom half of the can.
The fridge outlasted my parents’ marriage though, and when my family home was eventually sold, I decided the fridge was too novel to get rid of. I disconnected the motor so it no longer chills, but the light still works!
For a short time in smaller dwellings, I used it as my wardrobe, but over the past few years it has been happily serving as one of my art supply stores. It is now home to everything from post-it notes to pencils, spray paints to sweet wrappers, and I wouldn’t swap it for anything else!
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Since I moved to Rickmansworth a few years ago, I have taken an almost-daily walk around the local park, the Aquadrome. I chuckle at all the waterbirds and see child after child fall off their micro-scooters on my travels, but it mostly serves to keep me fit. None of my jeans fit me any more, which is a nice problem to have.
A couple of months ago, I noticed these two frames erected by one of the entrances:
I figured they weren’t filled at the time so the concrete they were affixed with could set. So many weeks have now passed that the seasons have changed but the frames still haven’t been filled. The Rickmansworth Festival in the park came and went too, and I thought for sure they would be filled in time for that. Alas, they stayed empty.
Then the idea hit me – why not fill them myself?! I’m not down with vandalism, so I figured I could staple some canvas to them without causing any lasting damage, and I had a nice little project for the Bank Holiday.
I took a little bit of inspiration from Austin, Texas’ Hi How Are You? frog, which has become a bit of a landmark around there as they seem to appreciate the greeting. Perhaps my people will appreciate it too?
I happened upon the Graphic Design outfit Build‘s blog this morning, where I discovered their post from earlier this month about de-branding cigarette packages. If you’re gonna read my post, it might be worth giving theirs a look first.
This is a government proposal I actually agree with, so I was a little disappointed to see the point in the proposal was a bit overlooked. I was going to suggest Build missed the point, but perhaps it was Icon magazine who missed it, as they set the brief; ‘could [cigarettes] still look good while warning smokers?’.
When one goes on holiday, they are prone to being asked what they got up to when they get back. It’s a fair enough question, but I like to go on holiday to relax, so doing nothing doesn’t make for interesting conversation. I realised, though, what we did do while away was a fair amount of cooking and eating- both in and out of home, and even in and out of Austin, and with that came some interesting visual stuff out of me.
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I should probably start this post off by explaining that I’m by no means under any obligation to make this post! This might actually be one of the first good things to come of my Something Creative Every Day project though, so I feel like I should write a little bit about it here.
This summer I got a random email from a company based in Australia called Makedo, which appeared to be offering me free stuff. No, this isn’t advance-fee fraud- they said they really liked Trashbot 2000 and all of the other junk I have on my flickr, and wanted to send me some samples of their product to make stuff out of. Score! I agreed and a week or so later I found this package in my letterbox:
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