Rainbow pie

I've never seen a rainbow before where you can see it as a full semi-circle and was met with this unexpected surprise as I was travelling through none other than Wolverhampton! The camera couldn't really pick it up but it was there for at least 20 minutes. I guess that's the bonus of having crap weather in Britain, it's just a shame we don't see more rainbows!

I had a bit of a crisis of confidence yesterday when I realised that I just have sooooo much to do and doing a PhD is such an overwhelmingly massive task. I've been loving working in my new studio-office (and it's vacinity to various coffee outlets) and have been trying to write a sort of structure of my thesis and what's going to go in each chapter as my aim is to have a draft of part of the first chapter by Christmas. No pressure then eh?! I'm generally a pretty disorganised person and have been trying to give myself a routine and some sort of structure since studying  full-time otherwise I tend to go off on all sorts of (work-related) tangents and then before I know it, it's about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and nearly the end of the day!

For the past couple of weeks I've been disseminating the research diary I've kept since I started and have been working on a huuuuge roll of sexy fabriano paper where I've been physically mapping it out to try and link together my ideas. I'll post some pics when it's built up a bit more. I also found one of the books that I'd been working in when I've been organising my stuff. This is definately something I want to keep working on and I've been steadily accruing lots of lovely old books to work into.

I had the most a-mazing experience in a fab little second-hand book shop recently. There is a really beautiful and quaint little book shop that I've been in to a couple of times called Paramount Book Exchange which is on a small-ish road at the back of the Arndale Centre in Manchester. There's jazz music playing and a sofa to pop your feet up and have a flick through something you're thinking of buying and every type of book you could want. This place is a little gem. I'm a self-confessed bibliophile/book geek and ♥ books; the physicality of them, the texture of the pages and the aesthetic qualities of them (I think I need to get out more).

I'd been looking for a book by the poet Ezra Pound for a while and I noticed one in this book-shop a couple of weeks ago. When I first saw it I didn't buy it as I'm a bit stingy and I don't really like spending money, but when I went back recently it was still there and I saw it as a sign that I should get it. I bought it with another book and to my surprise when I got to the till, the gentleman who owned the shop told me that because I'd spent over £10 ... I qualified for a free piece of fruit!!! He was genuinely quite sorry when he said all of the oranges had gone as they were the most popular so he only had pears left! I of course exclaimed that a pear would be amazing and that he had made my day! I have to say it was a bloody nice pear as well! Now that's customer service!!

After my fruitful experience (gettit?!) I headed to the Chinese Arts Centre and stumbled across a right beauty ... a piece of street art by Space Invader! Some idiot had painted some dodgy black paint around it so I thought I'd better check that it was actually his and there is a great image on his website here of the original before the black paint was applied.

I came across his work originally in the film Exit Through the Gift Shop by Banksy which is actually GENIUS if not a little mental and definately worth seeing. Ever since seeing it, I've had an intense desire to make work on old walls etc. but I guess I shouldn't really admit that incase I ended up doing it and then someone realises it's me ...

I visited the Chinese Arts Centre and although the main exhibtion space was undergoing a changover, I got to see Sonia Khan's work 'The Mother and her Untamed Entity' in the installation space that leads to the lower floor.

I really liked the piece and how it worked in response to the exhibition space. I also noticed Tsang Kin Wah's site-specific installation, I Love U, which was printed onto the walls on the lower floor. As I've been working with text quite recently, I was really fascinated by his piece and the way it spilled over onto different areas of the walls quite organically.

Afterwards, I went to Manchester Art Gallery and saw the new exhibition called Recorders by the Mexican artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. If I'm honest, I was expecting it to not to be very interesting as I am not that interested in digital and electronic art, however I'm so glad that I had a look as it was absolutely amazing! The exhibition included seven interactive installations where each of the pieces record memories that have been obtained by the works throughout the show such as thumb prints, visual images, voice recordings and pulse rates.

I particularly liked 'Pulse Room' where the participant holds two sensors for about 15 seconds which then detects the person's heartbeat and then converts them into flashes of the lightbulb to the pulse rate. When you'are in the room, your pulse beats really hard to the rythm of the pulse that the lights are flashing to and it's a really wierd sensation. It is on until the end of January so get down there!

Happy New Year! (ish)

September always feels a bit like the beginning of a new year; the end of the summer, darker evenings, back to teaching, meeting new students and trying to be more organised than the previous academic year. The summer seems to have gone so quickly but it has been really productive and I can't believe how much has happened since last September ... conferences, exhibitions, textstallations, book-paintings, travelling and research; a right old textual and material journey where sometimes I came to dead-ends, went backwards and in circles but have moved forwards considerably!

I spent the end of the holidays in Manchester and visted the John Rylands Library for the first time ever. I can't believe I've never been there before as it is the most amazing place ... like Hogwarts but better and filled floor to ceiling with loads of beautiful books dating back from hundreds of years ago all in one place - what more could you possibly want?!

It felt really inspiring to be in there; you can study in the big hall and I can imagine I'd get quite a lot of work done there! There was also a small exhibition called Spilled Milk: A Multi-media Storybook by an artist called Johnny Woodhams there which I thought was really interesting.

I liked the use of strips of text in his work which is something I've been exploring in my art practice and how they were used aesthetically in his canvases as well as to create a narrative.

I also went to the Chinese Arts Centre which I'd never been to before. There was a great exhibition with some beautiful Chinese ink drawings and calligraphy by artists Mary Tang and Cathy Wu. I've been using a lot of found text from different languages in my work and really liked the diagrammatic nature of the Chinese text; how they seemed to be in-between drawing and writing when viewed by someone who is unfamiliar with the language. Some of the pieces were also on a massive scale, which made them seem even more abstract and alien.

There an exhibition there as well by Tasha Whittle called Note to Self which I really liked. The work included a site specific wall-based piece and other smaller pieces which were placed at different levels around a corridor space which led to the lower floor of the building. I really liked how the work was exhibited in a space where you had to travel through it to see the work and that it was always seen at different angles and levels as you passed through.

Obviously, being me, I was also drawn to the amazing tea house there where there is one wall just filled with chinese tea where you help yourself to a pot and they top it up with hot water for you! There were loads of different types of teas ... Rose Bud tea, Lychee black tea, Jasmine green tea ... a top notch mixed bag of Chinese tea delights!

I went to see the MA shows at Margaret Street, BIAD and it's crazy to think it was this time three years ago in 2007 when I was having my MA show there as well. The show this year was a triple whammy as it included the MA shows, an exhibition called When We Build Let Us Think That We Build Forever and also an exhibition of work by current staff in a new gallery space in the building. There was a couple of pieces that I especially liked in the MA shows including the pieces below and an installation on the bottom floor which was like being in a chicken coop!

Claire Thomas, MA Art Practice and Education

Anna Tzini, MA Queer Studies in Arts and Culture

Andrew Dundas, MA Fine Art

The opening of When We Build Let Us Think That We Build Forever celebrated the 125th anniversary of the fantastic neo-gothic School of Art building in Margaret Street which was the first purpose built art school in the UK. It was organised by the university's Alumni Association and twas a rather classy affair including complimentary drinks, canapes and even a string quartet! It also included an opening talk by Professor John Butler, Head of the School of Art who talked about the different courses that used to be run in the building including Stained glass making, Enamelling, Embroidery and Weaving and House Painting and Decorating. Its amazing to think the building has survived two world wars and the courses have developed into its contemporary forms such as painting, sculpture, performance, film and interactive digital work!

All of the work in the show was made by former students and staff, some who studied at the beginning of the century! As I was wondering round, I thought it was nice to see a mixture of different work together and also to finally see the beast in situ. The beast stuck out like a sore thumb against the grey walls and the muted colours of the other works, but I quite liked that it visually made an impact because of the colour! After all ... it is the beast. Not sure what to do with the bad boy now though, anyone want to take it off my hands?! Ill pay you! (No, seriously, I am joking).

The exhibition included some sexy books from the Margaret Street archives which were typographically and aesthetically really interesting because of the fragility and intrictate detail of them.

The new space looked really good and replaced what used to be a small canteen. It was really cool to see the staff exhibit their work and it included pieces from my former tutors and also my DoS.

I spent last weekend working at Artsfest in Birmingham where I worked on the Heart of England Galleries marquee. I worked there representing the Shire Hall Gallery in Stafford where I work as a casual Front of House member of staff. It was an intense weekend and despite really achey feet, it was a great experience and I met some ace people from each of the different galleries. I did a free badgemaking workshop on the first day and there was a young girl who must have only been about 10 who made a badge which said 'I'm proud to be a geek'! I thought what a cool kid, I wish I had the balls to be proud to be geeky when I was 10! I wish I'd taken a picture of it but I did tell her it was the best badge I'd seen all day! Our stand was at the top of the fountain in Victoria Square so we were near one of the performance spaces so we got to see the performances including a cool drum band, salsa dancing and some street dancing where we had a bit of a dance whilst doing the workshops! : )

Also, good luck to Rachel Marsden and RJW as they embark on an intense 4 month art and research-based trip around China! Miss you guys loads!!