New postcard (My Arse!)

I've got a brand new two-colour riso printed postcard based on my design for the last issue of Shape and Situate zine. These were printed by the lovely folks at Footprint Worker's Co-op in Leeds.

They will be available first to people who attend the London Radical Bookfair and Alternative Press Takeover at the Bishopsgate Institute on the 10th of May. Now available to buy online.

Feminist graphic arts exhibtion

This Saturday, I'm participating in a group exhibition about feminist graphic artists as well as giving a talk about my art at The Feminist Library. The title of the exhibition is 'I call myself a feminist because...' and there will be a zine making workshop, talks about things like Jewish women's comics, films and food.

Ante 2013 - day 2

You can read all about what happened on the Saturday of Ante here. But for me, it's all about Sunday, the day that we make things and share skills. Imagine a youth club for grown ups with an emphasis on diy and the belief that anyone can and should make art. I mean, even the sign for people to clean up after themselves was a work of art.

Ante 2013 - Day 1

This weekend was filled with more Yorkshire loveliness than you can shake a stick at, much like last year, which you can read about here and here. The Caged Bird Club worked with Melanie Maddison to put together an exhibition celebrating the labour movement and workers' struggles as well as those of us who are anti-work and reject the divisive workers vs. shirkers rhetoric.

Anti-work banner for Ante

I'm not of the opinion that if we didn't have to work, everyone would sit in bed all day long letting the world go to shit (although it's possible we might not get up quite so early every day). All the things I do when I'm not working are much more useful and important in the wider scheme of things. Things like growing food, making things, playing music and agitating for a better, fairer world.

Remembering who we are - the event

To celebrate the last of day of the Shape and Situate exhibition at Space Station Sixty-Five, Melanie Maddison and I put together this one day extravaganza showcasing art that seeks to address lost or hidden radical history and document current social movements.

Remembering who we are event

To download free hi-res posters, click the size you want: A4 or A3

On Saturday the 26th of January, I will be running this event with Melanie Maddison. We are celebrating the last day of the Shape and Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women exhibition at Space Station Sixty-five with a full day jam-packed with artists and makers who combine creativity and resistance. 

In addition to every Shape and Situate poster ever made, the complete Occuprint portfolio will be on display as will a huge selection of Celebrate People's History posters. 

There will be film screenings about women of the Miner's Strike and queer youth in the 1980s as well as a series of short films by members of the Justseeds Artists Collective. 

There will be artist talks by Melanie Maddison, Edd Baldry, Peter Willis, Margarita Kern and me!

There will be a children's clubhouse designed by members of the Caged Bird Club for everyone to get creative and work on contributions to our collective zine. 

There will be space set aside for autonomous discussion, scheming and collaborating for anyone who feels inspired by what they see and hear. 

And the day will end with everyone dancing to live samba. 

For a full schedule and up to date running order, sign up to the Facebook event page. If you avoid Facebook, you can email rememberingzine@gmail.com for updates.

Leeds Zine Fair

I participated in a talk/workshop about art and social and political history along with Melanie Maddison at Leeds Zine Fair last weekend. There were lots of other things going on too. Here is my go at 'have a go' letterpress. I completely ruined the first one through over-eagerness and this one is full of fingerprints as a result of impatience. Still, I did it myself.

Workshop and zine call out

Melanie Maddison, creator of Shape and Situate and Colouring Outside the Lines zines and I are running a workshop at Leeds Zine Fair this Sunday (4th of Nov). You can read more about it here. We will also be launching a call out for contributions to a new zine. 

If you are awesome and anywhere in the vicinity of Leeds, we'll expect to see you there. If you can't make it, you can still contribute to the zine. Here are all the details.

Send your submission to rememberingzine@gmail.com by the end of March (deadline extended). Go on, fulfill that inevitable new year's resolution to do something creative in 2013.

Making noise and dressing up

I do more than just sit around in my pajamas drawing pictures all day. Like playing in a protest Samba band, for instance. We recently played at the Summer Wildlife Carnival at the Waterworks Nature Reserve in Lea Valley Park to show our support for British wildlife and wild spaces in cities. I made paper masks for each band member to wear. Here they are from low to high on the food chain.

Animal: wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus)
Diet: seeds
Instrument: tamb

Another Fattylympics poster

This is my final poster for the exciting Fattylympics, which is just over a week away. It is available to download and decorate here. See the previous two here.

There are so many reasons why you should come along and participate:

• It's free, inclusive of all body types, genders and sexualities and in a completely accessible venue.  
• Special editions of all three of my posters will be available on the day to decorate and bring home as one-of-a-kind souvenirs.  
• There is an official Fattylympics Anthem written by Verity Susman of Electrelane. Learn it now as we will all be singing it together on the day! 
  
• And there are even going to be limited edition bright orange Fattylympics sweatbands. 

Seriously, what could possibly be better? More information here. See you there.

Ante-art awesomeness

Imagine your local community centre, thanks to its manager's admiration for the Situationists, was taken over by all the weirdos, punks and hippies from the surrounding area for an entire weekend to display art, play music, eat food, drink cocktails and generally making a huge mess to celebrate International Workers' Day. Well, that's pretty much Ante-Art which took place at Shipley's Kirkgate Centre last weekend.

Caged Bird Club at Ante-exhibition

We had our first indoor, non-clandestine exhibition in the beautiful Kirkgate Centre in Shipley this weekend as part of the Ante-art festival. It was such an uplifting event with so many amazing people taking part that we are going to publish a separate post about that. Our contribution was a collaborative attempt to redefine what it really means to be one of history's losers.

Sneaky peek

We've been pretty busy preparing for the Ante-exhibition this weekend but we thought we'd share some photos of our process. If you were hoping for a surprise, look away now.

This is Pivo preparing to print one of 5 (five!) brand new stencils.

Pivo's Fattylympics posters

Oh man, the Olympics. Where do you even start when it comes to complaining? I'm not going to bother. Instead, I'm participating in the Fattylympics. It's free, it celebrates body and gender diversity, it's feminist, it's queer and hetero friendly, it's for all abilities, it's non-competitive and it's in East London this summer.

These are the first two in a series of posters I have designed for the Fattylympics. They are available for anyone to download, print and decorate to proclaim where they'd rather be in July 2012. Download them here and check out how great it's going to be while you are at it. 

Forget the stupid diet or exercise as punishment, let's have fun instead. For Londoners this summer, that may be the most subversive act possible.