Cowabunga zine

Here's our newest zine - Cowabunga!!!!

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Blackpool Mini Festival for Mini People

It seems like nothing happens in Blackpool for years on end - then loads of things happen at once.

If you love kids and you love music then this event is for you! A mini-festival (at Whyndyke Farm just off the M55) filled with great music and especially for mini-people. There's heaps of things to do from Laser Tag, Graffiti Sessions, Streetdance Lessons, Arts and Crafts and loads of stalls and gifts. Food and drink is available but you can bring your own - you can even bring your own booze. It's being organised by local people who want to do something postitive for the town so get on board and support local talent. From local artists, DJ's and performers, from Blackpool, Manchester and the North West this is a collaboration of some great people. There's a huge sound system, loads of cool tunes with a laid back vibe will be played throughout the day so your family gets to enjoy the whole festival experience, safe in the knowledge this is a family focussed event.

The event runs all day Saturday 11th June and you can get more information and tickets here

Early bird tickets are available until May 31st and are £10 per adult and children over age 6 - Under fives tickets are FREE!

Profile on...The Pern

You may remember this image from our latest collection - photographed by Gary Brown. We used it a lot in our We Are Five promotion and around the Northern Quarter for the NQ Street Party.

The wall in question is just one of the amazing artworks commissioned for Common Bar. If you've not been to Common - its well worth a visit. Nestled in Edge Street just around the corner from our shop it is a cosy and comfy bar that does great food (yum houmous and olive toastie) and drink (mmmm Sailor Jerrys & coke) all housed in a vibrant artistic space. The artworks change seasonally and are created by

artists from all over the world.

Well the background to our lovely clothes is just a section of a fab piece of work (see complete above) called "Over Them Hills" by Manchester artist The Pern. 'The Pern' has been creative for the whole of her mini existence and is a full time designer, illustrator and thingy-ma-bob maker! She loves getting her hands dirty in printing, sewing, painting canvases and live in front of an audience, designing anything and everything that needs designing. Fuelled by coffee and green tea with a strong belief in 'Workaholicism' - she believes it is the way to get the job done.

Now if you love The Pern but don't have a wall you'll like to commision her to paint - why not invest in a bit of art for your walls - my favourite in the online shop is Giant Floating Fouf - £250 - not bad for an original canvas from a talented up and coming artist!

If your budget doesn't stretch that far - then check out the Hairy Beasts at £6 - cute as!

Blackpool Sand, Sea & Spray

Saturday saw 40 International Urban Artists hit Blackpool with Spray Cans - for the Sand, Sea & Spray Event. Unfortunately as we were busy in Manchester in the shop we didn't get chance to see these wonderful artworks being created. Instead I gatecrashed the afterparty to meet some of the artists, promoters, dj's and hard-working volunteers that pulled together to make this great event happen.
It was a pleasure to meet you all!

I went to see some of the artworks on Monday - it's so impressive that these fabulous artworks are all in walking distance from our house!!

Unfortunately, the wind was so bad yesterday that one of the locations was inaccessable as it was on the end of North Pier - so I took some pictures of the waves instead! 

It's nice to have some great stuff in Blackpool! All these artworks, and the North Pier Gallery are on show until 4th June (in some cases longer). I'm going to see the rest of the Artworks at the weekend - I'll post up more pics them - but in the meantine if you want to see more or know about the artists involved - get more details on the facebook page or website

All watched over by machines of loving grace

Continuing on a creative/interesting film tip, I would recommend everybody to watch the new Adam Curtis, series that starts tonight on BBC2 at 9pm.
Now I cant say that this type of documentary will be to everybodies taste, Adam Curtis basically uses a  cut-up technique, splicing together archive footage to create the narrative - in this case an analysis of the fallout of technoculture, it's not your usual repeat the argument till everybody looses interest in what you were saying in the first place style tv journalism, and I'm guessing there will be no 'exciting cliff hanger' at the end of each episode.  But you should really watch it, I'm going to try and review the first episode, but am not promising anything as I might not understand it all!!!
Oh he also did a few short films for Charlie Brookers newswipe - watch them here
Apologies to blog readers used to our normal posts we got a bit 'high brow' there!!

Logorama

I'm not sure how I heard about this, obviously in one of my many hours loitering about on the internet looking for interesting stuff - and this is just that!!! This short film/animation was made by French collective H5 (They've done vids for Goldfrapp), I'm sure originally it was going to be a video for George Harrison, but his record company wanted them to drop the logos (once you've watched it, that will seem like the stupidest idea ever), so it just ended up being an artistic project for H5.
Initially I thought maybe it would be a little bit dull, just one of those vanity animations that design companies do to show they can animate well, but it's not it's extremely well done and interesting to watch.
Many of the logos are for companies that don't operate in the UK but you will be surprised at how many of those you recognise - which shows the power of logos - and how we are subliminally fed these images through US produced tv shows (that last sentence is not a rant against advertising in tv shows - I really dont care, it's more an observation of how our brains work)


Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Sand Sea & Spray

Most of you know that although our lovely little shop is in Manchester - we actually live in Blackpool. Now unless you want a cheap kids holiday or a tacky Stag and Hen weekend, Blackpool doesn't traditionally have much to offer. 

Recently however the town of tat has been going through something of a renovation. From the glorious Glitterball sculpture to the renovated sea front, a sunny day in Blackpool can be as pleasant as a Mediterranean holiday.

This weekend sees an International Art Event hit the town, with live graffiti art at 4 key areas in the town centre, you'll be able to see live painting from a host of international artists. And what's even better is it's free!

Find out more about the art events and late night afterparty at the event page here.

Me&Yu - The Print Studio

We posted some photographs of our sewing studio last week, so today I thought it was time to show the print studio as well - enjoy!!!