Three Wee Things

On a day like Christmas Day when we are inundated by  (if we are lucky) piles of new stuff.

I thought I’d show you some things in my possession that are so tiny that they would easily get lost amidst the torn wrapping paper and thrown away. None of these things came to me at Christmas, the rabbit appeared on my window ledge about 60ft off the ground from who knows where, the elephant through my letterbox as a surprise present from a friend and the chap on the toadstool is actually a sculpture by the artist Takashi Murakami, who believes that art can come in any size (about and inch and a half tall) , that I bought myself from Japan.

It is usually at this point that someone publishing something on Christmas day starts spouting (or sprouting) something about the true meaning of Christmas. But my gift to you is that I won’t. Happy Christmas!

We’re only here for the pier.

I just thought say a few words about The Hastings Pier Shop. It is a truly remarkable place run by the rather congenial David Francis, known throughout Hastings and St Leonards as Ukelele Dave. It is situated in what was the Arthur Green bespoke tailors shop along the Hastings seafront not far from the area known as the Trinity Triangle and boasts a remarkable grand interior from a more elegant age, being fitted out in scrollwork and many drawered glass display cabinets.  It even has a cave in the back to add to it’s already surreal nature.

It’s primary function is to raise money and awareness for the restoration of the now somewhat charred Hastings Pier and features the work of many local artists, designers and makers (including myself) who sell their wares here with a portion of the profit going to the Hastings pier’s eventual rebirth.

If you happen to be in the neighbourhood, please stop by and have a look around. I’m sure you will find it interesting.

Now with Wings

Icarus wings made from willow wands, rags, feathers and wax.

As I slid across the lino on the bathroom floor for the umpteenth teen, I wondered how I got in this state in the first place and how I would explain myself to the staff at casualty.
A month or so before I had been contacted with a commission to make a pair of Icarus wings for a segment on a BBC schools programme with dance interpretations of traditional stories.
The brief was that all the materials could feasibly be found in the tower that Icarus and Daedalus were locked up in, that they could fold back with the dancer’s arms and that they must under no account look like bat wings. After liaising with Beth Hannant-McCausland, costumier extraordinaire, my workroom became filled with half a willow tree and an awful lot of feathers.
I made an oversized fan socket out of fabric into which I stapled the ends of the stripped willow branches, making sure not to do too good a job of it so it all looked a bit “knocked up” then I wove through strips of rag to make basic support structure. on top of this was added a layer of knitted webs, made using 25mm needles (huge) and on top of all this went the feathers, an awful lot of feathers. Some whipped on using thread and some glued.
The final part caused me all the bother, the candle wax. Not wanting to damage my carpets which were already covered with bark, leaves and feathers. I took the wings into the bathroom with it’s linoleum floor so that I could drip 6 candles worth of wax all over them (and the floor). The wings were a success and the production company, Lambent, were very pleased and it went on telly and all that but it still left the problem of the floor. Months later I was still sliding about. Having nightmares of skidding into the bath or basin and cracking my head open, a footnote in a news article on bizarre deaths.
The wax has worn off now and things are back to, eh-hum, normal but at least it was all worth it for the end result.

Zen and the art of model making.

Being of a certain age, I have warm and fuzzy memories of spending my free time making Airfix kits. And it always was airfix, not Heller or Revell, I was even a member of the airfix model makers club as sponsored by Dick Emery, the great seventies comedian. Every few years I get bitten by the model making bug and years I end up with a wonky creation with a streaky paint job and that barely resembles the lovely artwork on the box. It seems that the eight year old me was a lot less judgemental of their handiwork.

This all change recently when I was trying to find a pain free way of introducing my twelve year old nephew to the joys of model making, the Japanese model kit. More specially the Gundam series of kits from Bandia. All the parts are colour coded and there are wonderful little rubber ball and socket joints so that your creation is posable. However, the most important part is…. It doesn’t need glue! Yay!

They come in different grades, the zenith of which is the perfect grade. Models of this quality have over a thousand parts and little light bits. The kit pictured here is just the common or garden type which is a tenth of the price. Even so it is far superior to the kits of my childhood. A fair compromise is the master grade, which works out at about £40 and is a good compromise between price and cool factor. I know what I’ll be getting myself for crimbo this year.

Colouring in for grown ups- Part two

Not having buckets full of spare cash sloshing around for custom built trainers, I have had to do the next best thing to get something a bit unusual in the shoe department and that is paint my own.

Now before I start, I need to do some serious covering of my bottom.

DON’T DO THIS!  Not only can this go horribly wrong but some of the chemicals used are highly toxic.

Still reading? Right, so long as you understand that I take no responsibility for anything that goes wrong if you try this at home like I have told you not to do.

Firstly, choosing paint. The best thing to use, if you can get it is by Angelus Brand. If you are in the states, there are loads of places that do this. But in the U.K there are two, the cheaper of these is called Painted Soles. You can also use liquitex mixed with acetone but this is both a bit dicey and more expensive.

Preparation is key as trainers are coated with a thick layer of wax or polyurethane varnish before leaving the factory that prevents paint from sticking.This can be removed with either pure acetone or really cheap nail varnish remover  (but don’t get the stuff marked “acetone free”). Work in a well ventilated room or preferably outside, AND DON’T SMOKE! or sit by a gas fire for that matter ’cause you will explode. Use cotton wool pads or balls and discard when they get dirty, you will get through about 200 to do a pair of shoes. Make sure you get into all the crevices such as seam line and were the leather meets the sole. Oh, and if you are doing shoes with a heel encap (the bubbles of air or liquid) mask this off as these could corrode.

Paint should be carefully applied in thin layers, it will look very smeary at first, but thin layers are more bendy and less likely to crack or leave nasty brush marks. Leave to dry for at least half an hour between coats.In the example shown, I have used a multi coloured base layer with a lizard skin pattern built up over it, but as in the top photo keep applying thin layers to get an even, durable coating.

When you are satisfied with your paint job, you can add a coat of acrylic varnish or preferably Angelus Finisher. Paint or dab this on with a clean cloth or sponge in one even layer. It is important not to over brush this once applied as this will make the coating go cloudy.

When dry just add laces!

 

Obscure toy of the week: The Space Monkey

Space Monkey Qee

Trying to do research on anything on Dalek a.k.a James Marshall is a bit tricky. Any of the usual search terms bring up the more famous Daleks from Doctor Who, which are also pretty darn cool. Up until the release of his most recent collection for qee, trying to pick up any of his vinyl or resin creations on ebay was a thankless task of trawling through the hundreds of ‘other’ Daleks. So this is what I know, and if it’s wrong I apologise profusely. Dalek has done numerous pieces for all the major toys shapes. Notably a signature range of Dunnys, two series of Spacebots for Toy2R which were variations of the standard qee shape and also versions of the Fatcap and Jamugo’s Buds.  However, in my opinion, James’ best toys are the Space Monkeys. There have been a number of versions of these from the early Sony Capsule art range through to a set of limited edition works that would more accurately be described as sculptures. Probably the best ones are the ones that are still relatively easy to pick up, The Space Monkey Qees.

Compared to the standard Qees, these are a lot weightier, all of which is in their gigantic specially moulded heads. There were fourteen made in total and there wasn’t a duff one in the set. They all feature the trademark Dalek combination of cute and savage, of large Disney eyes and bleeding bullet wounds. They also all look just as good from the back as from the front, often being double faced. A word of warning though, some of them are quite rude. They turn up occasionally on ebay and it is possible to still pick up a few retail if you want to dig around.

dalekart.com

Colouring in for grown ups

For the past few days I’ve been stuck at home with the dreaded Swine Flu. It turns out that the dreaded lurgy has just made me a bit spinny headed, so, lucky me! er, yay?

Anyway, even being flaked out on the sofa watching Buffy for the umpteenth time loses it’s shine after a while. So I’ve reverted to one of my more expensive daft pastimes, Trainer painting. Unfortunately, not being made of moolah I haven’t got spare blank ones to hand, so I have ordered a shiny white pair of Puma’s to daub over and have been making mock ups with the aid of photo shop. For you lot out there with money though, there is a much easier and less messy way of doing this via the miracle of the internet. Both Nike and Puma have online design your own trainer service. You can have endless hours of fun turning out countless designs in any colour-way you fancy. Converse have a version to, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to ship outside the states, plus their standards international shipping charges would probably make it cheaper to fly of and pick them up yourself anyway.

Word of warning, they aren’t cheap but even if you don’t decide to buy it is an amusing way to while away a couple of woozy hours while smitten with flu.

NIKEiD.com

Puma Mongolian BBQ (make your own shoes)

Obscure toy of the week: Panda SAM

The Super Animal Machine or SAM for short comes from a design team called Red Magic based Hong Kong who also make the more well known CiBoys.

Apparently they are supposed to be aliens who have come to earth disguised as animals, although the only ones they make are variants on pandas. I’ve scratched my head about this one and the only logical reason I can find for the name is that they could have been called SPAM (Super Panda Animal Machines) or something similar which would never do. Anyway, daft name aside, the are so darn cute.

What I really love about these, apart from the cuteness, is that they are really solid and weighty. It’s nice to feel something that is really there and not something flimsy and breakable. They are around three inches tall and both theirs heads and legs are attached via ball and socket joints so that they can be posed at a jaunty angle.

You can pick a few up from online stores in the u.k for around the three pound mark but to get a better range you need to order from ebay stores in Hong Kong, just don’t buy more than £15 worth at once or you will be stung for shocking customs handling fees.

Coastal not very current

If I was really clued up I would be writing something about the annual Coastal Currents exhibition that has been running for the past month or so. But I’m not going to, so there! Some of it was very good, some of it very self indulgent and pretentious.

So instead I will show you a photo of the very fleeting piece of work from the Dark Times exhibition at the f-ish gallery in Hastings back in May and June. It was a group exhibition, some of it very clever, some not, but the bit I really loved was the white-washed window with wonderful images scratched into it. I don’t know who it was by (and I have had a good try at finding out) so if you do then please tell me.  I walked past it a couple of times before I even noticed it as I just thought someone was having a laugh while doing a shop fitting. So to the unknown artist, hat’s off to you!

Blockaboots – The best shoes (n)ever made.

Being a typical crap bloke who won’t go to the doctors unless I lose a limb in a random chainsaw accident I have been trying to treat my knackered ankle by wearing basketball boots. Apparently, due to all this 80′s retro business that is oh so popular at the moment, hi tops are very “in”.

So there I was, trawling through ebay for said footwear when a thought struck me. What would be the only retro shoe that could definitely never come back into fashion?  The answer was clear, the Blockaboot!

The what? I hear you ask.

Well…

Back in 1976 there was a schools television program called Good Health, the sort of thing you would end up watching if you were off school for the day. Being the seventies, there was nothing else on during the day. It was either that or the test card. The premise of one particular episode was to promote the wearing of sensible footwear by suggesting that everyone’s feet would go on strike (did I mention this was 70′s Britain?) if they were forced to wear ill fitting shoes.

The example of bad footwear was pretty much a sandal on stilts with another sandal stuck to the base. Unfortunately, the whole lesson of the show was lost on me and for the past thirty odd years I have dearly wished to own a pair. The disappointment I felt when I realised that they were fictional footwear was one of the most profound of my life.

I guess the nearest thing ever brought into production was Vivienne Westwood’s Rocking Horse Shoe but they were actually well designed, if somewhat scary (See left). What I want is something that is utter rubbish, ridiculous and will give me endless hours of fun tottering about the house in. In short, the perfect style item.

So if you are in the shoemaking industry, please make me some blockaboots. Or preferably, make enough for the whole world as wars could never be fought if everyone was shuffling about at one mile a day on a rickety platform shoe tied on by a piece of ribbon.

You can see the original t.v show here…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tKBPl3VZXg