Guilty Pleasures Podcast

In this episode Glasgow based artist David Galletly nervously tells us his guilty pleasures!

I did a podcast.

A week or so ago I had a wee Twitter conversation with Philip Larkin about his appearance on the Guilty Pleasures Podcast. Shortly afterwards, Stuart Tompsun (the host) got in touch to ask if I'd like to record an episode. I would like to record an episode, thanks very much.

You can listen to it via the embedded Soundcloud player above, on the Guilty Pleasures Soundcloud page itself or, best of all, by adding it to your podcast app of choice via searching or on iTunes.

While I'm not particularly pleased with my performance (I didn't hold the mic properly, I ramble, my voice is torturous), I am proud that I was brave enough to have a go. I listen to a lot of podcasts and kinda felt like I had to, I dunno, live up to something rather than just have a chat.

Anyway, that's by-the-by. Though I don't care about what I have to say, you might. And if you do, you'll maybe be looking for more information on the stuff we talked about. Not being one to let an opportunity for painstakingly gathering links pass me by, here are extensive show notes from episode 10 of the Guilty Pleasures Podcast:

Our Stuff


Animation


People


Muppets & Puppets


Music


Misc


Think that's all of them.

Guilty Pleasures is a great wee podcast - Stuart does a brilliant job at getting his guests to open up. As a good starting point, have a listen to this week’s episode with David Ferguson (aka Swatpaz). He's less painful than me.

Saying that, now that I've taken my first step, I'm tempted to have a go at making a podcast of my own. It'd probably be good for my growing inability to talk to other people. Would anyone out there listen (if I got better at it)?

*crickets*

Cheers Stuart for having me on.

Stirling Arts and Culture Cuts

Ok, last post on this for a while - I know it's probably pretty tiresome for folks who don't live in / care about Stirling. I guess now that the (pretty grim) 21/02/13 Stirling Council meeting has come and gone, it's more useful to share some resources for furthering the discussion than to have another moan. I will keep this list as up-to-date as I can with the most important links. Please feel free to share / bookmark this post - it's not going anywhere.

UPDATE 22/02/13 at 6pm: The Changing Room will be closing its doors on Saturday 30 March 2013 for the final time. From the Tolbooth Stirling Facebook page.

UPDATE 27/02/13: More links added.

Discussion & Information:

Stirling Arts Info Group - A public Facebook group. This is probably the best place to go to discuss the cuts, access / share the most current information and to find out if there's anything you can do to help.

The Changing Room on Facebook - news and info from Stirling's only contemporary art gallery. All Facebook discussion that directly mentions The Changing Room should appear here.

#stirlingarts - When discussing matters relating to Stirling's arts & culture cuts on Twitter, it may be useful to include the #stirlingarts hashtag in your tweets. Doing so means that anyone can easily follow a focused public discussion by searching for that tag.

People on Twitter:

@parrallines - Kirsteen Macdonald. The Changing Room's former Visual Arts Development Officer. Kirsteen will likely share a lot of useful links and information.

@Kevin_Harrison - Kevin is director of Artlink Central, an arts charity working across Central Scotland. He lives in Stirling and has been active in discussions on the arts cuts and, like Kirsteen, will likely put some good comment / info out there.

@davidgalletly - Me! I talk a lot of rubbish but I'll always tweet whenever this post has been updated or if anything new comes to light.

Stirling Council:

Stirling Councillors - Stirling councillors need to know your thoughts on the art cuts in Stirling. There is contact information on this myStirling page.

An Email From Councillor Benny - a frankly terrifying email from councillor Neil Benny sent just before the 21/02/13 meeting to Kate Sankey and shared on Facebook.

@neilbenny - Councillor Neil Benny's Twitter account features a fair amount of comment on the cuts. I've not included this in the above Twitter recommendations as, well, I don't recommend you follow him.

Stirling Arts & Culture:

The Tolbooth - Tolbooth veune homepage.

The Changing Room - Changing Room art gallery homepage.

Creative Stirling - A non-profit creative hub in Stirling.

The Smith Art Gallery - Exhibitions on natural history, heritage and culture.

Artlink Central - An arts agency established in 1988 working across Central Scotland.

Articles, Letters and Opinion:

Stirling Likes to Spend on Roads, Not Culture - Fantastic a-n article on the cuts by Kevin Harrison.

Letter from Peter Russell - Peter Russell writes beautifully on the fall-out from the 21/02/13 Stirling Council meeting.

Email From A Concerned Artist - an anonymously written email voicing concern on the closure of The Changing Room. Written a few days before the 21/02/13 meeting.

Stirling Council Plan to Close The Changing Room Gallery - a blog post by myself written on 20/02/13

Change - a blog post by Stirling artist RueFive written on 21/02/13.

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If I've missed anything you feel is important, let me know on Twitter or leave a comment below.

Jez Burrows Has A Sale

Miserable Giant

Miserable Giant by Jez Burrows on Flickr

Along with Lizzy Stewart (his partner in crime), illustrator / graphic design whiz Jez Burrows has a particular knack for making me jealous. His work hits the nail on the head so consistently that the conclusions he reaches can seem both impossibly difficult and blindingly obvious. You'd never add or remove a single thing from anything he does and I guess that, in a way, defines them as perfect.

Anyway, Jez is moving hoose and is closing his online shop this week. As a result, he's added some old/rare stuff and has a sale goin' on. I picked up a few prints yesterday including one very similar to the above Miserable Giant*. I recommend you go, go, go because the prices are low, low low. You have until Sunday before the shop closes for a 'long time'.

*I wanted to link through to Jez's Flickr so I couldn't show the exact one I bought

David Thorne: 10 Formal Complaints

David Thorne Formal Complaint

I don't think these are particularly obscure (I discovered them today via the 'explore feature in Google Reader), but l'd like to share them here anyway because they're so brilliant.

David Thorne has posted Ten Formal Complaints In Six Months that his co-worker Simon Dempsey has made about him in their office. In them, Thorne is revealed to have a flair for antagonism that brings to mind Tim and Gareth's micro-feuds in The Office mixed with a little Reeves & Mortimer surrealism ('researching wasps' is genius).

David Thorne Complaint 2

I think I've seen a few odds & ends of David Thorne's other work over the years, but this 'piece', (if you could call it that) has motivated me to dig a little deeper as, on the whole, I don't know much about him. Think I might pick up his new book.

The images I've posted are probably my two favourites but have a nosey at all ten and a bunch more silly, funny stuff on David's website, www.27bslash6.com.

Carolyn Alexander

Carolyn Alexander is one of my very favourite contemporaries*. A Scottish illustrator living up a big mountain in France who draws brilliantly sweary figures and self-portraits. Carolyn's work always makes me laugh - there's an effortless wit to her style and use of language that really stands out amongst the other stuff out there in illustratorland. Her drawings are funny without resorting to cutesyness or geeky pop-culture nods & winks, personal without getting sentimental or twee and proudly Scottish without ramming 'hilarious' slang down your neck. Makes me sick.

Amongst many things worth mentioning, there's: Carolyn Alexander Is Giving Up Smoking (a blog full of drawings made as cigarette substitutes), Haughty Bitches (a book of girls telling you to piss off), frequent attempts to learn French and Carolyn's amazing contributions to the what-I-wore-today 'thing' (best face captions going).

If that's not enough, she's recently set up a Facebook page, her website has just been overhauled and her blog is very good. If you're on twitter, follow @ocarolina too. Jesus, this is why I don't write about people more often - posting all these links makes you feel like a right creeper. It's a bit like discovering someone you occasionally nod 'hello' to has a tattoo of your face on their back.

Carolyn is also currently hosting a giveaway - if you enter before December the 1st you can win an original drawing - check out the details here.

The plan is to do a few more posts about other people this week. So, if you've not subscribed already, please do and I'll try my very best to point you towards some stuff I think is good. As always, any links, retweets, mentions or comments are very much appreciated.

* bit wary of that word. Apart from sounding wank - it, dunno, implies a lot doesn't it?

Lego Mansion

Sometimes you're just blown away by a thing. This burned-out Lego mansion by Mike Doyle is one of those things. Damn, damn, damn. As far as I can tell, it's 100% legit, as in it's made completely from normal Lego pieces. You can view more pictures of the project on his blog, here.

I do get quite nostalgic for Lego. It was probably my favourite toy growing up (the old, old Robin Hood stuff being my fondest memory) and from time to time, I'll have a look at what's going on in the Lego 'community'. Usually it doesn't really do it for me. Too many men building too many big mech robots and spaceships. Not my scene, dogg. Discovering Doyle's mansion on the other hand completely made my day and (somewhat) justified my hour of skiving-off on geeky messageboards.