Ballooooooons!

Another lovely sunny day for The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe, it's almost as if some beastie is keeping an eye on us and keeping the rain away (famous last words no doubt). Today started off super slow, with no-one even popping their heads in for the first hour or so, but then after lunch it all picked up and at times we had up to 8 people in the (very small) Shoppe at one time! Had some lovely visitors today, including Chipfork's parents, his sister Katy was the guest Shoppe Keeper and Bonny brought a collection of people with her for a day at the seaside.

New postcards from Simon Daly (aka Chipfork) which were flying out of the Shoppe- we sold half of them on the first day of getting them in. Wish i'd made some now...

Also heard that the show at Frou Frou is going really well- lots of people are going in each day to look at the art, and to buy clothes too- I heard that Johanna was the first person to buy some work, a pair of buttons made by Karen Ruane- let's hope lots more work gets sold over the next month.

Is it over yet?

Oh i'm pooped! I've spent the last few weeks/months working towards events that all happened over the last weekend, and now i'm just about recovering. I slept for 24 hours mind you...

Saturday was a lovely day, spent in the sunshine in Uphill Quarry with artists and friends (most of whom are artists, some of whom are rollergirls)

Not a very brilliant photo, but you can see the lovely high-vis jackets we had to wear (we being the official Arts Festival bods, not everyone who attended)

A big pile of cucumber sandwiches from cantfindamatch.com's performance

Sunday was spent in The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe. I had so much fun working as a Sweet Shoppe keeper- I think the highlight of the day for me was selling sweets to a real live lifeboat man (I have a fascination with the RNLI that's inexplicable).

We had lots of lovely visitors, including fellow Westonian Karen, who I 'met' last year when the Grand Pier burnt down, and now have had the pleasure of meeting in real life too- I hope we get to spend some time drinking cups of tea and talking about art in the near future.

couldn't have asked for nicer weather- in fact it was so sunny over the weekend I caught the sun a bit and ended up with heat stroke...

Ian Shipton- Weston Arts Festival

Many years ago (er...maybe four or five) when I decided to go back to art school and start all over again, Ian Shipton was one of my tutors. Now he is one of the people showing work as part of the Weston Arts Festival on Saturday and I just popped round his house for a mini preview of the show.

all these pieces were created using bits and pieces picked up off the beach whilst walking his two (cute) dogs.

Some of the pieces include poems by Ian (I liked this one a lot because of the creepy little doll)

As well as these assemblages you will be able to see his beautiful garden (he's also a garden designer), some lovely sculpture (and a sculptor) and his jewellery will be available to view on request.

It's all on display in 'The Long Gallery' at 42 Clevedon Rd, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. From 10am-6pm Saturday 12th September, and by appointment during the festival. Ian can be contacted on 0794 1648774.

Clevedon Road is about a ten minute walk from the train station, or can be reached from the seafront- turn inland when you are opposite the empty building that once housed the Tropicana open air pool (land of giant pineapples and fondly remembered).

Getting to the Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe by foot

My partner in Sweet Shoppe crime Simon Daly has made a video showing you how to get to the Shoppe by foot from the train station. It's pretty awesome, even if you never intend to come to the show you should watch it!

So much to do, so little time

I have SO much to update you about, but so little time to do it in. Instead can I direct you over to The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe, where you will find some of the strange creatures i've been spending the last few weeks with; and to Frou Frou, where you will see some of the beautiful work that will be on show during Weston Arts Festival.

I've got 8 days to pull together all the loose threads for three exhibitions opening on 12th September- and somewhere in those 8 days my nephew turns 2, and I turn 36! Please send calming thoughts and big bars of chocolate my way via any method possible, including Unicorn mail.

Weston Arts Festival updates

Sorry for the cross posting, but I thought maybe some of you would be interested to see who is taking part in The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe this year (and if not, why not!)

I thought maybe it was about time we updated you with a list of who is contributing to the Sweet Shoppe this year, hold onto your hats it's an impressive looking list!

Edith Abeyta
Heather Anacker
Emily Chandler
Matt Cipov
Custom Made UK
Simon Daly
Laura Harris
Jenny Hart
Gunilla Jahnichen
Miss B
Katy Parrett
Alys Paterson
Peskimo
Claire Elizabeth Platt
Julia Pott
PRSC
Camilla Stacey
Tizzy Treatz
Ian Walker
Rebecca Weeks
Johanna Ziegler


I also wanted to let you know i've just set up a new blog for the Frou Frou exhibition- you can find it over here at Frou Frou. I realised that not everyone has access to Facebook, and it's nice to have somewhere to gather all the information together- hopefully there will be more added to it soon.

And now I have to sleep- i've had terrible insomnia recently, no doubt due to all the many and various projects on the go at the moment- I think I need to curl up in a big ball of lavender and see if that does the trick!

Just a quickie

I just updated The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe blog with some photos from the venue we shall be using- take a look

I'm at full pelt at the moment organising things for my three events during Weston-super-Mare Arts Festival.

There's the Sweet Shoppe, which will be open weekends during the festival (12th Sept-11th October)

Frou Frou, an exhibition of work featuring Cathy Cullis, Joetta Maue, Karen Ruane, Lou Trigg and Elin Thomas, which will be opening on September 11th and running until the end of the festival at a boutique in town.

And then there's the Art in Uphill Quarry event that will be taking place on September 12th, from 10am-dusk and will feature artists creating site specific work, performance, a picnic and lots of sweets.

I've also just had it confirmed that I shall be curating the exhibition space in the University gallery- this was mentioned to me earlier in the summer, but I got the official confirmation today from Kate Parsons my tutor there. It's really exciting to think of having a semi-official gallery to play with, wondering how much different i'll have to do things to fit in with an organisation. In the past i've pretty much only curated events/exhibitions at spaces i've set up myself or borrowed for the duration- haven't really had to play along with anyone elses rules, but this will be good practice for next year when I should be down in Falmouth studying for an MA in Curatorial Practice.