Anna Lincoln - Black & Gold Cards

Anna Lincoln has produced screen-printed gold on black cards based on her body of work on display at the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs. We will be selling these at our Christmas Fair on Saturday for £2.

annalincoln.co.uk

Rhea Evers - Ceramics & Notebooks

Rhea Evers has made these notebooks for sale at our Christmas fair on Saturday. We will be selling her hand screen-printed dot notebooks and lino-printed Houses notebooks for £6 each.

Rhea will also be producing ceramic tiles for the sale at the show for £12, but we don't want to spoil the surprise - come to the fair at Department of Coffee and Social Affairs between 1pm-5pm to pick up a few.

rheaevers.com

Reena Makwana - Heygate Ladies Tote Bags

I have produced this tote bag based on my embroidery 'Heygate Ladies' which forms part of my South London tripstitch on display at 'The Great Outdoors' exhibition. Digitally printed on 100% natural cotton bags, you can take these ladies home on Saturday for £10.

reenamakwana.com

Rosie Walder - Christmas Cards

Rosie Walder has put together this range of Christmas cards for our Nest Christmas Fair at the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs on Saturday 24th November 2012. Individual Christmas cards are priced at £2 and you can also purchase sets of 6 of Reindeer (two designs) or Dogs.

The Great Outdoors Private View Pictures

Photos by Dale Beckwith

Here are our photographs from our private view last Thursday for 'The Great Outdoors' at the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs.

You can see more at our Flickr account.

Thanks to our sponsors at Impress Print Services.

And thank you to the wonderful Coffeesmiths Collective for allowing us to exhibit in the space.

The exhibition will be up until Thursday 24th January 2012 and features Alison Mure, Amber James, Anna Lincoln, Chloe Bonfield, Reena Makwana, Rhea Evers and Rosie Walder.

Christmas Fair - Nest Gallery @ Department of Coffee and Social Affairs

We are going to have pictures from our private view up very soon, in the meantime feast your eyes on our flyer designed by Anna Lincoln for our Nest Gallery Christmas Fair at Department of Coffee and Social Affairs on Saturday 24th November 2012. You can have a look at the artwork and buy some bespoke Christmas presents.
We will have cards, prints, ceramics, booklets, pencil cases, tote bags and more. Throughout our three month exhibition, you will be able to pick up 'The Great Outdoors' postcard sets from the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs.
Keep an eye on here for news of what we'll be selling.

On the website...

www.departmentofcoffee.co.uk

The Great Outdoors - Interview with Chloe Bonfield

1.Tell us about your practice as an artist?

The general umbrella of my practice is illustration but I love working in video and installation. I am trying to balance making more commercial work for clients alongside exploratory work that informs my practice and style. This can be a tricky business but has really put me through a big learning curve. Learning to not be too precious over my own work and getting towards having the sense of professionalism that I want to be inherent within my work.

Generally though I love exploring things around me, researching things past and melding the two together some how. I love folk tales and traditions, strange little obsessions and languages made from pictures that everyone can understand no matter who you are.

What is your work for 'The Great Outdoors inspired by?

The main narrative for this work started after a trip to Norway where I went for a lovely walk in big forest where you could pick wild blueberries and heather, and also swim and drink from ice cold and clear glacier lakes. It was really magical, there were even toadstool mushrooms. This trip inspired a sort of exploratory mini comic involving a male and female character. Throughout their little journeys they are always apart and sometimes just not present at all. It became another kind of melancholic narrative about these two, John and Suzanne. They have been to some other places now which are on the blog of the comic. For this show I am trying to explore their world 'post them', so looking at what artefacts, tools and jewellery they may have had in their world if you were to find some evidence of it in our world. This includes some drawings depicting how they view the places that they visit.

Have you got a particular memory of the great outdoors that you would like to share?

Well apart from the forests in Norway, I can't really pick one because I am constantly surprised by nature. I know it sounds cheesy but it is completely true. I suppose a really good recent memory is spending time in Devon on the weird sandy flats and dunes around the burrows, and Instow. Odd man made concrete and old bits of boat next to salty sand. Everything sort of looks either completely orange or grey. It's very satisfying.

goldenhandsillustration.blogspot.co.uk

foragingsuzanne.blogspot.co.uk

The Coffeesmiths Collective - Press Release

Read the press release for our show up on The Coffeesmiths Collective website here.

The Great Outdoors - Interview with Rhea Evers

1. Tell us about your practice as an artist.

I predominantly work with pencil, graphite and ink applied with brushes. I tend to deconstruct the image, draw each piece or section until its like a bit of a puzzle and then get it into photoshop to tidy, colour and play with the layout. This is my preferred method right now, but it varies from idea to idea how I go about things. I'm particularly drawn to pattern work and repeat imagery, on a small scale i've started working with ceramics. I hope to get this off the ground in time along with some textile printing.

2. What is your work for 'The Great Outdoors' inspired by?

Sometime last year I swam in a freshwater lake in North London, It was both fear-inspiring and brilliant. I was an outdoorsy child and I've waded through streams but this was so different. I have some phobias about water so it was oddly liberating. In Mythology, the Naiad were a type of nymph that presided over bodies of freshwater such as streams, rivers and lakes. I drew specifically on the tale of Hylas' abduction by Naiads, who dragged him down into the water either to his death or perpetual ecstasy. I've chosen to use the Naiad as a figurehead in this work to represent both my fear and attraction towards that lake last summer.

3. Have you got a particular memory of your experience of the great outdoors that you would like to share?

Digging for fossilised shark teeth in an prehistoric lagoon as a child, which somehow ended up underneath a forest in Abbey Wood. I don't think you can go there anymore, we keep the three teeth in a glass ashtray with one of my milk teeth and a euro.

www.rheaevers.com

The Great Outdoors Postcards

Here's a bit of a preview of the postcards of 'The Great Outdoors' by our exhibiting artists. Come to our private view on Thursday 8th November 2012 and see them in all their glory and take home a pack.

The Great Outdoors - Interview with Rosie Walder

1. Tell us about your practice as an artist.

Exploring elements of popular culture via traditional pencil drawing.

2. What is your work for 'The Great Outdoors' inspired by?

I have been inspired by London. At the moment I can't reveal any more than that!

3. Have you got a particular memory of your experience of the great outdoors that you would like to share?

The first time I went to Glastonbury, struggling to carry my bag through the festival because it was filled with various cosmetics, hair straighteners and curlers! This year I'm booking into a B&B. I like my creature comforts.

The Great Outdoors Postcards

They have arrived! We'll have some professional pictures up on here soon of the sets themselves which we will have on sale at the private view on Thursday 8 November 2012.

Thanks to our sponsors at Impress Print Services.

The Great Outdoors - Interview with Reena Makwana

1. Tell us about your practice as an artist.

I am an illustrator working with a mixture of embroidery, drawings and objects. I make work inspired by people in their environment, human behaviour and superstitions in the modern world. I find inspiration in jowly-faced women who read Heat, Closer and Look magazine one after the other on local bus services with their pug in their bag, ready to go into the town centre to play music on their keyboard.

2. What is your work for 'The Great Outdoors' inspired by?

I took walks and bus journeys around where I was living in Camberwell, photographing people and then making drawings of them. I wanted to capture quiet moments of ‘The Great Outdoors’ in an urban environment. There’s a lot going on, people going to East Street market, waiting for the 185 to Victoria, trying to avoid male harassment in the street or bumping into an old friend. I documented the hustle and bustle of Walworth Road, the area around Camberwell Green and Coldharbour Lane on my walk home to Southwell Road. I have created three embroideries, one from each of these journeys.

3. Have you got a particular memory of your experience of the great outdoors that you would like to share?

One of my friends from college got married four years ago in the village of Linton in Yorkshire. We camped on private land that night and I couldn’t sleep because I wanted to go for a wee all the time due to the sound of a river. I walked around the village cloaked in my purple checked blanket before sunrise to make time go quickly. However, after a bit, I was approached by a policeman while walking in the field we were camping in. Instead of telling us off, he took my details. It turns out some concerned members of the village had reported a young woman walking around. I think they thought I was a crazy person.

www.reenamakwana.com

The Great Outdoors - Interview with Anna Lincoln

1. Tell us about your practice as an artist

I am a designer and printmaker. My work predominantly explores urban landscapes and point of view; I have a strong interest in how individuals respond to histories and experiences embedded in their built environment. I’m interested in creating sets and original systems of visual language, processes which lend themselves to narrative. Much of my work is screen printed and I aim to use interesting materials such as wood or concrete, which give more unpredictable and textured results. Recent inspirations informing my practice have included information design and graphic icons, leading to images that reduce our surroundings to simple shapes and line works.

2. What is your work for 'The Great Outdoors' inspired by?

I have lately been experimenting with ceramics, a transitional activity that has inadvertently influenced my work process for this project. I have found myself concentrating on the silhouettes of objects and on how considerations of negative space can affect one’s assessment of an object, mentally reducing its form to a single plane. I aim to capture how this experience might affect the perception of moving through space in The Great Outdoors.

3. Have you got a particular memory of your experience of the great outdoors that you would like to share?

As a child I fell into a muddy ditch, churned up into great channels by tractor tyres. The suction created by the mud was so great that it was really hard to get free. Terrifying!

www.annalincoln.co.uk

The Great Outdoors - An Update

We're opening our show a little later at the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs - come along on Thursday 8th November 2012 at 6.30pm instead.

We'll be having a Christmas fair at the space on Saturday 24th November 2012 as part of the show.

The Great Outdoors - Interview with Amber James

1. Tell us about your practice as an artist.

I am a textile designer and I screenprint bold geometric patterns and turn them into clothes and accessories. My inspiration comes from translating digital processes into physical mediums.

2. What is your work for 'The Great Outdoors' inspired by?

I wanted to create a backpack that would stand out in natural surroundings to make a statement about how our environment has become completely detached from nature. I used my signature geo pattern as this was inspired by modern architectural structures and is created using an isometric grid. In our day to day lives we have created safe manageable places to exist but we still carry our possessions like nomadic explorers.

3. Have you got a particular memory of your experience of the great outdoors that you would like to share?

I once got chased through a field by a herd of cows on the Isle of Wight, never forget that experience, and will never cross a cows path again!

http://bambooteak.com/
http://www.medi-evil.com/

Nest Stickers

The Great Outdoors - Interview with Alison Mure

1. Tell us about your practice as an artist.

I work with many materials and would consider myself a craft cum applied artist. My favoured disciplines are textiles and ceramics. For this show I am working with slip casting for the first time. I have a new found respect for this process, which has challenged my patience, but kept me excited at every stage.



2.What is your work for 'The Great Outdoors' inspired by?

Ping Pong! Ping pong tables seem to have descended from the sky and graced public spaces all over the country this year. I first discovered them in Leicester Square. People from all over the world shunned the expensive cinemas in favour of some healthy small bat based competition. My favourite player so far has been an elderly lady at Victoria Embankment. She appeared, put her bag down, played her game, picked up her bag and left, all in total silence. It is a game that doesn’t need words, there are rules and silent understanding. It seems a great way of using the outdoors to me, get people enjoying each others skills and communicating without words if that's how they like it.


3. Have you got a particular memory of your experience of the great outdoors that you would like to share?

Hunting outlaws in Sherwood Forest. When we were kids we were allowed to run wild around the forest chasing down Friar Tuck. These days I think they’ve cornered it off to a safe and visible fenced area. Sadly much less Lords of the Flies like.

UAL Freshers Zine Fair 2012

We're going to be at the UAL Freshers Zine Fair 2012 at LCC on Thursday 27 September 2012, 11.00am - 4.00pm.


We'll have zines, prints, ceramics and tote bags from Alison Mure, BAM, Aspidistra Magazine, Reena Makwana and a few others.


Come down, hang out and check some zines, prints, books ETC from a selection of top quality stallholders including:

- dead trees and dye - www.deadtreesanddye.com

- billy a.b. - www.miamivibezxoxo.com

- sam rees - www.ififoundafrozentimewarpidputitinthemicrowaveatyourhouse.co.uk

- the gym - www.thegymwsa.tumblr.com

- flabby dagger - www.flabbydagger.tumblr.com

- universe magazine - www.universemagazine.co.uk

- housmans radical booksellers - www.housmans.com

- monster emporium press - www.monsteremporiumpress.co.uk

- nest gallery - www.nestgallery.blogspot.co.uk

- rosa romeo - www.rosaromeo.co.uk

- walrus zines - www.walruszines.blogspot.co.uk

- extra bones - www.extraboneshq.tumblr.com

ALSO featuring a stall from LCC library's own zine collection where you can flick through some self publishing from recent/radical history [http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zine-Collection-London-College-of-Communication-Library/113659155361343] as well as a bunch of other fun things tba