IN THIS
VAPID
Illustration Analogue <3 Digital: Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t we all just get along?! Make your own model vinyl collection
Creative writing Hair Pin Data Charms all Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;erthrown Face-to-Face Contact is No Longer Necessary to Maintain a Friendship Hey Vajayjay
Articles Digital Doodles A Special Collection Hours Analogue Vs Digital: Can you really bat for both teams? Stirred
EDITORS’ LETTER Hello again! We’re back in your hands, on your computer, inside your ink pearl screen, you’ve tracked us down in a shop, or online; you’ve read our blog, met our faces or sent us an email, and here you are with Issue 4. Brilliant. (Well, we like to think so) We love the handmade, and meeting people face-to-face. Equally we love the exposure that the internet brings us: our contributors come from all over the world and its incredible. It seems that there’s always a big battle going on between traditional and new media, and it often seems quite petty. We, for two, aren’t sure why. Obviously there are advantages and disadvantages to most ways of doing anything, When we decided to bring out Vapid Kitten
on Kindle, and as a PDF download, it was an experiment. We just wanted to see what would happen. And working digitally gives us an opportunity to play around without the costs that printing incurs, and when we found a typo in the Kindle version, we just updated the file. Simple. Practical. Excellent. So should we pack up our books and download ourselves a digital library? As far as we’re concerned yes and no: print gives us a different set of design challenges, which we enjoy and also cry at (one more often than the other). We know that using
different media opens us to different audiences (my granny’s not a big PDF reader). Printed matter seems to feel more substantial and has an air of longevity, which is nice, if that’s your thing. But now is not a time for arguing, the sun is shining, the weather is sweet, if you have dancing feet, you’re probably moving them, now is the time for making a cup of tea, having a little sit down and a look through (in whatever format you’ve chosen) of Vapid Kitten 4. As always we welcome your comments, and love getting emails. If you’d like to submit to the next issue,you can find all the necessary details on the back page. Lovely. Anna&Betsy XOX
CONTRIBUT Creative Writing Shannon Cassady cassadys@csp.edu asidewalkprophet.tumblr.com Shannon is currently enrolled at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Shannon is a dreamer: her life goals include getting her MFA at UNC Chapel Hill for lyricism and narrative writing. Humor is something that she greatly appreciates; she is a sucker for JD Salinger- especially his masterpiece: character Holden Caufield. A fan of making words up, Shannon seeks to writing to truly express herself and to “tell her story”. Like any young adult, she struggles with an addiction to Facebook- but doctors say this soon shall pass. Katie Moore www.downdirtyword.com www.thegirlcircus.com Katie Moore is the mother of ferocious daughters, the wife of a handsome cop, and a willing slave to the written word. She is a founding editor of The Legendary www.downdirtyword.com, where words are “big G” God. She is chaotically awkward, ill adjusted to the world, and completely unashamed.
Janet Lewison www.tusitala.org.uk Janet Lewison is lead tutor of Tusitala English Tuition based in Bolton and is the proud owner of three greyhounds and a blog. Lise Phillips Lise has a MFA from Naropa University. Her work has appeared in EOAGH, Not Enough Night, and Subliminal Interiors.
TORS Articles
Illustration
Rose Whittaker
Kate Dunstone
Rose lives and works in Antwerp as a denim designer for Wrangler. She also enjoys filling in activity books made by her sister Kate. Molly and Matthew www.hourszine.tumblr.com Georgia Bosson www.georgiabosson.com Georgia recently graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a BA (hons) in Embroidery. She lives and works in London as a textile designer.
www.katedunstone.co.uk Kate is a recent graduate from Nottingham Trent University, and has been drawing, knitting and writing for many years. She now hopes to go pro in at least one of these areas. In the meantime she works at a cinema and considers her options. Katie Mason Katie is also a recent graduate from Manchester Metropolitan University, and now lives and works in Manchester. She likes cups of tea, monkeys and miniature versions of big things. Katieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s illustrations appear throughout
DIGITAL
DOODLES W
alking into the design office where I work, you would be forgiven for wondering if we did any design at all. When movies portray fashion design studios, sketches adorn the walls, models stand and pout impatiently and high end designers pin swathes of fabric to mannequins, creating effortless, graceful fashions in the flash of a pin. In our design office, there are no drawings pinned to the walls, no models pouting and no designers pinning. Our desks arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t covered in sheets upon sheets of paper with fabulous sketches and designs, works of art in their own right. On our desks sit computers, thread books and factory samples. Welcome to the digital design world. For the past few years, I have been studying and working in the field of fashion design, and it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t until relatively recently that fashion turned to computers to aid us in our drawing. Artists and designers have been putting pen to paper for centuries but since the invention of computers, design has slowly been digitised. Programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Xara and Inkscape offer the designer a way to
create designs that they can easily modify, share, tweak and publish without pen ever touching paper. Now there is no fear of having to erase mistakes, losing designs, designs getting damaged, photocopying, scanning and all the other hassle that comes with working on paper. With the computer, you can draw and save, make backup copies at the click of a mouse button, email the drawing to share with manufacturers, quickly modify or manipulate. With a couple of clicks, you can colour a whole area in seconds that would have taken minutes with a colour pencil, or add a line of stitching by checking a box that says “dashed line”. That same line of stitching could have taken half an hour if done by hand, not to mention the fact that if you had to do 10 lines of stitching by hand, you’d be going cross eyed. Working on computers saves designers. It saves them time, it saves them effort, and it even saves the environment with the decrease in paper consumption. Yet with the digital age becoming our saviour in design, I still miss the days when all you could do was put pen to paper. As people adopted programs like Illustrator into their way of working, it spread across the industry. Now that everyone speaks computer, it does no good to spend time and effort drawing something beautiful and sending it to product developers, factories and managers. Your drawing cannot be opened and edited by them like they can with a digital file. I’m not saying that people will no longer understand your design, they will, but taking a step backwards towards pen and paper means you’ve taken that convenience away. I’m a champion of convenience and efficiency, and I think bringing design and drawing into the digital age is important, if not vital. If there’s any way to speed up a job and improve the outcome, I’m all for it.
But even with this wonderful convenience and efficiency, I still miss the beautiful organic nature of drawing by hand. Drawings are personal, and each artist or designer has their own signature that comes out within their use of line. A drawing done by hand is unique, one of a kind. Although you can add an element personal style and finesse to digital drawings, there is still something inorganic about them. They can be copied directly with ease, and distributed around the globe so that everyone has their own modifiable copy of your drawing. Yet that is entirely the point. If computers hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t allowed to us to be able to make identical, changeable sketches to distribute as we liked, we would all still be toiling at our desks, fretting over smudgy fingerprints and wobbly lines. However, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something charming about those wobbly shapes, those little hints of fret and worry in the pencil lines, the little pieces of ourselves that we put into our art. Something human, something that I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think the digital world of design will ever quite be able to capture. Now that I spend my days drawing on the computer, when I do take the time at home to draw something by hand, it feels like a secret pleasure, a privilege. Perhaps the advantage of moving from analogue to digital in the design world is that now we can take the time to appreciate the tradition of hand drawing, it is no longer something that we must worry over, but something we can enjoy and treasure.
- Rose Whittaker
HAIRPIN D ATA T
he woman had a hundred heads, all fashionably resting on her shoulders. She was traveling with her greedy ovaries. The therapist had said, if you meet a father on the road, empty his stomach, for there are basset hounds in there, and you will need your sewing machine to bring your own pastel birds to sing soprano in your hand. The weather was bouffant, with every hair in place, plastered with sadness, like a birdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nest critical of the tree, where stuntmen were reading the right books on family planning, trying to undress the missiles already pointing 30 degrees east.
- Lise Phillips
CHARMS ALL O’ERTHROWN a little known encounter during the final months of katherine mansfield’s life in 1922
A
re you a reader? Do you read then...? Katherine’s words seemed exiled from her mouth. These mechanical attempts at friendship felt almost quaint and yet for this moment she wanted this coffee and this table cloth with the bold tulip detail and yes, she wanted this woman to stay.
Chestnut eyes for autumn and a sudden hand took her silver spoon and gently tapped her nose. ‘’One tap for yes, two for definitely, three for a whole day with me. Think carefully Madame Writer, you have just this minute to make up your mind.’’ Dark brown fire.
Two women with green baskets entered the cafe and sat over in the corner by an ancient dog. The small hands were busy at the sugar again and the old Katherine might have frowned at the distraction, at the silence, but today she smiled in her newly faded way and held up her own spoon. ‘’ Try this - perhaps you might like...’’
Flecks of life. Katherine borrowed the spoon back and held the cupped end to her nose. She inhaled as gently as she dared. Warm metallic embers. Gardenia. The dog shifted a sleeping paw. The spoon moved once, twice and then why not, once again. The magical promise
of the three, the wisdom of the trinity. It was better than writing letters to those friends she would never meet again, better than watching the cat growing bored with her silent company. This was a real here. Somehow a now had returned with the laces on the ice and the burnt chestnut eyes. The green baskets held their breath. ‘’Wonderful. Truly. Now your day can begin whenever you want it to. There will be no dawn or dusk until you decide. So shall they be. We be. You are in perfect control of your- our destiny. Katherine. If you say my name again I will cry. But the woman didn’t hear this thought and the new friend said Katherine again and it didn’t matter and it didn’t matter that it didn’t matter, because they had their day, all day.
- Janet Lewison
- Janet Lewison
FACE-TO-FACE CONTACT IS NO LONGER NECESSARY TO MAINTAIN A FRIENDSHIP Well: Brandon fell into a creek Austin quoted Joshua Emma started the 30 Day Challenge because she was bored Matt met a new fish friend at Shedd Aquarium Dominic is attending the event “Gas Strike” Resa is not enjoying this day Christopher’s washer is “such a piece of shit!!!!!!!!!!” Mark and Summer like John Mayer Kelly knows that “Adventure is out there!” Daniel said that Connor got published... (CONNOR GOT PUBLISHED?!) Thanks Facebook for raping me of my friendships... Wait! I was just invited to the “Mac’n’Cheese Matinee with feature film: Despicable Me” at Bethel Church.
- Shannon Cassady
A SPECIAL
COLLECTION
W
hen considering potential content for analogue v digital one thing we always knew we wanted to talk about was books. After that it only seemed natural to get an interview with someone with a real passion and understanding of some of the most amazing books around. So we approached Jane Pendlebury a librarian in MMU’s Sir Kenneth Green Library, who works within the Special Collections to see what she thought about the world of digital and physical books.
First of all books are not like your average consumer item. You’re not just buying the text, a book lives with you, it becomes part of your house and your life. The books I own say something about me as a person, I think everyone’s collection of books does. I can’t throw my books away whereas it seems easy to delete a digital one? For me, books evoke memories you can dip into again and again. They have inscriptions; they’re gifts. They hold the memory of when you first read or bought
the book, it tells not only its own story but also that of you and the time it was produced. For me this simply doesn’t come across in a digital version. A physical book can tell you so many things. In the special collections it can show you the history of book production, it’s important to see the change in printing techniques. Also for subjects like art and design that are very visual, students want the actual book in front of them. Paper and print quality can transform a piece, you need its tactile reality in order to understand the techniques that went into making the book. The quality of electronic books just isn’t high enough for art and design yet. Part of the reading of a book, particularly an artists’ book is in the physical understanding of it as an object. The format of a book dictates the way it’s read. An author will use it to disrupt or regulate a narrative. By being able to see the book in its entirety and flip back and forth you can better understand its narrative structure. This just isn’t possible
on a screen. The sequential nature of books is important; many artists’ books in the special collection exploit that. People create work that tells a story only as you turn the page, could you replicate that on screen? A book that relies on a flipbook technique for example, you couldn’t replicate that on a computer. The way the reader can change the text on the screen takes away the authorship in some ways, it becomes altered from the author’s intention. You need to be able to see it, feel it, smell it, to have a real understanding. With one of my favourite artists books you have to be able to see that its really heavily inked, part of the pleasure of it is in the smell of the ink. The binding is also beautiful, and details like the end papers make it what it is. The scale of it also changes your perception, reading a large tome differs to the experience of reading a pamphlet. The kindle is much smaller and slimmer than I expected it to be, and it’s interesting that all the books on it have to be that size. That and the lack of double page spreads have created new restraints for book design in that format. It will be interesting to see how layouts are developed for it. What happens to the layout of a print book made into an e-book can be perturbing. A computers lack of respect for white space can completely change a book. In my experience digitisation of books in general is often done in an unsympathetic way. The digitisation of ‘Tristram Shandy’ a novel by Laurence Sterne offers an example of this. As a physical book it breaks with
the conventions of layout and printing, it includes an entirely black page to represent the death of someone. I believe that In the later digital edition however the page was removed, completely changing the way the author had intended the book to be read. In terms of the special collections we don’t stock any books in a purely digital form. However a few artists’ books have mini discs or CDs but the technology quickly becomes obsolete. Often they have never been watched but presumably they enhance them in some way. For me it’s questionable whether there is any value in having the extra digital part; without additional technology, the books are unreadable. Despite these problems I think there is some scope for digital artists books, some artists have begun using the Internet alongside their work. The future holds possibilities of experimentation with the digital form. Of course the relationship between reader and book differs with each media, but in some ways you could say that all reading is virtual, what happens in that space between the reader and the book is there no matter what the form. Though for me, ultimately printed matter is easier to read, and the power of a physical object will always be there.
-Anna Frew
Analogue <3 Digital: Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t we all just get along?!
H O U RS what woul d y o u c a p t u re ?
H
ours is a monthly zine that encourages the use of imagination and documentation through manual photography (i.e a disposable camera) which requires initiative and consideration as the photographs cannot be edited. One artist / photographer / creative thinker is chosen each month and given 24 hours to fill the camera they are given, and the photos are then turned into a publication.
consider each and every frame. Even the photographer of each issue will not see their own photographs until the zine is printed and launched. It is an almost sentimental look back at analogue photography; the excitement of taking a film to a developers, and the uncertainty of how the images will turn out. We hope that when our readers receive their copies, they feel that same excitement and are encouraged to experiment with analogue once more.
The person chosen is done so at random (literally pulled out of a hat), with anyone able to submit, from anywhere, each month. So far, the disposable cameras have travelled around Barry Island, Cardiff and Leeds, and one is currently in Melbourne, Australia. This freedom of submission is integral to the zine, rather than becoming a who’s who of current art/photography scenes, it opens photography as a medium up to anyone. The simplicity of the camera itself negates editing, it focuses the frame on a subject, a moment that someone wanted to capture, not tinker with later.
We, the co-editors are Molly Rooke and Matthew Shearer, both recent graduates from the Cardiff School of Art and Design. Molly’s practice is digital printmaking and screen-printing, and Matthew’s focus is collage and street art. Hours takes elements from both of these areas, without editing the photos take consideration, and the 24 hours can become a narrative or journey not unlike a series of prints, yet it is accessible to all, and self-run, like street art. Conceived initially as a reaction to post-graduation boredom, Hours has surpassed all our expectations and has struck a chord with people all over the world.
In an age where digital photography is king, and photos can be uploaded to sites such as Facebook instantly, Hours invites the camera holder to take a journey, to take a risk, to feel excited about seeing photographs again, and being unable to delete, to edit or discard any - to savor and
Hours aims to set up a continuing dialogue with it’s contributors, if given 24 hours, what would you capture? - Molly & Matthew
Hours
HEY
VAYJAYJAY
Just a quick note to let you know I enjoyed our last little visit. Even though it’s only been eleven minutes I just can’t wait to stop by again. Behind the house, fifteen minutes... You feelin’ me?
- Katie Moore
- Home of a book
- Home of a Kindle
ANALOGUE V DIGITAL:
CAN YOU REALLY BAT FOR BOTH TEAMS?
T
eam analogue or team digital? It is the question on everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lips, some believe it is time to stop hanging on to old ideas and processes and embrace the new, I however donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think it is as clear cut as that. As an embroidery graduate I am very much team analogue. I have always been taught to work onto paper and with physical materials before even considering moving the designs into a digital realm. I think that by learning to create work using analogue techniques I am at an advantage, I was taught to understand how physical processes can affect materials and designs, giving me an opportunity to play without the limitations that are sometimes felt when working digitally. However, as a self-employed textile designer I am becoming ever increasingly team digital. The costs of setting myself up as a designer with screen-printing facilities and sewing machines are astronomical compared to the cost of sending a design
to a digital printing company. The business side of my brain is therefore applauding the digital age that we now live in, you can produce bespoke designs on a computer therefore reducing the amount of studio space required (more cost saving) and have them printed and finished somewhere else, whilst working on the next design. This may sound like an ideal scenario however it most defiantly has its drawbacks. It is incredible that this technology is available for new designer like myself to access at a reasonable price, allowing anyone who wants to, a chance to set themselves up as a designer. Although my heart will always lean towards analogue design, new technology led techniques have allowed me to push my experiments with materials and processes. My discovery of laser cutting allowed me to take my hand-cut designs and apply them to materials that I could never have considered cutting by hand. I am forever striving to find a balance between the
analogue side of my brain and the digital side, and ways to apply new technologies whilst embracing the old. The concept of the old way of design working in harmony with the new is an exciting one, it would mean a world where one was not eclipsed by the other. In my opinion we are currently in a situation where digital is favoured over analogue, universities are discarding facilities such as screen-printing and letterpress and replacing them with computer rooms. An over reliance on digital design in education could lead to traditional techniques dying out, and a generation of designers who cannot work outside of Photoshop, and who lack fundamental design, process and materials knowledge. Photoshop is undoubtedly a wonderful tool but it like everything else in the digital world has its limitations whereas when left with materials, imagination and good design sense anything is possible. However I fear that by removing physical making from the equation new designers will not be given the opportunity to build a good foundation from which they can move in any direction. I certainly don’t think that it is acceptable for a designer to be computer illiterate: at a recent interview I was asked if I could comfortably use creative suite. If I had said no I am sure this would have raised questions about whether I had been: A. in a cave for the past three years rather than at university and B. whether I was really serious about my future career. I am a diehard fan of doing things by hand initially, but I am also a realist and I know that to get on in the world of design you have to
be able to translate your ideas into a more easily reproducible format. To expect to get by without a basic knowledge of Photoshop is naïve, but to rely on it is dangerous. Many digital technologies are designed to emulate analogue practices Photoshop is designed to emulate the processes of a dark room, and illustrator can be used instead of drawing by hand. Both of these tools can be used to create great design when used carefully and they are fantastically clever, however in a solely digital world you will never experience the thrill of accidentally printing the wrong colour and it looking fantastic. It could of course look horrible but that’s the great part of analogue design, design is safer in a digital world as it can always be deleted, but where’s the fun in that? Without technology design would struggle to move forward and it will be a sad day when people stop trying to push technological boundaries. However, when pushing technological boundaries we must not forget that there are analogue boundaries to be explored too. The techniques may be traditional but without them programs such as Photoshop wouldn’t have been developed and if we disregard them entirely then centuries of skill and tradition will disappear with the click of a mouse. So when trying to pick a team, remember that both are valuable but without one the other wouldn’t exist, and perhaps playing a little for both teams will lead to a new and exciting age of design.
- Georgia Bosson
- Katie Mason
review :
ST I R R E D A
casual Facebook invitation from a friend, lead to a quick google, and then i knew I was onto something when I hit Stirred’s homepage. The night, which was created by Anna Percy with support from co-host Rebecca Audra Smith, acts as platform for the female voice to be heard. “It is about participating in a mutually heard female voice, generating new talent and creating new audiences.” All notions that as an editor at Vapid Kitten I thoroughly approve of. Which left me thinking - hold on a minute, why haven’t I been there yet! So off I went with writer friend Crystal in tow, to Sandbar a venue , which past experience has lead me to expect arty entertainment. We soon discovered that for early arrivals there is a creative writing mini workshop in which you can practice a bit of the writerly craft before having performing in the open mic session. Crystal and I however got involved in another part of the night that explored ‘a poets shoes.’ Which, as it was International Women’s day was designed to explore the identity of female writers. Participants were asked to draw their shoes and then write a poem about them, something which Crystal and I got quite carried away with. After spending far too long drawing our shoes everyone’s efforts were stuck up on the wall. This was a great way of getting people who were perhaps reluctant to
perform actively involved in the night. After this the night proper began, being International Women’s day there was stricter than usual adherence to the rules. This is that performers should only perform work of female origin. Up front was the open mic section, a section that would usually make my heart sink. However the standard was great and thoroughly entertaining, with a lovely mixture of styles and performers. Following this was readings from Rosie Garland, Sue Fox and Jackie Hagan. I particularly enjoyed watching Sue Fox, which was made even better as the relaxed atmosphere meant It was easy to go and have a chat with her afterwards. The night was great fun and the organisers and the rest of the audience were really friendly and approachable. A lovely night for poetry fans, and a wonderful opportunity for newer writers to spread their wings and try out performing some of their work.
Stirred takes place on the first Monday of the month in Sandbar (Manchester) and is only £1 to attend. The open mic starts at 7.30pm, 5 minute slots can be booked through stirredwomen@gmail.com, but performers are welcome to sign up on the night. Find them on facebook at Stirred Poetry.
FUTURE SUBMISSIONS
O
h hello! So you’ve finished reading? How wonderful. Did you enjoy it? Think you could do it better?
Are you an illustrator, a writer, a photographer, or even an indefinable creative lovely and want to get involved? Here’s how. The next theme will be:
Aesthetically Pleasing Important points The final submission date for all work is the 31st June All work should be emailed to: wearevapid@gmail.com We will email everyone back, because we hate it when people don’t reply to us.
Requirements If you would like to submit a piece of creative writing, please attach it as a word file saved as your name and email it to us. Include a short biography about yourself in the email. Please note, the word limit for creative writing pieces is 500 words. If you’d like to write us an article please email us with a short outline of what you propose. If you would like to produce some artwork or illustrations, please email us either with examples of what you would like to submit, or a proposal for the work you would like to produce. If you have any questions, or a more unusual proposal please feel free to email us.
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