Elsie Magazine #1

Elsie

31 / 03 / 2021

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Contents There is a lot of content, however, there are no page numbers (which won’t please my Dad) - so it’s pretty pointless listing them all here. Does anyone actually use a contents page anyway? It’s much more exciting to flick through and be surprised and intrigued by what’s coming next. That’s my excuse anyway... and it’s saved me a shed load of time designing a contents page!

© Les Jones 2021 www.elsiemagazine.co.uk

Hello...

Elsie

And so the journey starts... ...who knows where we will go, who we will meet, what adventures we’ll have along the way.

One thing is for sure...it won’t be dull or boring!

Thank you for getting on board, you have shown razor sharp foresight or simple curiosity - either way, you’re here and I love you for it.

Elsie Magazine is for you - it’s here to uplift, inspire, inform and entertain you.

What’s more, you can be part of it.

Please get involved, you’re very welcome.

skips

Dividers

Every issue of Elsie will have a different theme for the pages that divide the articles - a series of visual sorbets palate cleansers for the eyes.

This month’s article dividers are provided by pictures of skips - artfully isolated from their backgrounds and placed on flat colours. These are things of beauty, please treat them with love and respect.

Before we get into it...

I feel I should introduce myself, for those who have not interacted with Elsie Magazine before.

with things like the website, social media and lots of other stuff - giving me more time to concentrate on the magazine.

My name is Les Jones, I’m a designer, photographer, artist (I think), writer and speaker not necessarily in that order.

Elsie might be a one-man magazine, but I want it to grow into a creative community of people who are able to create content and drive the magazine into new and exciting areas.

I launched Elsie Magazine about ten years ago as a way of bringing together all my personal projects and interests.

Till now, Elsie has always been a printed magazine (and it still will be, on an annual basis).

However, during the first lockdown I gave myself the task of producing a free digital Elsie Magazine every week as something to do and to give people a little creativity boost at the end of each week.

I lasted two months before real work got in the way. However, the experience was a positive one and I realised there was an opportunity to engage and interact with a wider audience, more often. And so, I’ve grasped the nettle and taken Elsie online as a monthly digital magazine. My daughter, Molly, has joined me to help

If you’ve subscribed - thank you - you don’t know how happy that makes me. If you like Elsie, please spread the word - a solid and growing subscriber base is the only way the magazine will become sustainable over the long term.

You’ll find that there are lots of ways to get involved, so please do - you can’t get it wrong!

Anyway, that’s enough of the intro for now - let’s get into the first edition of the new digital Elsie Magazine...enjoy!

Playlist

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In each edition of Elsie Magazine I’ll be featuring a playlist from a subscriber. So, if you feel like sharing your favourite tracks with the Elsie community - go to the website and register your interest. The idea is, you can download the playlist and play it along as you enjoy your latest edition.

To get the ball rolling, here’s mine. A playlist to dance around your kitchen to.

To listen to the playlist, you can find it in the members area or download the tracks via your streaming service.

1. Wildfires Sault

6. Over and over Hot Chip

I stumbled on this track when listening to end of year recommendations on Spotify. It’s an instant classic great beat, great melody and very atmospheric.

I went to see Hot Chip about five years ago and they were awesome - this is a great song with an infectious beat.

2. Misstra know-it-all Stevie Wonder I LOVE this song! A master craftsman at the absolute top of his game. Warm and enveloping like a big bear hug.

3. Sound and Vision David Bowie

7. Lust for Life Iggy Pop A monster of a song with one of the best (and longest) intros ever.

Apparently, Pop improvised many of the lyrics whilst recording. Bowie provided the music.

8. Road Lane 8, Arctic Lake

A perfect example of the genius of David Bowie. A song that sounds as fresh and innovative today as it was when it was released in 1977 - and Mary Hopkin on backing vocals!

Lane 8 is the US DJ and producer, Daniel Goldstein. I came across his music via Poliça who do guest vocals on his latest album. I love the laid back, melancholic feel of this track, which is also great for dancing to.

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4. Hour of need Faithless

9. Alysha Mehmet Aslan

This was on a Faithless album that I picked up in an HMV sale, because I liked the cover! Great song that’s a bit different from much of their other stuff, with a beautiful gospel vibe throughout.

I heard this on 6Music driving home from work one day and immediately downloaded it when I got in. I don’t know anything about the artist, but the track has got a great feel to it.

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10. Once in a lifetime Talking Heads

5. Do I love you (indeed I do) Frank Wilson A Northern Soul classic that you can’t help but dance to. As far as I’m aware, it’s never been a hit - but it’s still doing the business every week at Northern Soul events across the UK.

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This takes me back to my first year in college, dancing at the Student’s Union. A brilliant, inventive track that is different and memorable at the same time - you have to marvel at David Byrne’s creativity.

Consider, if you will, the odds of this happening...

My name is Les. Last year, during the summer, I’d been doing a lot of collage work. I was really enjoying it, however, I’d started thinking about how I could get some bigger graphics and textures to use in some pieces. I had the idea of finding some large advertising hoardings that were either peeling away or had dropped off. I sat on that idea for a number of weeks then, one Friday afternoon when the sun was shining, I spontaneously thought ‘this is the day’. I grabbed my car keys and a backpack and I headed out. I decided to go to the town of Stoke, in Stoke-on-Trent, but I could quite as easily have chosen one of eight to ten other locations. I arrived in Stoke, parked up and walked into the town to find some advertising hoardings that fitted the bill. I trundled around for over an hour...nothing!

So, I started to turn my attention to other sources - paste up posters on windows or walls perhaps...still nothing. Dejected, I decided to head back to my car. Then, as I walked onto the High Street, I noticed a small piece of paper lying face down on the pavement.

It wasn’t anywhere near the size I was looking for, but desperation had set in. So I walked over to it, thought about it for a few seconds and then bent over and picked it up. When I turned it over, I was amazed to see what was on the other side...it’s on the next page.

Seriously...consider the odds and then freak!

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Coming next...this month’s creative challenges...

I snapped this in Lyme Regis

your monthly creative challenges Interaction is the name of the game with Elsie.

Each month there will be lots of ways in which you can interact and help to create content for future issues. The first of which is a set of monthly challenges - simple things that you can do in just a few minutes, or certainly no more than an hour. You can do all of them or some of them, but please don’t do none of them.

£4.50 to see David Bowie, not bad, eh?

I first saw Bowie on the Thin White Duke tour in 1976.

This ticket was for the Heroes tour two years later.

I’ve no idea why Stafford Bingley Hall was chosen as a venue - it’s an agricultural show ground and the hall itself is usually used for antique fairs, not concerts.

My father drove me and some friends from Cardiff to the gig in his orange camper van and we camped at Uttoxeter Racecourse.

The tour saw a more relaxed Bowie, back in control of his life after the ‘forgotten’ cocaine influenced years spent in America in the mid 70s.

I remember the first ‘song’ of the set was Warzawa from the Low album - a synth heavy track that moves at an ethereal pace - the audience was numbed - but the next track was ‘Heroes’ and the place went wild.

The fan belt went on the van on the way home and I ended up hitch-hiking on the hard shoulder of the M6 to get to the nearest garage - not advised.

Deadline: 23.04.21

Ref:

Instructions

DIG OUT AN OLD CONCERT TICKET

Rummage through your drawers or that old box you keep for special mementoes and ephemera and find a ticket from a gig that you’ve kept. Place it on a white sheet of paper in even ambient daylight (by a window or open door is good) and take a photo on your phone.

Then send it with a few well chosen words to: hello@elsiemagazine.co.uk

I picked up this Walkers Chipsticks box from our village shop - it had lots of possibilities with the restricted colour palette and typography. In fact, you could probably create four or five collages from it. It was good fun, and I like the result. Try it - it’s very relaxing and there’s no right or wrong - whatever you do, is whatever you do.

This one took about 45 minutes from start to finish.

Deadline: 23.04.21

Ref:

Instructions

CREATE A COLLAGE FROM A BOX

Pop to your local corner shop or supermarket and ask if they have any empty boxes - perhaps previously used for frozen peas or Monster Munch.

Take said box home and use it to create a new collage - the size is up to you - but A4 is about right. Enjoy the tactile and immersive process of creating something new and beautiful from something so ordinary.

Photograph it in good light and send it, with your name and a title, to: hello@elsiemagazine.co.uk

This is a portrait of a friend who was sat in a small armchair in my living room. It was done without looking down at the paper. It’s actually not too bad, however, his face does seem to have migrated to his chest.

I love doing these drawings it’s a method that takes away any apprehension about the marks that you’re making - because you can’t see them until you’re finished.

Deadline: 23.04.21

Ref:

Instructions

ONE MINUTE BLIND DRAWING

Arm yourself with a sheet of white paper and something that you can use to draw - a pen, pencil, crayon - it’s your choice. Then find a subject; a real life person, a building or perhaps a still life scene - and then do a very quick, one minute drawing without looking down at the page. It’s a liberating experience and the results are never less than intriguing.

Photograph your drawing in good light, and send it to: hello@elsiemagazine.co.uk

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Coming next...some interesting collectors...

Collectors

I’m fascinated by collectors and their collections what drives them, what got them started and the sheer breadth and depth of their collections.

So, every month I’ll be introducing you to collectors from the UK and further afield. People who have a passion for a particular item. They’ll share that passion and we can all delight in the wonderful things they have to show.

In this first issue, we have:

saws & security envelopes what a treat!

Beautiful Beasts Anne’s Saws Anne Kernan is not so much a collector as a walking museum. Her flat is filled with a cornucopia of items from hammers to oil cans, dolls to human teeth! She’s a compulsive collector with a passion for the unusual. On a wall in her hallway, she has a collection of saws - an interesting first impression for visitors.

Hi Anne...where do saws come in the order of your many collections?

It’s a recent one, in the last five years I’d say. I had one saw in my hallway and I remember a friend remarking about the fact that it wasn’t very welcoming and I just never thought anything of it. I’d got a couple of saws, they were part of my wider collection of tools around different parts of the house I also had a couple of saws in my tool box, working saws.

Then two separate friends gave me a couple of big saws and that’s when I started to amalgamate them, to bring the saws together, and when I realised quite how many I’d actually got.

How many do you think you have got now?

I think it would be 25 to 30, something like that.

What’s the fascination?

I don’t know, it’s really weird, it’s not something I’ve consciously thought about.

I think it’s that they’re so diverse - they all do different jobs. There’s the two-man saw, tiny little saws, piercing saws - they do so many different things. And the wonderful shapes, it’s a creative challenge to fit them all together on the wall. There’s something wonderful about them though. I don’t think they’re threatening at all, and I had a conversation with my friend recently and she hadn’t been into my flat since I’d got the whole wall of saws, and she mentioned the one saw and I said ‘well actually, you’d want to see it now, how unwelcoming it is’. They can be quite vicious looking but there’s beauty in them as well.

There is a sort of ‘beauty and the beast’ within them.

They’re destructive in their nature but the shapes and the craftsmanship makes them quite beautiful and quite graphic.

The contrast of the metal and the wood is really nice as well.

There’s something wonderful about them.

I don’t think they’re threatening at all.

‘‘

Do you know how old they are or where they came from?

No, I’m not that kind of collector, it’s about the aesthetic for me.

It’s the way they look and that for me is the main thing. I think when you start collecting things in that manner, you can’t finish a collection. There’s always one saw you need to fulfil your collection.

Do you have a favourite?

The first one I got was the really big one, the two-person saw and that’s a statement. That one I had on the wall on its own and that was fine for me, some of them I wouldn’t put on the wall on their own, they’re not strong enough, but as a collection they’re fine. I bought a hacksaw, a really nice

When I want to buy a saw I just think, ‘it’s only two bottles of wine’, there’s always some kind of economic rationale that you can make to yourself.

hacksaw, and I paid more money than I’d ever paid for a tool, more than I wanted to or that I felt that I should pay. I thought it was really expensive, but I knew I had to have it.

Can you describe that moment, when you know ‘you had to have it’?

It’s more that I want to walk away, and I don’t really want to spend the money, but if I walk away I’ll regret it, and I’ll not stop thinking about it. I’ve done things like that, where I’ve walked away and got upset that I didn’t buy something.

When I want to buy a saw I just think, ‘it’s only two bottles of wine’, there’s always some kind of economic rationale that you can make to yourself.

Is there any plan to bring it all to the public’s attention?

I’ve started photographing and cataloguing everything I own, it’s on my website now. Maybe a book, I’m quite into book binding, I did a course and got really into that.

When I first moved into my flat about 20 years ago. I thought to myself ‘I’m going to be minimalist now’ - I had one row of hammers and a few bits and pieces. It looked a bit like an art gallery. But I think I like collecting too much, so clutter is the new minimal!

You can check out a selection of Anne’s wide ranging collections at: www.annekernan.com

Security envelopes James Folta is a writer, editor and comedian living and working in New York. He has a growing collection of patterned security envelopes that has become a mild obsession. We met via Zoom to chat about the collection and James’ fascination with something most of us wouldn’t give a second glance to.

‘‘

I was attracted to the weird camouflage I found inside envelopes.

Hi James, give me a bit of background into how you first got into it, what first tuned you into these envelopes?

I’m a writer and editor and I make a lot of daily lists.

I felt bad filling up notebooks with these daily scribbles so I just started utilising used envelopes to recycle paper.

As I was carefully unfolding and shredding mail I started noticing the patterns inside of the security envelopes, mostly from banks or credit card companies. I studied architecture and one of the things that always fascinated me was camouflage in the built world, especially in metro systems around the world - buildings that look like one thing but hide another thing, like the vents for the New York subway.

So I was attracted to the weird everyday camouflage I found inside envelopes.

They’re really quite beautiful, the patterns are so striking and I think I started pulling them out just out of curiosity and as I started noticing them

I started getting curious about how many there were out there.

When I first looked at them I thought maybe there’s one or two - that every big envelope company has one pattern and that’s what they print. So maybe there’s four variations out there and so I just started thinking ‘let me see if I can get a complete collection’ and it just started growing and growing.

I think I have about forty unique patterns now and I find a new one about once a month. There’s a lot of common ones I see more often now.

It’s funny because once you’ve tuned into something, you cannot not pay attention to it. I guess every time you see an envelope you must want to peek inside.

It is strange. People will send me pictures asking ‘have you seen this one before?’ I have a friend that has his own little stack to give to me to see if there’s any overlap.

As a comedy writer, tuning into stuff is something that I’ve learned to do. I have a friend who refers to it as ‘when your eyebrow raises up’ when you notice something in the world that strikes you as off or funny in some way that you can then spin into something. It feels like that - tuning in, I like that phrase a lot. Now I’m just an envelope guy, every envelope I see I wonder what the inside look like.

Have you started thinking about what you’re going to do with them...does the project lead somewhere?

I don’t know, it was something I was quietly doing on my own, nobody really noticed.

But now that it’s had a little bit of publicity everyone, either good natured or more pointedly, is wondering where this is heading.

I like using it for collage and I could imagine the patterns as a collection of shirts or fabrics. I think the patterns are really interesting. But for now I’m just filling up this folder, seeing if I can reach the end of the possibilities.

What about founding The Security Envelope Appreciation Society?

Ha! Something to think about!

One thing that might be a next step is to talk with someone who designs these. I know that there’s someone out there, and it’s just going to require a bit more free time.

I’m curious what the logic is, the function of it is obvious, it scrambles the visuals of what’s inside but I’m curious about what goes into the decisionmaking behind the industrial process of something like this.

What patterns are more useful than others, is there a printing concern?

Perhaps you could find a way to influence the design of future ones. It would be interesting if, rather than just using patterns, you had an envelope that did the same job functionally, but was actually all prose from Shakespeare, or some kind of poetry or inspirational quotes or things that you wouldn’t usually find in an envelope but become a part of the customer experience almost.

I think there’s lots of fun opportunities. It could be something you’d see on a kids cereal box, where you get four of them together and they make a new thing.

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As a comedy writer, tuning into stuff is something that I’ve learned to do.

‘‘

somebody is getting the chance to design something that is interesting and unique.

As a writer, something that’s very fascinating to me is if you could write a story and serialise it over a number of envelopes. The story would be chopped up and placed all over these different envelopes.

Every letter or card that I would send to a friend would have parts 1-5 of some story.

I think there’s a lot of really interesting narratives.

It definitely feels like a project that is nearer to its start than its conclusion I would agree, I imagine if I were a designer who worked for Staples or something, there’s probably not a lot that’s as exciting as designing a security envelope.

I don’t want to assume what that job is like but it seems to me that the more of these designs I see, that there’s somebody who is getting the chance to design something that is interesting and unique and more graphically brash and bold than an envelope designer probably gets to do.

So I think that’s what also feels special about these. I’m completely assuming this, but my sense is that there’s someone that’s completely getting to do the most creative and bold work through these little envelopes.

Let’s face it...you’re already tuned in - resistance is futile.

When that next bank statement arrives, there will be only one thing you’re interested in...the pattern on the inside.

So, photograph them, send them over and we’ll build the UK collection to sit alongside James’ US version.

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Coming next...a bit of street photography...

of mine for a few years now and it’s one of the things that I’ve missed the most during the various lockdowns. The great thing about publishing my own magazine is that it gives me licence to approach the street photographers whose work I admire and ask them for an interview.

And that’s what I’ll be doing in each edition of Elsie Magazine. To start us off,

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Street photography has been a passion

I had the recent pleasure of chatting with Toby Binder, a street photographer based in Germany whose gritty, documentary photography has been winning a number

of awards. We talked about the projects he did around football in Scotland and young people in Belfast.

You’re from Germany, you move to New York and then, you end up photographing in Scotland…

I was in New York in 2003, then I came back to Stuttgart to get my degree in 2005. For my degree, I had the idea to do a project about football in Scotland. I love Scotland and I love football, so I thought it was a good combination. I find it interesting that Scottish people are so passionate about football, just like the English, but the English teams are far more successful. I like the combination of not always being good at something but still having the love and the passion for it. So, I did a project about football in Scotland, mainly kids in the streets, looking at living conditions of young people, especially in the workingclass neighbourhoods, the kids were always out on the streets playing football so that was how I got into that topic.

So, when you went to Scotland it was a love of football and the

country itself that drew you. Then you went to Belfast, what was the driver behind that?

I first went to Belfast in 2006.

I’d been to Edinburgh before, to Dundee, Glasgow and to Liverpool.

I thought all these cities (except Edinburgh) had similar industrial backrounds and that’s why I chose to have a look at Belfast. When the Brexit referendum came, most of the European media just focused on the cities that voted in a big majority for or against Brexit but I had a look at the numbers and I saw that in Belfast that you had this division in the middle of the city. All the protestants voted to leave and the catholic people voted to remain and I thought that it’s maybe a good idea to go back. So I went back in 2017 and started this project, ‘Wee Muckers’ that ended in the book.

I like the combination of not always being good at something but still having the love and the passion for it.

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Hi Toby. Can you give me a little bit of background about you and how you first got into photography.

I studied graphic design in Stuttgart, and then I had an internship as an assistant to Abe Frajndlich, the New York based photographer.

I accompanied him to all his shoots, but when there was nothing to do he just sent me out to the streets of New York and told me to ‘go, go out and bring back photos’. So that was the first time I got in touch with street photography. just walking through all the neighbourhoods. I think that New York experience was somehow the beginning of the kind of photography I do today.

How do you engage with people and gain their trust to allow you to photograph them. Do you have a particular way in which you approach people?

I think it’s always best if you’re just open and honest and tell people why you want to photograph them and what you intend to do with the shots.

I think to build real trust takes time.

When I meet people for the first time, I don’t take many photographs, maybe one or two quick shots, but no more. Then I go back and they know who I am and I build things from there. Gaining people’s trust is the first step, then it’s hard work to make them forget that I’m there - to act naturally.

Do you think it helped that you weren’t a part of the community for them to trust you or did you have to get past that in some way?

I got in touch with some Belfast photographers who grew up in the city and they really helped me a lot,

guys who knew the neighbourhoods and the history and who could gain access quicker. However, I think being from the outside was also an advantage. I could move from one neighbourhood to another without bias – I was just an interested observer.

It was interesting because I shot the whole project on film so I couldn’t show people the photos immediately, but when I came back I always brought the prints from last time and showed them, and they seemed to really like it. It was good to see that they liked the photos I took, even more interesting was that they looked at the photos and they just kept on going and wanting to see the photos from the other side, saying ‘we have never been there’ or seen how it looks there. It was interesting to find that they didn’t know what was going on five minutes away from them.

Gaining people’s trust is the first step, then it’s hard work to make them forget that I’m there - to act naturally.

‘‘

How did you make the connection with the people you were meeting and photographing?

The idea was to focus on the young people. The Referendum was all about their future, but they were not allowed to vote. The interactions were relatively easy because the young people are always on the street and you can just meet them. I realised very quickly that if I go to the corner shop that is in every neighbourhood, the young people will show up sooner or later and if I hang out there I will be in touch with them. Of course, when I went back the second and the third time, I met the same people over and over again. So the relationships were growing all the time.

So you were actually giving them an insight into the other side of their own city.

Yes, and I think that they could see that the kids from the other side were just the same as them.

Why did you decide to shoot on film as opposed to digital?

That’s always difficult to answer.

I started the Scottish project on film, and I just wanted to keep it going that way. It’s good for the way I work, you think twice before you take your photo, and you take your time. If you spend all day with the kids you have enough time, you don’t have to shoot quickly, you can really think about the pictures you’re looking for. Sometimes it’s good if you force yourself to slow down - and I love spending time in the darkroom.

What was really interesting for me is that many of the photographs bridged different eras. They could quite easily have be taken in the 60’s and 70’s in terms of their style and subject. Is that something that you’re conscious of?

I’ve heard that a lot. I think it’s interesting because if you have a look at the clothes when I started in Scotland, all the kids are wearing Nike and Adidas, and now I’ve noticed that it’s changing to Patagonia and Under Armour - you can see how things are changing. But you’re right, maybe it’s because it’s black and white, maybe it’s because I shot in neighbourhoods that didn’t really change a lot since the 60’s and the environment is still very similar.

What do you think are the messages that come out of that photography?

Are there things you try to communicate or do you feel you’re

more about recording something and letting people make their own mind up?

I think first of all it’s an observation, giving people the opportunity to see places they don’t go to or know.

In Belfast there was this unique background of two opposing parties.

However, there’s always some kind of intention, I definitely want to create some kind of empathy.

There is some sort of prejudice wherever you go and it’s good to present different perspectives.

I know that these kids are doing things that young people shouldn’t be doing, but most of them are good kids and they just need a chance to take their lives in a positive direction.

When they don’t get that chance they do things they shouldn’t do. Creating empathy is always important to me.

So what’s next for you Toby?

It’s really difficult as there are no chances to travel. I thought I could go back to Belfast last year just to keep on going. I’m still in touch with some of the kids and so many things in their lives have changed already. I met them for the first time in 2017 and some of them had a baby in the meantime, some of them found jobs, lost jobs, relationships formed, then broke up again, so I think there is enough stuff to stay close to these people. They’ve told me that they’re not doing the same things anymore – hanging around at corner shops - it would be interesting to follow them, to see what’s next in their lives, just accompany them for maybe another five or ten years to see what life will bring for them. I’ll be back, definitely. I’m really interested in what’s going on with them and how their lives will pan out.

Finally, I asked Toby to talk me through a few of my favourite shots of his and how they came about...

One of my favourite shots from your football project in Scotland is the kids playing football in front of the block of flats, can you remember how that came about?

That neighbourhood is called Sighthill in Edinburgh. All of these houses have now come down they’re not there anymore. But when I was there, I think it was a really difficult neighbourhood, I can remember that when I took the photo of these kids playing football on the pitch, it was crazy. I had my big camera and tripod with me and I was walking around trying to get some more shots. Suddenly, a group of young people came running past me really quickly. Then a few seconds later another group ran past with a baseball bat and they were after the first group. I was just in the middle of all this scene, I didn’t know if they wanted to attack me - but they didn’t even realise I was there.

Another photo I really like in your football project is the one where the boy has a cigarette and there’s other children in the background playing football, could you talk me through that shot?

This was in Edinburgh, I think it used to be a really rough neighbourhood.

In all these neighbourhoods you have to be quite careful if you don’t know the people. I took that photo when I wasn’t very familiar with the neighbourhood, I tried to not get too close to most of them and to give them a little bit of time and space, and to not approach them too much. I was just in a little yard behind a fence, between a fence and the building.

This guy was just sitting on the fence watching the guys playing football.

I was just waiting until he was watching what I was doing and that was the moment he turned around and I got the shot.

What I love about that kind of photography is that it’s very much in the moment, that split second when you capture a glance or interaction.

It’s very difficult to set up at all, you just have to click your camera at the right moment don’t you.

That comes with experience, and you can’t repeat something like that, you can’t stage it. Even if you tell him ‘I’m now at your back and you have to watch when I say’, it’s not going to work out, and there’s not that expression in his face. He was just really watching what I was doing, so I had to wait. I knew sooner or later he would turn around.

Could you talk to me about the shot you have of the man with the tattoo and how that came about?

It was in a protestant unionist neighbourhood in Belfast at a time when they were preparing all the bonfires to celebrate the victory of the protestant William of Orange over the catholic King James. It’s a very important time of the year. There’s a competitiveness as to who has the biggest bonfire and they use wooden pallets to build them up. I was in a really tiny neighbourhood, very close to one of the biggest Catholic areas.

When they’re nearly finished these bonfires are really very high, they have this guy that keeps climbing to try and get more wood up. I asked him if I could also go up to take a photo. They were like ‘Okay, if you’re okay with it you can go up’, I’m used to climbing because I’m in the mountains all the time so it was okay for me to go up, but I think that they liked that I made the effort to climb the bonfire.

So that wasn’t on a hill, it was on top of a bonfire?

Yes! That guy was just standing there looking down to see if more wood was coming up and I just went very close to him, I don’t think he even realised when I took the photo of him.

That’s why there is a nice view of the neighbourhood and the streets and the houses because it was at the top of the bonfire.

Toby’s book ‘Wee Muckers - the Youth of Belfast’ is out now. You can purchase a copy from his website: www.toby-binder.de

felt compelled to somehow record what was clearly a significant moment in history. Of course, like everyone else, I was in lockdown and confined to one walk a day. I decided to do a portrait project of people in my village, taken from a safe social distance. I roped in a few friends at first and then I posted on our village facebook page. To my surprise, I was inundated with requests from people to be part of the project. So, each day, I would arrange to arrive outside someone’s house, camera in hand and they would then come out to be photographed. I also asked people to write down their thoughts about the pandemic - good or bad, happy or sad.

Here are a few of the results.

Sarah, Steve, Amelia and Hattie

LOCKDOWN PORTRAITS

During the first wave of the pandemic I

Alice & Marni

Ellie, Leon & Arthur

Lisetta & Jonathan

Oli

Sarah, Steve & Harry

John & TinTin This shot was taken outside their front door - looking down the hallway

Debbie, Jack & Glyn

Hollie & Ruby

Dan, Toby, Morgan, Eilisia & Emelia

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Coming next...some clubs you can join...

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Join Here Email Address Our monthly foray into the world of clubs and societies. This month:

The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society PLUS...the launch of an exciting new society!

The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society

There are so many ‘mundane’ things that we see every day that we rarely take the time to look at or appreciate. Martin Evans was fascinated by telegraph poles and power lines when he was a young boy growing up on the Shropshire Borders. Partly as a joke, he set up the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society, which has just recruited its 1000th member. I met Martin on a Zoom call to get an insight into the society. A few days later, camera in hand, I headed out for a walk to do a little telegraph pole appreciation myself - and not for the first time, I might add, I’ve got previous - I included some shots of telegraph poles and lamp posts in the very first issue of Elsie Magazine.

I quickly discovered that the best time to photograph telegraph poles is when the sky is even and overcast.

That’s when you can get some really interesting graphic compositions going on. I’ve also been fascinated by the markings and plates on the poles. Turkey Farm Sect Switch - what a great name for a band!

Martin Evans is an eccentric in the truest sense of the word. He is the founder of the Welsh Space Agency and is an international nailbiting champion. When we met on Zoom to talk about his main passion - telegraph poles, I was immediately taken by his off-the-wall sense of humour, which reminded me a lot of John Shuttleworth (a hero of Martin’s apparently).

I loved his irreverent, sideways approach to life and thoroughly enjoyed our chat.

Hi Martin, How did the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society, first come about?

It’s actually been around for about 20 odd years. It’s finally building up a head of steam.

My appreciation of telegraph poles started when I was little, I lived on the landscape of the Shropshire borders and I would anthropomorphise these poles - they sort of looked like people to me and I gave them names in my lonely, nerdy little boy way.

I’d follow the lines as they went across the field until I was scared I’d gone too far and follow my way back.

So there was always an appreciation of these things that stick up and I’ve always noticed them, but about twenty years ago we lived in North Wales and this idea just came to me one day that nobody appreciated these darn things that were here.

Of course, it was much more spoof in the early days, so every post that I’d put up would be a spoof, completely tongue in cheek, and I thought I’d like to blend in a mixture of fact and fiction, blur the line so much that nobody could actually tell.

It evolved from there really, then enthusiasts started writing to me, and I thought I’ve got to please these guys but I can also please myself because it’s a vehicle for my sense of humour. So pretty much in the last twenty years it’s been that, my sense of humour but nerdy, it ticks all the boxes.

It’s chugged away. I’m not a publicity seeker in any way, it occasionally bursts onto people’s consciousness and I get asked to appear on the radio, and I get really anxious about doing an interview on the radio but they usually go alright.

It’s definitely the carrying of something away, it’s that over there-ness. Wood pigeons do that to me too, strangely.

How many members do you have in the club?

We’ve just issued membership certificate one thousand and two. Every year in the run up to Christmas and Fathers’ Day, we get a flurry of new members.

Do you ever have members meetings?

People do ask me about this and no, to be honest, we don’t.

The website itself, it’s just me that writes the website, I also have a Facebook page and that’s got a life of its own now. That’s full of real telegraph pole enthusiasts that know lots of techy stuff about them. I know a lot of techy stuff but that’s only from what I’ve gleaned from these people over the twenty odd years of being a nerd about them. In the past they were just tall, wooden sticky-uppy things with wires coming out of the top of them.

So if I was to pin you down and ask what is it that really attracts you to telegraph poles, what would it be?

Two things, the shape against the sky, but on a horizon in a field, and also the lines of them disappearing into

perspective infinity. That really floats my boat that does. And it’s usually power lines that do that.

Telegraph poles tend to follow a road, they sort of undulate around and you can’t really follow them off as well unless you’re in a remote bit of countryside. But for those nice straight lines that go off into the distance, it’s power lines. Scotland is pretty good for those.

They’re going somewhere, they’re on a mission somehow.

They’re taking whatever it is from here, holding hands and passing it along over the horizon to who knows where.

Then they branch off and come to one of these junction poles and you get poles with right angles and away they’d go in different directions.

It’s definitely the carrying of something away, it’s that over there-ness. Wood pigeons do that to me too, strangely. Wood pigeons calling in a tree evoke that bizarre over there-ness. It’s that secret magical place that’s over there that they know about and I don’t and I need to find about, wood pigeons and telegraph poles do that.

This is Tracey - She is Martin’s telegraph pole checking and monitoring gizmo. He uses it in the film he made about ‘Pole-liners’ - a dying breed of telegraph pole specialists who’s job it is to assess the state of the nation’s telegraph poles. The film is a fascinating insight into a specialist role that was on few people’s list in their careers meeting at school. You can see the film here.

‘‘

If I have one skill in life, it’s that I can believe that I’m a character.

So would you say you’re an expert on telegraph poles now? Even though you’ve not worked with or on them in any capacity.

I’ve been up one, I did have my own telegraph pole in a house down in Welshpool, we had it put it up ourselves and I climbed up that but only to put a restored head on the top of it. But I’m not an expert, in the early days I would guess facts and write them, and people would contact me and correct me so I evolved my knowledge in that way I suppose.

I need a PA these days, I get thirty or forty emails a week asking me about telegraph poles and I try to reply to everyone. People assume I know lots of stuff but I don’t really. I tell them, ‘I just like the look of them - you’ve come to the wrong society, you need BT Openreach to answer this question not me.’

I’ve seen the film on Youtube of you doing the measuring of the poles which has that kind of blurring of the lines of spoof and reality, I convinced myself that the tool you were using was a complete spoof but I’ve still got five percent of doubt in mind as to whether or not

it’s a real instrument you’re using.

It looks old doesn’t it? I aged it artificially. I made it out of a floorboard. I carved that shape out of it and put some little mobility scooter mirrors on it and a compass, it’s complete and utter bollocks.

I call it Tracey.

If I have one skill in life, it’s that I can believe that I’m a character. Keri, my wife and camera lady, points the camera at me and she just leaves me to talk, and then I convince myself I’m this character and I am this character.

Tell me a bit about the books you’ve published.

I love page make-up and I loved making the telegraph pole book. I also publish poetry books - I used to be quite active on the poetry circuit and I write my own poetry. I got to know a fair few poets.

I like making books. I was a software designer for thirty years so this sort of carried that on - the only problem is, nobody buys that much poetry these days!

You can delve a little deeper into Martin’s world at his website: telegraphpoleappreciationsociety.org In the meantime, here are a few more of my telegraph pole photographs...

Discarded Industrial Glove Appreciation Society

MEMBER 0001 For the preservation and appreciation of the nation’s discarded industrial gloves.

Introducing the...

Previous readers of Elsie Magazine will be aware that there are a number of things that I am tuned into the most prominent and long-lasting of which is discarded industrial gloves.

If you haven’t seen them yet, it’s because you’re not tuned in (but that’s about to change). There are hundreds of thousands of them sitting on the kerbs and verges of our great road network. Whenever I’m out walking or cycling I’m pretty much guaranteed to stumble across one, or sometimes many. They lie forlorn and solitary (there is never a pair), discarded by their owners - cast adrift and destined for a life of gradual decay and burial.

However, when I see one, I stop, I pick it up and take it back to my discarded industrial glove sanctuary where I lovingly photograph them and provide them a safe haven - far away from the wheels of HGV drivers.

I thought it was time that I opened up this noble activity to others. As such, I’m proud to announce the formation of the Discarded Industrial Glove Appreciation Society (DIGAS for short).

Membership is just £10, for which you will receive your A4 member certificate, plus a signed A3 glove art print. If you’d like to become a member, click the link below and head off to the Elsie Magazine website where you’ll find all the details.

Do it and your life will be enriched.

JOIN HERE

Discarded Industrial Glove Appreciation Society

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Coming next...the start of something new...

The CHAIN

We are all connected in some way. In fact, there’s a wellknown theory - the six degrees of separation - that says that a person can connect with any other person on earth by a chain of six (or less) social interactions. I thought it would be great to create our own chain - starting with an interview with one person who, at the end of their article must nominate the next person to take part. I have no idea where it will take us or who we will meet along the way - and that’s what makes it so exciting. The person to start it all off was chosen at random from a list of all the people who backed the last Elsie Annual on Kickstarter. His name is...

The CHAIN

1

Dave Henderson Dave Henderson is a Music Consultant (we’ll get to that in a bit). I interviewed Dave via Zoom a few weeks ago, and I’m pleased to say that, as far as this new project goes, we’re off to a flyer. Dave has lived a colourful, musicdriven, design-rich, incident-packed life, which is good for a magazine like Elsie. He has also met a lot of people along the way, which makes his choice for the next in the Chain even more intriguing. But in the meantime, here’s what came from my interview with Dave...

Dave produces a broadsheet zine called ‘Bunk’. In his words ‘I’ve been collecting images for years, things I liked. I wanted to bring them together into something. I had a hankering for a large newsprint approach like the old days of Sounds and I found a place that prints short run broadsheets. The first issue was themed to a degree, the following two were more anarchic and repetitive; pulling things from the hundreds of sketchbooks I’ve amassed.’

For me, the pages seemed to perfectly illustrate Dave’s wide-ranging tastes and his love of music, culture and design - so I’ve used them as the backdrop to his interview. You could look at them for hours!

Hi Dave! So, this is the start of an exciting journey that I’m hoping is going to lead to some very interesting people – and it all starts with you. In true Blind Date fashion, who are you and what do you do?

I’m Dave Henderson. I’ve been known as a music consultant but I think ‘chancer’ would be the best description - plagiarist and chancer are words that come to mind. Most of my career has been in and around music – in bands, as a music journalist, events promoter and designer.

So when you say ‘music consultant’ just give me an idea as to what that involves.

Music consultancy is a bit of a detective role. For instance I’ve just got in touch with the widow of Tom Rapp, do you know him?

Pearls Before Swine? He was a contemporary of Tim Buckley and Love. I got in touch with his widow, she’s got a box of his music tapes, so I’ve spent the last two weeks going through thirty three reels of tape with all the stuff that Tom recorded in the past, some of it’s great, some is just bonkers.

Hopefully we’re going to put together a double album.

The other thing that I’ve been doing is working with my son, Lewis, who’s a DJ for Deptford Northern Soul Club, they started a record label about two years

ago and I help to sort out things like how we can reissue stuff from the sixties and seventies.

Because they’ve been recorded so long ago, a lot of people have died, no one knows who owns the rights, so it’s everything from dealing with the big major labels like Universal and Warners, to speaking to Candi Staton and saying ‘remember that first record you released? Shall we reissue it?’

She agreed and told me the whole story of how it was recorded when she was in a gospel choir. Anyway, all the guys she did it with have died and nobody knows who owns it so we did a deal with her direct. That’s music consultancy in a nutshell.

It’s not the kind of thing that you’d ever expect to discuss with your career teacher...

No, I’ve been very lucky. When I left art college I was asked

by Derek Jarman to do some costumes and set designs on Jubilee, and everything came through music. Then I met Keni Morris who was in The Banshees and Adam Ant and Toyah who I interviewed just recently for somebody and she was saying ‘Oh God, I remember those days I was a fat little bird from Essex’.

Everything I’ve done has been a series of chance interactions.

So where did your love of music first start Dave?

As a child in the early sixties I used to listen to the Jack Jackson show on Saturday, he used to use clips from comedy shows like Tony Hancock, The Goons and Jimmy Clitheroe, and then lead into records. I would listen with my Dad. It was amazing, just a really weird show. I didn’t really like the music very much, but the comedy bits overlaid with music has left an indelible mark.

Everything that I really like now has some kind of quirky oddball part to it. I then discovered Spike Jones and his City Slickers, he’s a guy who had a gun on stage and he used to fire it as part of the music, it was quite bonkers.

As you got older I take it you then started buying records?

Yes, there was a record shop in Carlisle where I’m from called E.T.Roberts, and I vaguely knew the two girls who worked there.

They used to steal records and bring them home on the bus at night. I went into the shop one day and in the rack there was this [holds up record] - it’s Todd Rundgren’s A Wizard/ A True Star, it’s got a die-cut inner sleeve and there’s mad things on it.

The record was still in the sleeve, they hadn’t taken it out. I had a big coat and I took it home. This record changed my life. It’s a

concept album on one side and on the other side he does cover versions in a very high voice.

Uncut voted it the weirdest album ever in their top 100 weird albums. To me this is a genius album. He went heavy metal afterwards and ruined it for everybody. But he was brilliant, and this album is fantastic.

I thought, this is how music should be, it’s exciting. I stole a lot from Todd, and Spike Jones.

So, you were into all that weird stuff and then there’s a bit of a jump to Northern Soul, Wigan Casino and all that scene.

Yes, my friend at school, Kev, had a cousin called Alan, he took us to see the Grateful Dead in Newcastle in 1972. It was really mind-blowing. I must have been fourteen, I had my first pint of beer and the Grateful Dead played for four and a half hours without an intermission. We had to travel sixty miles to see it because nothing ever happened in Carlisle.

A couple of years later, starved for music and with the pubs shut at ten thirty, there was a habit of saying ‘oh let’s go to Wigan Casino’ - people would hire minibuses. It was like ‘Wow!’. It was an old ballroom, I’d been going to youth clubs and listening to Motown, but the place and the music were just sensational.

Uncut voted it the weirdest album ever in their top 100 weird albums. To me this is a genius album.

Top : Gatefold sleeve for the re-issued Disco Zombies album Left : DZ gig poster Above : Disco Zombies live.

Dave is at the bottom

You didn’t know what the records were because they never announced anything. Up on the balcony you could buy records, there would be people selling the stuff - God I wish I’d bought more.

That started an obsession with Northern Soul.

I liked a lot of different music and started collecting singles. Then I went to art college in Camberwell and met a guy from Chester called Martin, and we DJ’d in the south playing Northern Soul because that’s all we had. I remember on the boxes of records, I wrote ‘Northern Soul on Southern Soil’ fine until someone asks for James Brown!

Now my son and his friends are into Northern Soul and helping to revive it. He’s been DJ’ing for three years, and they’ve got a record label - I’ve been doing all the clearances for the tracks.

They did a box set of twelve singles at Christmas. We just cleared a Detroit Spinners track and a Marvin Gaye song - they’re big tunes. It’s a big scene and I’ve DJ’d with him and it’s quite inspiring because they’re all young kids.

After Northern Soul in the early seventies, Punk came along and it was a similar scene to Wigan.

I started buying the records, went to Leicester to do an MA and met loads of people that wanted to be in a band and there was this scene that erupted. I was in a band called Disco Zombies, we were playing punk rock.

We did some singles and the most famous one is ‘Drums Over London’. I screen printed the sleeve. I did that and then launched my own label. Back then you could have your own record label, get singles pressed up at Island Records and see Bob Marley playing table tennis when you picked them up before going to Rough Trade.

From your early beginnings when you had your music and cultural influences seeping in, was there a penny dropping moment when you thought you could make a living doing this or were you just following your nose?

I was an idealist and I thought this would be great to do and better than getting a proper job - then I had to get a proper job! I just got bored of having no money. So, I went to a magazine called Sound International that I’d been doing some illustrations for, they wanted a designer and I lied and said I knew what a pica and kerning was.

I eventually ended up at Sounds the music newspaper, being artsy as an art editor. However, I kept suggesting that the magazine should write about this person or band and eventually, I was told to shut up and go do it myself!

So I ended up writing and I met a lot of brilliant people. I did the first Beastie Boys interview and I went out on the road with The Bangles just before they had the Manic Monday hit, wrote about skateboarding, all sorts.

The Prodigy came on and our portakabin was actually moving across the ground!

Was there ever a time when you were genuinely star struck?

I met Howe Gelb from Giant Sand, and I’d been a huge fan, I was quite nervous about meeting him but he’s such a lovely bloke, I work on all his catalogue now so it’s quite ironic.

Working for music magazines, also meant working on the annual award ceremonies. I did the talent booking and scripting for all the events, so I met Phil Spector and REM and Blur, but I wasn’t really star struck by anybody because it’s a logistics thing. You’re on a live show you’ve got to get people in the right place at the right time and it’s quite funny what goes on.

The awards would always be on a Monday, One year I got a phone call on the Sunday from Phil Spector saying ‘yeah I’m coming’. He’d flown over, paid for it himself, turned up with his daughter in a dinner jacket to a lunch-time, rock and roll thing. The first thing he said was, ‘Bring me people who want to meet me’. Then I had to take him to the rest room with his bodyguard, as we were about to go back into the main event room, Paul McCartney came down the stairs and it was like, well I’m not going in before you, I’m the bigger talent - that’s the kind of thing you have to deal with.

I looked after John Lydon a few times - the first time he came with his Dad. Everybody had been slagging him off in the press and he was saying ‘you’re

not going to slag me off, are you?’. He was really funny, effing and jeffing at everybody in the room and then he would whisper in my ear ‘I think it’s going quite well, don’t you?’.

He was also desperate to have a photo taken with Kate Bush, which I sorted. I’ve still got it somewhere.

So, you were bouncing around the music scene and then...

Glastonbury!

Yes, I was working as a publisher at Select Magazine, Mark Ellen was the editorial director and he said ‘we’ve got to get into Glastonbury, it’s the ultimate place for Select readers’. So we drove down and saw Michael Eavis and he said, ‘What can you bring in addition to what we’re doing?’.

I told him the printed programme wasn’t good, and that we could do a really good daily paper because we do magazines and that we could design it on site and send it down the phone line and it would get delivered the next day.

Stupid thing to say. It was the very early days of internet coverage.

Anyway, he said ‘yeah I love that idea’, and we did that for about ten years.

The first year was just a nightmare, it rained, we were in portakabins, I remember at one point, The Prodigy came on and our portakabin was actually moving across the ground because it was like a lake underneath.

.

Dave is also a proponent of mail art.

Luckily, since we’ve met, I’ve been added to his mailing list and I’ve started to receive one or two of his postcards.

The fuse box for our cabins kept blowing and I had to go and stand in the lake and put it back on.

So I’m on a very primitive mobile phone talking to the electrical guy and he’s saying ‘as long as you’ve got wellies on you’ll be fine!’

I’ve still got all the newspapers in the loft. Then we did the programme which I still do to this day. Select folded and Q Magazine did it for a while, and then Michael said ‘I can’t see the point in this because we don’t need to advertise, can’t you just work for me?’ So I went and did that and I now do the programme every year for Michael and I also curate one of the stages.

Glastonbury’s really interesting when you get involved in the nuts and bolts of it. A lot of it is about driving traffic around the site, because it’s such a big place. There was an area beneath acoustic and beside Theatre and Circus where there wasn’t much activity, so I was asked if I could I put something on.

So we did that and ten years on it’s called Williams Green Stage. We did the first show with Florence and the Machine and Elbow came and did a secret show. Over the years we’ve had lots of really big names doing secret bits and pieces, Bastille, Pale Waves and Alt J have all done shows. We close when the main acts are on and then reopen as a club and do club nights.

You’re still passionate about music – what bands or artists are you into at the moment?

Oh God loads, have you heard of Dry Cleaning? No? You haven’t lived. They’ve got this video, Scratch Card Lanyard, which is fantastic. They’re three guys, very tight, very post-punk, very Gang of Four and a singer who sounds like nothing else. Watch that video, it’s funny, they mention lots of pop culture things or things that you have in everyday life which appeals to me.

Finally Dave, you’re first in what hopefully will be a long-lasting chain – your task now is to suggest the next person I should interview, any ideas?

Yes, I’m going to nominate an old friend of mine, Steve Pyke. Steve is a great photographer who now lives in the USA. We go back a long way.

He was in a band called The RTR’s when we were both in Leicester, then a bit later he started taking pictures of bands and because I had a dark room in my house to expose the screens for screen-printing record sleeves, he would come around. It all started at Rochester Terrace in Camden Town.

I get the feeling we could talk all day and Dave is certainly a person you could wile away the hours chatting with over a few pints.

But the chain is up and running!

I wonder where it will lead over the next year or two. First things first – I’m off to track down Steve Pyke for next month’s Elsie Magazine.

FIVE THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU EVEN ENTERTAIN THE THOUGHT OF A LIFE IN MUSIC...

Dave has had such an amazing career in music, I thought it would be a good idea to ask him for some hints and tips for anyone else thinking of doing the same. His answers were not quite what I was expecting, but they are all the more intriguing and thought-provoking for it.

1 Go record hunting, buy things with ridiculous titles, strange cover designs and ludicrous band names. For starters, check out...

I Am Catweazle : Luke Haines, Barabajagel : Donovan, Scratchcard Lanyard : Dry Cleaning, Kunte Kinte : The Revolutionaries, Karam Bani : Buari, Disaster Cake Interrogation Bunny : Alan Jenkins, Nobody Knows What’s Going On In My Mind : The Chiffons, Music For Civic Recovery Centre : Brian Eno, Skank Bloc Bologna : Scritti Politti, It’s Up To You : Jason’s Generation, You Got To Have Money : The Exit, Dreamhouse : Piglet Destination Unknown : The Delreys Incorporated Chanctonbury Rings : Justin Hopper And Sharon Kraus Manic Depressive Presents : Danny Kaye

2

3

Read Rouge’s Foam’s lengthy blogpost entries (beware there are four parts) about Hauntology: The Past Inside The Present that brings together art, music, Burial, Boards Of Canada and the Ghost Box label.

Follow up with Mark Fisher’s lecture The Slow Cancellation Of The Future and its nod to punk, jungle and the 15-year cycle in music reinvigoration and the theory that there is nothing new.

4

Immerse yourself in the historic extremes of the Die Or DIY site and its trawl from free jazz to post punk and understand that anything is possible.

Realise that... ...most modern music is rubbish and the ‘only hope lies in the indies’

‘nostalgia is what it used to be’

©1984

©MOJO

And, as Genesis P Orridge would often say (via William Burroughs via George Santayanan)

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Note from Dave: Special thanks to Lewis Henderson for introducing me to points 2 and 3.

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Coming next...it’s collage time...

collage club

Get your scissors and glue out - collage is the new kid on the block (well, for me it is). Each month I’ll be sharing some of my recent works and I’ll also be interviewing and showcasing the work of collage artists from around the world whose work I admire.

I’ll also be giving you the chance to get involved each month as well - in two ways. Firstly, you can do some digital collage with the monthly Ten Layers Challenge and secondly - each month I’ll be offering 10 packs of collage material to anyone that wants to get involved. Register your interest on the Elsie website and if you’re name is drawn out - I’ll send you a pack of materials - all you have to do is create something wonderful and original from the source materials and then send a pic in. All the results will be featured in the following month’s Elsie Magazine.

ABC Faithful

During the first lockdown, I started getting into analogue collage - I’d been doing digital collage for quite a while, but I’d never got my hands dirty, so to speak.

My first efforts were a little ropey (as were some of the later ones!), but after a while I got into a rhythm. It’s a hugely enjoyable process - tactile, absorbing and, when you get it right, very rewarding.

Over the next few pages are some of the collages I’ve produced over the past few months.

The thing I love the most about collage is that each piece is a journey where the destination is unknown until it is finally arrived at. My role is to follow the path and make decisions at each turning or crossroads. Often, the placing of one element, colour or brush stroke will dictate the direction of the piece and its ultimate meaning. Randomness and chance play a large part in the creative process as does my mood on the day. Some pics are calmer and more ordered, others are more abstract and are driven by emotion and feeling.

I’m always surprised and intrigued by what emerges. My goal is to create images that can be viewed on different levels, where the interpretation is left to the viewer.

I also strive to produce images that are able to withstand multiple viewings revealing elements, patterns and textures over time.

Left : Seize the moment Above : Try, Try Again

I’m not sure that I’ve fully found my style yet, but I am enjoying experimenting with different approaches and processes. If you take a look at my work on my art site - www.lesjonesart.co.uk you’ll see that my work to date breaks down into four broad areas, abstract, retro, graphic and billboard (where I’m using materials taken from peeling advertising hoardings). I think my next step is to take something from all of them and start to develop a recognisable style. Watch this space.

Above : Life Right : The persuasiveness of quality

Left : Take chances Above : clockwise from top left : Try, Try Again Finally Happy I found you Space

Lisa Hochstein

collage club

Lisa Hochstein is a collage artist based in California. I’ve seen and admired a lot of her work on Pinterest. Her collages are abstract geometric compositions, built with found materials. I decided to get in touch and find out a bit more about her work.

If you’d like to see more of Lisa’s work, check out her website: www.lisahochstein.com, follow her on Instagram (@lhochstein20) or search on pinterest.

Left : Blue too Above : View from above #4

Above : Open door

Hi Lisa, can you give me a bit of background on your design and how you got into collage.

I started incorporating collage into my work when I was in school. I was studying painting and did a lot of work on paper and when something didn’t work out it just made sense to rip out what was working and use it in a new piece.

It became very natural to build an image this way and was very compatible with how I approached painting. With my limited student budget, very little went to waste.

Eventually I also started working a lot with found materials, which gives so much to reflect on, respond to, and build with.

You’re never quite starting from scratch, which is something I have always liked about collage. On the other hand, when you run out of something, it’s gone. You can’t just go to the art store and get more. One of the bigger lessons in working this way is to be less precious about the materials or a particular passage while in process.

Sometimes you lose the thing that was best in a piece, but that happens in painting all the time. I still paint some, but collage has been my primary involvement for decades.

Working in collage has always felt akin to building. I’ve always been very attentive to architecture, and that became an anchor point my work. Over the years, different series reference architectural structures, built space, and the delineation of inside and

outside. Recently I’ve been working in 3-D and thinking about space more literally.

What are the main influences on your work? I first saw some of your older pieces and there’s definitely a theme of constructing the shapes and blocks of paper and colour that you then build with. That’s coming from the architecture is it?

From early on the work was about building and layering, then, at a certain point I started tearing away material, which made the process very physical and, in a certain sense, aggressive.

The process also began to feel sculptural in that I would remove material in search of the finished piece. This de-constructing evokes the constant deterioration of our built environment, and the temporal, impermanent quality of everything that seems so enduring.

Architecture so easily lends itself to metaphor. I don’t get overly involved with those meanings, but they are part of the mix.

I have always been fascinated by brutalist architecture—the imposing presence, the slabiness of the materials, and the way light plays on the expansive concrete surfaces. I studied art at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Every day I would walk into the Fine Art Center for classes and the building was visually the most exciting thing to me.

Clockwise from top left: Return #4, Return #5, Return #8, Return #10

I spent a couple of years as an undergraduate looking at that immense structure, then making drawings, paintings, photographs, and collages related to it. The interest in architectural form has carried over.

What’s your process? Do you have a very clear picture in your mind before you start a piece or do you find your way into it?

I start with some material and I work my way into the piece without a preconceived notion of where it will end up. I walk every day and often collect stuff from the street that ends up back in my studio—it might be a scrap of cardboard or some weathered pieces of paper. I start with an idea or a sense of curiosity about something I’ve found, but almost never have an image in mind of the finished piece. I usually begin with some established parameters, which may be colour, sourcing of materials, or questions about composition. Sometimes an idea or feeling or something I’ve seen determines how I approach a piece and the decisions I make along the way.

There’s definitely a very strong theme coming through in your newer pieces, firstly in the control of the palette which is muted and then, all of a sudden, there’s a bit of black or a splash of red, they are striking pieces with slight overtones of the Bauhaus approach.

What’s reading as red is actually an almost neon orange. It’s

intentionally chosen to contrast with the sentimentality of the vintage beige tones, which I want to disrupt. Working with aged materials can be seductive—they give you so much and, to me, it can push the work too far towards sentimentality and nostalgia. I want the orange to be reminder of something contemporary and not necessarily comfortable or, on its own, beautiful.

I was looking at some of your other pieces, there’s a series where you’re building one layer on top of the other, what is the process behind those?

I was looking a lot at billboards and signage and, particularly, places where multiple layers of posters had been pasted on top others and I started thinking of what a cross section might look like. There’s a whole group of post-war artists who used this as source material and it’s easy to see the appeal of texture, accidental compositions, and the excitement of finding unexpected beauty in something so ordinary.

I love that these fragments of words and phrases lose their meaning and just become abstract elements. In my collages that use printed material I mostly avoid including recognisable text because I want the work to be a visual encounter, without relying on words to convey specific meaning. I’m fond of this series, but it’s not a world I stayed in for very long.

‘‘

I’ve always been fascinated by brutalist architecture...as a student at the University of Massachusetts, the Fine Art Center was visually the most exciting structure I’d ever seen.

Above : Synesthesia #10 Right : Fine Art Center : UMass

You’re obviously an artist that very much tunes into a theme, you explore that theme in different directions.

Yes. And in the last few years I’ve been trying to extend that involvement. The earlier pieces have relationships to each other, but I think I could have taken any one of them individually and spent a year developing it into a series.

I’m trying to narrow the focus more now, so rather than thirty different compositions, there’s a more limited range. I tend to have this constant question in my mind of ‘what if?’ and that can sometimes take me off track.

It can also be enriching because I’m always wondering what other possibilities are out there. But right now, I’m trying to limit my options for a longer period of time and to be more deliberate about how the work is developing.

It’s very clear with your latest work that you’ve set yourself some parameters and you’re working within that sphere. I presume that then starts to build a very clear body of work?

I think it does, and what’s interesting to me is that the work has become more in dialogue with itself. There are some 3D pieces on my website that are made with basswood. Those came about from some 2D collage work that I started thinking of as floorplans, and wondering what would happen

if I projected them into space, building them as three dimensional objects.

Then those led to another series of 2-D pieces. It is exciting to see one idea or question feeding something else in that way, even if initially it may feel like I’m straying from the main work. The tangents are always interesting, even if they lead to a dead end, since my goal is to discover different ways of looking at and responding to what I see.

Outside of the architecture, do you have any other influences on your work at all? Any other collage artists or artists that feed into your thinking?

I look at landscape painting a lot and these days there are a couple of poems that I keep returning to. I’m thinking a lot about the story of the Labyrinth, the Minotaur, and Icarus lately—not that I’m deeply knowledgeable about classical mythology, but I grew up hearing these stories and there’s something familiar and mysterious about them. The way these stories look at cause and effect, and the human condition are resonant. And with the Labyrinth, I’m interested in the building, the structuring of inside and outside, and the dual purpose of these walls: How they both imprison and protect, depending on point of view. Though I’m not illustrating any of this, these are some of the images, ideas, and questions that are on my mind while I’m working.

Above : In black and white Right : View from above #2

I tend to have this constant question in my mind of ‘what if?’

‘‘

How has lockdown been for you, has it been an opportunity for you to be more creative or has it shut you down a bit?

The losses have been so tragic for so many people, and it almost goes without saying that, in this country especially, the whole thing was grossly mismanaged. But I’ve been very fortunate since work from home and have been pretty well cocooned for the past year.

Living in California we also went through a terrible fire season last summer. The smoke and ash made it unhealthy to breathe the air outdoors for weeks, which led to a shelter in place situation that was different than what we had had to do for COVID. We had essentials packed by the door in case we had to evacuate (we didn’t). I remember a weird sense of relief when the fires were out and it was JUST the virus to worry about.

But getting back to your question, I’m almost embarrassed to say that I’ve been enjoying many aspects of these twelve months. The situation has forced a kind of slowness and quiet that has led to some productive stretches in the studio. I’ve also been doing collaborations this year with a couple of other artists. One of whom lives locally - but we don’t work together in person. The other artist lives in the Midwest, so we send things by mail. The collaborations are great - they open up other ways of thinking, and interacting with another person’s creative world.

I don’t think these would have happened in the same way without the year of staying at home.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Just to thank you for what you’re doing and for inviting me to be in your publication. I’m looking forward to following Elsie and seeing the future artist profiles.

collage club

Space Cowboy John Mata is a designer and illustrator based in Dallas, Texas. I stumbled on his work online and I was immediately taken with his retro style, particularly in his screen prints celebrating the Apollo moon landings of the late sixties and early seventies - a time I remember as a child.

I contacted John to find out a bit more about his work and his approach.

‘‘

You’re using found imagery and textures and you can get past the blank page anxiety very quickly.

Hi John, you use a lot of the principles and approaches of collage in your work – how did that start?

For me, collage was liberating. Even though I went to school for art I never saw myself as an ‘artist’, I saw myself as a graphic designer.

When I was working as a graphic designer I thought my time doing ‘art’ was pretty much over. Then I was asked to do an illustration for a blog post, something real simple. I kind of panicked a little, because I don’t see myself as an artist or an illustrator and the client was like…‘just do it’.

I gravitated towards collage because I felt like it was like a stepping stone - it kind of takes away a bit of the pressure. You’re using found imagery and textures and you can get past the blank page anxiety very quickly.

It gave me a starting point.

It’s funny, that first blog post and image I did was about people working from home vs people working in the office and the disconnect between the two different worlds. I took a USB cord and I arranged it in a figure of 8, put it down, took a photo of it, got it into illustrator and I just drew two heads that were connected by the USB cord. I immediately thought that collage was the way I need to start going for a lot of these things.

It felt so much easier not having to draw anything, so I could get started a lot quicker.

I suppose with digital collage, you can imagine any concept and it’s relatively easy to find and source the imagery to bring it to life Thankfully, yes. If I want an image of a horse and I don’t know how to draw a horse from memory or from my abilities, I can go and source one.

Using the skills I have in Photoshop and illustrator I can manipulate it to the point where it’s unrecognisable from where it was before and it serves the purpose that I want it to.

And, let’s be honest, I could even take it on from there – I could use my printmaking skills, go do a print of it, and it looks even more different.

Then I could bring it back onto the computer and change it again - it’s limitless, and that’s why I love the collage process.

I tell some of the designers that I mentor - ‘be an illustrator. You might not feel like an illustrator but you are’.

If you can collage, you’ve got all the skills – composition, balance, style, all those little things that you’ve learned throughout your years of working in the industry, you know what you’re doing. You can make an amazing collage. You’re just getting in your own way if you don’t think you can.

You do most of your stuff digitally, do you do any analogue or physical collage?

Yes, I do. In some ways, I feel like I was born in the wrong era, both in terms of technology and subject matter.

Because space is so amazing, people started noticing them and I was getting gigs from it.

‘‘

I gravitate towards space travel I love it. A friend of mine gave me a few old magazines that had a bit about space in them. I didn’t want to rip them up, but I figured there was one book that was a little damaged and I found myself tearing some of the pages out. Tearing these images from the fifties or sixties and arranging them on a coloured piece of paper and drawing on some ink over the top of it really got me excited creatively.

It’s a little bit less forgiving than a computer because if you mess up, you mess up, but the fun part is that I can take that and scan it and manipulate it later. Nothing is permanent. I would love to do some more of the analogue collaging. It’s a lot of trial and error before you glue it down and say it’s done.

Do you use your creative collaging skills in other ways?

I started doing collages of places I’ve travelled to. We all take thousands of photos on our phones and we never do anything with them. They live on our phones and we’re almost never going to print any of them out. So, I’ve been taking those images and doing a collage with them, then it becomes almost like a time-stamp for me, a piece of art to remind me of that trip.

There are so many things you can do with it. I think we need to push

ourselves away from the computer sometimes and just go rip up paper – take a mental and creative break. Go throw some paint on some pieces of paper and just see what happens.

You’ve obviously created quite a series around that space theme.

I have, it’s a little obsessive – but it’s also been good for me commercially.

Some of the people I mentor are always worried about getting the next gig. They’re always asking ‘how do I get people to notice my work when I don’t have these big clients that are amazing, that are well known?’. I tell them to do self-initiated projects. Give yourself a project to do because you’re going to be passionate about it, you’re the boss of it and, if it looks good, people are going to notice it and you don’t know what might happen next I gave myself a self-initiated project of space travel when I wasn’t getting the good clients. For some reason I gravitated (sic) towards it and I felt like there were plenty of royalty-free images available.

I was challenging myself. It was an excuse to learn how to do printmaking and to do more collage. I was able to reinterpret the images and do something cool with them. Because space is so amazing, people started noticing them and I was getting gigs from it. People were sharing it online.

They might not share a logo that I did but they would share a piece of art.

Im ages from the Texas Forever project.

Texas based films re-imagined posters.

Anyone can make an amazing collage. You’re just getting in your own way if you don’t think you can.

Tell me a bit about the Texas Forever project…

Texas Forever was another fun, selfinitiated project. I think as a designer you just want to get people’s eyeballs on your work. I just thought it would be a cool thing to gather as many of my friends that have Texas roots together, to celebrate the movies that are based here or filmed in Texas, and give them an opportunity to pick one of their favourites and design a poster. I’ve had a few people write to me and say ‘this was a great break between client work, because it’s something I wanted to do’.

Are there any lessons you’ve learned along the way?

One of the things I’ve learned is not to be afraid to write to somebody.

I think sometimes we think there are these big designers that are hovering above us and that they are unreachable. However, they all share the same anxieties, worries and self-

doubt about their work. At some point in their careers they all needed to hear from somebody, a designer that they admire, to say ‘dude your work is great, your work is getting there, here’s what you need to do, here’s some inspiration or a thought about what you could do.’

You could get the same advice if you’re prepared to ask - it’s a two minute email. I would do that for somebody, because somebody did it for me when I was thinking about quitting design. I felt I had picked the wrong profession because I had so much self-doubt. So, I would be honoured to do that, my email is always open, and if you need me to jump on a call, we’ll find a minute.

You can check out John’s work at: www.eight-zero.com And also on his instagram page: @eightzerocreative

10 LAYERS

Welcome to the first of what will be a regular monthly challenge that you can get involved in. The brief is simple - you download a Photoshop file containing 10 pre-loaded layers from the Elsie website and your brief is to create a piece of digital art/collage using only what you find in these layers. You can use as much or as little as you want from the layers, you can cut them out, change the colour, resize or duplicate - and you don’t have to use them all - there are no restrictions…except one - you can’t add any additional content - what you have is what you work with. The ten layers in this month’s file are on this spread and over the next few pages are what some early Elsie subscribers did with them. The next ten layers file is available from 1st April and you have until the 25th April to send in your submissions with a chance that they’ll feature in next month’s Elsie magazine.

Above : Ross Mason Right : Molly Campbell

Ten layers = millions of permutations I’ve been doing these random illustrations for a few years now generally based on googling a particular words and then using a selection of the results as a palette to work with.

Over that time, I’ve developed a kind of style, so it’s really interesting for me to see how others approach the same activity. As, you’ll see over the following pages, there are many different ways of skinning this particular cat!

Left top : Molly Jones Left bottom : Les Jones Above : Martin Cartwright

As I’ve been going through these first submissions, there are definitely some loose groupings that are emerging. This page picks up on arrows and numbers with quite a graphic approach.

Above : Dom Marshall Right top : Ian Crooks Right bottom : Dan Roberts

Above : Nat Cook Right top : Mike Shaw Right bottom left : Rosie Threadgold Right bottom right : Laura Hodgin

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08

Coming next...some things I’ve found...

Shopping lists, discarded notes, objects....it’s amazing what you can find when you’re tuned in. I find stuff in the street, in empty buildings, in old books, even down the back of the settee - and there’s nothing as exciting that a good chance find (other than all the things that are better). So, every issue of Elsie Magazine will be laden with recent finds and you have the opportunity to be involved. If you stumble across something interesting and a little off-the-wall, take a pic and send it in, I’d love to see it.

In this first issue we have some intriguing notes found in a book and objects I’ve discovered in the house we’ve just bought...

Traces We’ve just bought the house in this picture. All the kids have left home and we were rattling around our old Victorian School - so we decided it was time to downsize a bit. We thought we’d left all the dust and rubble behind (having renovated the school) and we were looking for something all nice and ready to move into. Then we saw this house, fell in love with it and found ourselves taking on another full renovation. Of course, when we took possession, the house was empty, or so we thought. Little by little, we’ve discovered traces of the previous owner tucked away at the back of cupboards, behind wooden panelled walls and under carpets. We’ve also enjoyed uncovering layers of past wallpapers as we’ve started to work on the house. Over the next few pages are some of the things we’ve found. I find some of them quite poignant.

It might be that the renovation becomes a bit of a feature in Elsie and you can track its progress over the coming months - but for now, this is what has come out.

We missed these things for a number of weeks, I’m not sure how. We finally discovered them in the bottom of a wall-mounted corner cupboard in the kitchen. I quite fancy having a go on that melodica! Anyway, these are quite relevant for me as I was once the school champion recorder player...now there’s a claim to fame!

I found these two beauties right at the back of the cupboard under the sink beneath a few old newspapers. My mum used to have a mincer like these when I was a kid. Not sure that many will still be in use today though!

We’ve found out that the lady who lived in the house was quite elderly and sadly passed away a couple of years ago. Her name was Mrs. Mackle and apparently she was quite a linguist. In fact, she was very active in the Esperanto movement. I found these exercise books on a shelf in one of the bedrooms.

Not sure about the tights or the mothballs, but I definitely feel like having a go at making my own microwave crisps! I’ll see if I can include the results in the next issue of Elsie Magazine.

Well, what do you know...the cupboards in the kitchen were lined with old newspapers and when I opened one of them, there was an article from one of my favourite photographers, Martin Parr.

Finally...I stumbled upon this old electrical back board...

I think it was a bit startled when I walked in!

Found Lyrics

Found notes is a big hobby of mine. I’ll be featuring them in future issues of Elsie. To get us started, here’s a collection of song lyrics I found tucked inside a vintage book. They look like they’re from 1991. I’ve googled some of the owrds to see if they’re from famous songs, but I can’t find them.

I feel like someone should put some music to them. Any musicians out there? It would also be great to re-unite them with their originators.

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Coming next...someone’s favourite things...

5 THINGS

This is the first in what will be a regular feature in Elsie Magazine.

The premise is simple - one person chooses five things from their house - things that have some meaning to them - and then they share them with us and give a few words of insight into why each item is important to them. If you’re a subscriber, you can sign up to take part - I’ll pick a person at random each month to provide their five things. Our first contributor is an old friend of mine, Paul Bishop.

01

I am meditating, don’t touch me For a number of years I have been an

Over the years we have acquired many

enthusiastic visitor to the Royal College

wonderful pieces and a particularly

of Art’s ‘RCA Secret’ show. Where

favourite in our collection is by Ettore

alumni and students of the RCA exhibit

Sottsass, the (now sadly deceased)

postcard-sized artworks produced

designer and founder of the Memphis

exclusively for the show. All the pieces

Group - a postmodern design and

are the same price and none of the

architecture group based in Milan. Italy.

artworks are signed on the front. As such, buyers have only the designs on which to make their judgement, the purest form of art buying I can imagine.

Considering that Ettore must have been almost 90 when he produced this artwork, it is amazingly vibrant, humorous and entirely relevant. It

The identity of the artist is only

spoke to me when I saw it on the wall

revealed once the pieces have been paid

in the exhibition, and it continues to

for and taken away and the proceeds

speak to me now. I love it.

go to support the RCA.

02

Ceramic Heart This object is displayed proudly in the hallway of our house, it is a ceramic representation of a heart that I originally carved in plaster, and then had made in English Bone China when I was running my own ceramics business. I created over 70 of these pieces and sent them to artists around the world to decorate in any way they saw fit, after which they would return the pieces to be curated into an exhibition at the Strychnine gallery in Berlin.

The exhibition was wonderful and a fantastic success, raising thousands for a children’s charity.

Of all the pieces, and the amazing displays of talent and creativity applied to my hearts, this piece (by my wife, Judith) has to be the one that means the most. It is both a reminder of the show itself and our amazing time in Berlin, but also (because of the addition of the ceramic flowers designed by Judith) it underpins my passion about ceramics and my home town of Stoke-on-Trent.

03

Laguna 14 DX Bandsaw As someone who has a low boredom threshold and a continuing creative ‘itch’ that needs almost constant scratching, I have, over the years, explored numerous ways to do this. Apart from drawing (which I do pretty much every day), painting, woodblock printing and sculpture, one of the things I have been drawn to most over the last few years has been woodworking. Making stuff, whether it be a garden structure, bird table, or more recently robots, is extremely satisfying.

There are those that know me who may (mistakenly) refer to me as a ‘gadget man’, but this is entirely inaccurate. I’m a fully paid up member of the ‘right tool for the job’ school and as such the addition of this Bandsaw - it’s a superbly engineered tool which allows me to do ‘so much more’ in my workshop (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).

Oh, and not forgetting that as someone who carries so many scars, nicks and bruises from the kit in said workshop, the fact that it is safer than many of my other tools means I’ve got a better chance of hanging onto my digits.

A week after sending me this copy, Paul’s digits had a fairly major contretemps with the band saw.

Suffice to say, Paul’s digits came out second best and spent the rest of the day in A&E! What’s the phrase...‘spoke too soon’?

04

Moleskine Notebook Moleskine represents a generic object that plays a pivotal role in my life. Without wishing to sound like a walking advert for these sketchbooks...they are brilliant! The Moleskine sketchbook is, for me, my route to creative expression. It’s a tool for planning and for design, it’s a place where I can process my thoughts and make sense of stuff - therapy you might say - and it’s a place for practice and learning. I have lots of them and I’m rarely without one by my side. The portability and simplicity of the Moleskine coupled with nothing more than a pencil, or ballpoint pen means I have no barriers to creating, no need to lose an idea, and no excuse for forgetting an errand!

05

Quooker Tap There are some things in life that, at their onset, fall into the category of ‘nice to have’ then, over time, become something much more and perhaps eventually fall into a new category of ‘can’t live without’.

The Quooker boiling water tap is one such thing.

Yes, I realise that it makes me sound super middle class and is a denial of my council house roots and working class upbringing, but there it is.

It’s an object that performs one function, and it does it really well. It’s well-designed, looks great and fulfils a need that I didn’t realise I had until we installed one as part of our new kitchen when we refurbished our house.

So, not another ‘gadget’ as many would pointedly jibe at me, but a thoughtful, indispensable, welldesigned object…and that gets an A+ from me.

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10

Coming next...a bit of a tester...

Get your thinking caps on! It’s the...

Devilishly Difficult Elsie Quiz Win THIS!

It’s been scientifically proven by very clever people that stimulating your brain is good...for your brain. So, get your synapses firing and get your thought buds around the monthly Elsie Quiz. As the title suggests, it’s devilishly difficult, unless of course, you know all the answers, then it’s pretty easy. Anyway, have a crack and then send your answers to me and you might be the winner of the lovely A3 digital collage opposite. What have you got to lose, other than your pride, your rag, your interest and your self-esteem?

The quiz is generally quite cultural - music, tv, films, art - that kind of stuff - and more often that not, there’s a Bowie related question in there somewhere! The answers, and the name of the winner will appear in next month’s Elsie.

Send your answers to: hello@elsiemagazine.co.uk Good Luck!

Bromine 35

Barium 56

1

deconstructed

slow art

2

double denim / cigarette

/ black suit / white suit

3

W H I C H 2 ARTISTS

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6

Play it f loud!” who and where?

fucking

7

mb i l c e w l l i h e Th

8

Doo-pah-pah-doo-ka-ku

um-pah-pah-pa-da-da!

which floor?

9

Jones Blake Dinkley Rogers and who?

10

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11

Coming next...some prizes you can win...

This month’s subscriber prizes...rejoice!

•

From me...

I thought I’d start proceedings for this month’s subscriber prize draw with the collage I made from an old Walkers Chipstick box.

• From

Toby Binder

Toby has donated an 8” x 6” limited edition signed print from his project - Wee Muckers - the Youth of Belfast. 4/50

•

From me...

I’ll also be making one lucky subscriber Member #0001 0f the newly formed Discarded Industrial Glove Appreciation Society. I shall reserve #0002 for myself.

•

From John Mata

John has sent a really cool Apollo moon landing print 9cm x 7.5cm

As a subscriber to Elsie magazine, you’re part of the club and that means you have the opportunity to win some pretty cool prizes donated each month by the wonderful people featured in the magazine. They’re not obliged to say yes, but so far everyone has, which is great. The draw for each month’s prizes will take place on the 25th of the month following publication. So the draw for this edition will take place on the 25th April. All prizes will be drawn at random and the winner’s names will be posted on the Elsie website and also in the next edition. To be in the draw, you must have subscribed to Elsie before the day of the draw (24th). Thank you to all our contributors, you are all very kind.

•

From Anne Kernan

We worked with Anne to create this exclusive print featuring Anne’s collection of saws.

•

•

From Lisa Hochstein

Lisa has donated this beautiful original collage. It’s petite and perfectly formed. 9” x 12”

From Dave Henderson (in his own words)

Limited edition So Old magazine with re-imagined vinyl (now sold out), Delreys Incorporated’s ‘Destination Unknown’ (see point one of five things), Disco Zombies’ vintage ‘Drums Over London’ single, exclusive art print and a CD compilation made especially for this prize, plus anything else that will fit into the envelope.

•

From Martin Evans

How cool is this - a free lifetime membership to the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society - with certificate, Martin’s book - there’s even a pencil and a badge.

Elsie

Well, that, as they say, is that! The first digital Elsie Magazine is done and dusted - I hope you enjoyed it.

If you did, please spread the word. The more people that come on board, the more the community will grow and the better chance we’ll have of keeping going well into the future. Thank you for being a part of it.

Before you go...I have one last bit of news. On the 29th March, two days before Elsie went live, my daughter, Hannah gave birth to our third grandson...Milo. We’re all thrilled and delighted.

Congratulations to Hannah, Jack and Alby (3), who now has a little brother to look after. Welcome to the world Milo!

www.elsiemagazine.co.uk email: hello@elsiemagazine.co.uk instagram : @elsiemagazine