the online magazine for creative thinking
August 2013 Issue 3 \\\
August 2013 Issue 3 \\\
Hello and welcome to issue three! We have some great creative talent to share with you and hope you enjoy their work and reading about what inspires them. We start this issue with a photographer who is enthralled by the magic of their art and how it can capture us. You will find an artist doesn’t just use paper for drawing, as we have an amazing sculptor who can bring paper to life. We have a fantastic photographer, who is drawn to light and how it inspires all of us. Then we have a talented DJ and Producer who shares with us his influences behind his music Remember If you want to showcase your work in our future issues, please get in touch we’ll be happy to share your work with the creative the online magazine for creative thinking world. Thanks Dave & Lucy \\\
This issue \\ Rhiannon Adam\\ Kate Kelly\\ Michael Taylor\\ Paul Omas \\
Rhiannon Adam \\\ Photographer
Who \\\ I am from a lot of places, but I was
born in Cork, Ireland, and currently live in London. There is (almost) no place I’d rather be.
Background \\\ Pretty broad and nonspecific! I have always been interested in making things, and drawing pictures. My parents were creative in their own ways too, and I think that helped to lead me onto it. Really though, my interest in photography originated in the fact that for many years we, as a family, never took any pictures. So really I was inspired by the absence of the camera, than the presence of the camera. We sailed around the world on a boat for quite a few years so I was exposed to a lot of different art from different places. But formally, I have no training and I’m self taught. I suppose my background is really my own journey of yearning to explore my environment and keep it for later. I am sure my tendency to be a bit of a hoarder has something to do with the fact I am so drawn to Polaroid. Shooting this way always means that I have an object to keep, something to take away from the place.
Interest Origin \\\ I started taking pictures on 35mm at 14 quite seriously. My cousin Joshua and I (who I lived with when I moved to England) got into photography through his dad John and we both bought decent SLR cameras at the same time. Predominantly I was interested in black and white and developing my own work by hand. I was fascinated by the darkroom and Man Ray’s techniques and I spent a lot of time at school in the darkroom experimenting with printing with transparencies I made on the computer, or making cutouts and using multiple negatives to make various one-off pictures. I had a fascination with making something from nothing but light and chemical – it’s a kind of alchemy.
I was led onto Polaroid after doing work experience with a TV company, and then did my art A-Level dissertation on it. I really should have gone on to study photography but somehow didn’t. But even whilst I was studying other subjects at University, Polaroid was always there in the background and afterwards it took over my life as an obsession – and it’s not going anywhere! Photography is such a powerful medium, and I’m enthralled by the magic of it. Who wouldn’t be interested in it!
Spare Time \\\ I’m mostly scanning my Polaroids! When my wrists ache too much and my eyes go square, I might pick up a book or draw something. But mostly I plan the next location to go and shoot in, or scan eBay for film (I’m always on the verge of running out). There is a big American road trip coming up, and I can’t wait. Inspiration \\\ The mundane and the bizarre - in equal measure. Landscapes. Traveling. Films. Materiality and texture.
Inspiring People \\\ Filmmakers are the biggest influence on me. Like Lars Von Trier – his vision is so wide and all encompassing. His films take you into a world of their own – they have parallels to our own existence but the world of his films are so complete, little microcosms. His characters are real. His work feels truthful and he is a great observer of human behavior and relationships. He captures the unspoken and the unsaid and continues to innovate. Dancer in the Dark! What a masterpiece. I wish I could create something as moving as his work is. I can’t get enough of directors like Andrea Arnold, Sally Potter, and Lynne Ramsay too. Great female directors fighting the odds and making films that grow and grow. The films are tough, brutal and honest, but have a sensitive core.
Ways of working \\\ Impulsively, seeing where things lead me. Not being afraid to try something new. I don’t go out knowing what I want to take, but my intention is always to capture the spirit of what I am shooting. I’m now experimenting with collaboration with another photographer and that’s an exciting journey! Style \\\ My style is dictated a lot by the medium I use, but broadly I’d describe it as a landscape with a difference. All of my work is location led and I shoot quite graphically. Mediums \\\ I shoot mainly on original Polaroid film, and these days it’s all expired. It’s always a bit of a collaboration between my intention and luck of the draw. I like that element of surprise, and I think that digital photography removes that. I never quite know what I am going to get (even though after years of doing it I have a pretty good idea), and that’s why what I do is still magical. I also use Polaroid film because it has a very real relationship between the environment where the picture was shot. Colour shifts happen dependent on the conditions of shooting, and because the picture emerges on site, there is always a link between the place in the picture and the picture itself. My pictures are effectively self-referencing birth certificates – you can look at the picture and know everything about it – where it was shot, what the conditions were, the picture is a photograph of its own birthplace. The pictures bear birthmarks: roller marks, undeveloped areas. They have personality and flaws. The final picture also tells the story of how the film had been stored – it is a bit like looking at someone’s face that bears the creases of their laughter lines mingled with their expression as they look at you.
I think life is becoming less engaging and more clinical because we spend so much time in front of computers. My pictures are real objects that collect dust, creases, they tell the story of a life and they live - they don’t just exist on screen. The visceral is being eroded by perfection, and in my work I seek to reunite the idea of identity and the photograph – the idea of the photograph being equally a subjective and objective medium.
Other creative projects \\\ Creative wise I do a lot of things. I like designing things, building things, building websites, drawing, writing. I’d really like to write a kids book – I have a story but right now I need to find it a more cheerful ending!
Featured Work \\\ I have been working on a project about Margate and Benidorm for a while now, and you are featuring a selection of SX-70 shots taken on very expired film that were taken at several points between 2011 and 2013. This project is ongoing. Essentially Margate was once a jewel in the crown of Britain’s tourist industry. It was the quintessential seaside resort from Victorian times to Butlins’ heyday. These days it’s looking rather worse for wear, but is on the cusp of a big change with the opening of a reputable new gallery, the Turner Contemporary. I am fascinated with the downtrodden side of the UK - probably because before I moved here, I had this idea that everywhere would be like a Dickens novel. Top hats, cobblestones, clerks and wealth. That’s what I expected. Instead I found “Golf Sale” down Oxford Street, buildings falling apart and Iceland. It’s not always what I anticipated, and I have been fascinated with the “other side” of things since I have known it existed. The Benidorm section of the project explores the stereotypes of Brits abroad, and Britishness in a wider sense… I won’t say too much about it as you can make up your own ideas I’m sure! This whole series uses expired Polaroid SX-70 film with golden hues and summer tones to capture the brilliance of the British seaside, but using a medium as decayed as the place itself, and it attempts to capture the spontaneity and excitement of childhood. It’s a nostalgic project, in a sense the work references the film’s demise – a film that was used daily in the 1970s, when Margate was still popular but on its way to a decline, and Benidorm was booming. It seems fitting to capture the place using the medium of the family snapshot. A medium dying, a place changing. I’ve just opened an exhibition called The Journey Is The Destination at the Mill Co. Project – it shows an edit of the project as it stands…I’ll also be having a book of the work entitled Dreamlands, Wastelands which will be out in the next month or so.
Kate Kelly \\\ Who \\\ I am from Manchester. I never realised how attached I was to Manchester until I moved away for University. I came straight back after my degree! I now have a little studio in Manchester Craft and Design Centre. Background \\\ I rather fancied being a metalsmith, however I found the materials a bit unwieldy. Paper is easier to manipulate and has endless possibilities. I loved learning hand printing techniques and wanted to make them three dimensional.
Inspiration\\\ Everything! I respond to things with childlike enthusiasm so I’m never short of inspiration. Patterns and shapes get my attention. Interest Origin \\\ I love that paper is so humble and accessible. Everybody doodles and makes paper airplanes from time to time; it’s a universal play thing. I never feel restricted with paper the way I do with other materials. Spare Time \\\ I think when you are self employed the distinction between working and spare time can easily disappear! I doodle a lot and it’s not long before they emerge as new designs. I read a lot: factual books, fiction and graphic novels. My designs are usually named after favourite characters, authors or historical figures. When I get the chance I love visiting galleries and museums.
Inspiring People\\\ I am a big illustration and animation fan. I spent my childhood adoring Jim Henson, Josh Kirby and Nick Park. I find twitter really handy for stumbling upon awesome artists. Lately I have been coveting the doodles of Christine Pym. Her work has such character. Ways of working \\\ I do my printing at home. I am a very messy maker. I cut them out and build them in my studio at the craft centre. I painted trees on the walls where I hang them so it looks rather like a menagerie in there.
Style \\\ I do think my designs come out a bit stylized, but I don’t know how much of that is consciously done! I tend to draw in a rather cartoon like way and I think that comes across in the finished designs. I try not to pay too much attention to other paper artists, as clever as they are, because I think it’s important to find your own creative niche.
Featured Work\\\ The barn owls were the first thing I ever created that I actually felt confident could work. I knew what kind of maker I wanted to be when I designed them. I will always be fond of them for that. Everything I have made since has been because of them. The raven was a complicated and laborious task but I did enjoy designing him. I was curious how he’d turn out, given that my designs tend Mediums\\\ I use screen to have a cute side to them. printing methods mostly, but It follows that he’s not very I also enjoy using an etching threatening! press. I always draw directly onto the screen or plate so The peacock was fun to design each print is different and each because he’s such a show off. finished design is unique. Eventually I’m going to get around to designing one standing with a fanned out tail. Other creative projects \\\ I like to sew and doodle. I also love photography, but I’m not very good at it! I work for the jeweller Alena Ašenbryl, which is fun because I get to make things I wouldn’t normally do and wouldn’t have a clue how to design! She’s very clever.
Michael Taylor \\\ Photographer Who \\\ I was born in a small market town called Ballymoney near the beautiful North coast of Antrim. I currently work in Belfast as a photographer but have always explored personal work. The light waves and abstracts are shot throughout Northern Ireland and Southern France. Increasingly, the people component of my work is shot in studios in London.
Background \\\ I started using 35mm film at 15 years old; shortly afterwards I explored black and white film, development, printing and toning. I was hooked for life. At Art College I loved illustration and printing , hence my enduring love of hand colouring and alternative print making. My first love was always photography.
Interest Origin \\\ As a child I watched the rays of sunlight paint the fields and mountains with light. Although I gained good grades in art at school, I was using drawing, painting and printing to explore light (and shade, colour texture – the basics). In essence, I still equate photography as light painting on a black canvas. Spare Time \\\ In an intermingled non-ordered relationship: being with my family and our many pets, thinking, being close to nature when possible, reading (art, theology, biology, cosmology, poetry), visiting the cinema and theatre, playing and listening to music. Inspiration \\\ Light is not just the basis of all visual art but is foundational to many aspects of theology, philosophy, science, our lives. Inspiring People\\\ So many influences – but to select: in painting, the Renaissance and Impressionist periods; in sculpture, in photography, Moholy-Nagy; in film , in writing, C S Lewis; in poetry, W B Yeats or Czeslaw Milosz.
Ways of working \\\ I imagine and sketch, then plan shoots (email/phone, collect props, organize lights, costumes etc), take the photographs, do some (hopefully minimal) post production and printing. But I always follow the light where it leads and select/decide as the shoots evolve. Often the same thing happens later in the selection and (minimal) post production. Recently, I have been building cameras and letting the light do its own thing: less control from me.
Mediums \\\ Black and white paper and film negatives have intrinsic qualities that I will always love. Digital allows great feedback, control, organization and productivity. Both are powerful media when used correctly. For Classical (analogue) photography I love black and white films esp in 5x4 and 10x8 sheets.
Style \\\ I have noticed links between the images on my Site (and some as yet unreleased work), quite irrespective of how I treat the images later. So something is naturally evolving. I think style just happens during the process of following your own path and interests. The selections an artist makes determine the pathway and thus style emerges. To base a style on a technique (analogue or digital) is dangerous as technology and materials pass so quickly: instead, the image is paramount. Photography is essentially image making, i.e., using you imagination: you must mentally visualize (or have a clear direction) prior to planning, setting lights, using a camera, post production, exhibiting. Obviously, accidents (gifts of grace) happen but you choose how to follow them based on personal vision. Computers or chemistry are vehicles to express what is in your imagination. There are always universals and particulars: one example is the grand history of art and the small specific space where you fit. No-one can see/ interpret/image this light in the same way that you can. All art distills down to the spirit of invention from a personal perspective.
Other creative projects \\\ Making and recording music. Featured Work \\\ Every artist in some way wants to reveal the invisible.
CREDITS for Wave Model: Katy Cee; Assistance: Franรงois Boutemy at Simulacra Studios, London. Light images taken in Ireland and Southern France.
FEELING INSPIRED? If you’ve been inspired and would like to showcase some of your own work just let us know. We like anything done with passion and just for the love of it. Works we will feature can range from moving image, design, print, flne art, textiles, creative writing, photography, illustration and anything else you may feel is creative.
info@unorthodox.co.uk
Play \\\ Listen to some tunes by Omas while you read.
Omas\\\ Who \\\ I’m originally from a place called Poynton – a small fishing village in Cheshire. That’s where I grew up, but have mainly lived in Manchester, and London for a while when I was younger. I am now based in Manchester for the foreseeable future. Background \\\ I started as a listener and a fan of all different genres of music that I heard around me as a child. Mainly 80’s pop, Michael Jackson, Phil Collins and stuff like that. But also soul and disco from my mum’s side, and hip hop from some of my older friends growing up. I think music was something I always noticed and took an interest in. After being into the music for a while and seeing DJ’s in magazines and videos etc. I took a real shine to the DJ and asked for my first set of decks for my 14th birthday. Low and behold I got what I wanted, and it was an all in one, belt drive, no crossfader, school disco style set! I managed to learn the basics of DJ’ing on these until I got my hands on a pair of Technics 1210’s and a decent mixer at around 16 or 17. I then began to take it a lot more seriously and started buying records more regularly. I’ve basically been a DJ and producer actively for the last 7 years now doing gigs and shows around the UK and Europe, and working on music as a solo artist as the DJ/coproducer for Hip Hop groups The Natural Curriculum and Dayse&Aver and with other various people.
Interest Origin \\\ My interest in music mainly came from my Mother and from older friends I had when I was a kid…they would give me tapes to listen too, mainly 90’s hip hop groups and artists like Nas, Gravediggaz, Lord Finesse and Grand Puba. From my mum’s side it was mainly late 80’s and early 90’s pop and 60’s and 70’s soul, disco and funk. Nowadays I listen to and play out all kinds of music but mainly soul, hip hop, funk, jazz, disco, boogie and prog rock.
Inspiring People \\\ As a producer I would say Pete Rock and then maybe outside of the hip hop world maybe David Axelrod or Roy Ayers, maybe even Quincy Jones. All of these people had their own signature sound which was instantly identifiable and were masters of their craft and pioneers of their time. I’m also a big fan of Damu the Fudgemunk. I have always been a fan of and inspired by Jean Michel Basquiat who was an artist from New York, and in fact is where my name was derived from.
Style \\\ To a certain extent yes I do think I have a certain style, with the way I do things and the music I make. When it comes to the ethics and practice of an art form I feel as well as adding your own style and personality to something, you should be carrying it out in the true way the originators did staying true to the ethics of the art form. That is essentially the main reason why I do what I do.
Mediums \\\ I use a mix of hardware and software as do most people. Akai MPC 2000xl Spare Time \\\ I like to spend sampler/drum machine, long periods of time in a room Ways of working \\\ When turntables, mixer, mixing with whirring and buzzing it comes to the actual creative desk, records, synth, software equipment, blinking lights process its usually a night time sequencer and plug in’s etc. I and beeps! Aside from that I thing. Night time seems to have am looking to get into playing skateboard quite a bit and have more of a calm over it, which more keyboards and synths done longer than I’ve been in makes me feel more settled on tracks and creating more music. I am also partial to the and seems to give me a longer original material as well as golf course and a push bike. attention span to work on sample based production music. It used to be an every though in the near future. night thing, now I may go every Inspiration \\\ I think what day for a week then nothing for inspires me is the fact that I love a fortnight. The making of the Other creative projects \\\ doing what I do and would be beats and songs and all the pre I’ve always been into painting, doing it whatever, as cheesy and production happens most of the music and skateboarding from cliche as it sounds. I get inspired a young age and that has carried time in my home studio, but by things related to music and on throughout my life. sometimes maybe at a friend’s things that are completely house, then usually on to a unrelated. I get inspired by larger studio for everything else hearing new music, old music, post production. new and old producers and bands, people I meet, my girlfriend and my family and friends. Although all of those things can also work the other way and piss me off!
Featured Work \\\ In 2009 I was offered a deal with ‘My First Moth’ records as a solo artist. Since then I have released three a & b side singles on 7” vinyl and digital download. Off the back of those I had DJ gigs up and down the country and in Europe. I am now currently working on my fourth release for the label which will be a 12” EP by myself and DJ Mischief. I am also scheduled for a 12” single coming out in 2013 with a label called ‘Soundweight Records’ that features artists on their roster like ‘Kista’ and ‘Cappo’ . This will be an instrumental thing. I’m also dropping a 7” single on a label called Blunted Astronau’t and working towards another 12” release on a label called ‘Skullsnap’ records. As the DJ for The Natural Curriculum and Dayse&Aver, prominent hip hop groups coming out of Manchester, I have been traveling around doing gigs for the last 3 to 4 years. DJ’ing all the live shows. clubs and festivals around the majority of the UK and Europe really. We have released a series of videos, vinyl releases and downloads. I was involved with the 2011 released Dayse&Aver EP0001, also with the newly released double EP0003/0004 from TNC and Aver out now on gate fold, double vinyl. Also the Bill Sykes LP and the soon to be released Chalk LP. With these releases I contributed scratches and some production. The groups are kind of in hiatus at the moment with each member working on their own solo projects. Discography \\\ • Herrotics Retreat (Producer and cuts) 2007 • Herrotics Deeds (Co-production and cuts) 2009 • Omas Stakes is high/Tea leaf dancers remix (Producer) MFM 12th October 2009 • Omas What you’re looking for/I’m so dizzy (Producer) MFM 21st June 2010 • Dayse&Aver EP (All cuts/Some samples) TNC May 2011 • Omas&Aver Out of time (Producer) MFM 20th June 2011 • Frameworks feat QNC Ain’t no use (Cuts) Hero records 16th July 2012 • The Natural Curriculum/Aver LP (All cuts) TNC August 2012 • Bill Sykes Sykes LP (Cuts & production) TNC October 2012 • Chalk LP (Cuts & scratches) TNC release date July/August 2013
Play \\\ Click to listen to some tunes by Omas and find his links.
Get Involved
If you’ve been inspired and would like to showcase some of your own work just let us know. We like anything done with passion and just for the love of it. Works we will feature can range from moving image, design, print, fine art, textiles, creative writing, photography, illustration and anything else you may feel is creative. Fill in the contact form on the website or send us an email info@unorthodox.co.uk
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