Created in Birmingham

Here’s a photo from the Brilliantly Birmingham Launch:

More here. I’ve criminally not reported on BrillBrum much so go download the press pack.

The Cadbury factory in Bournville is looking for some Art for its new building:

The West Midlands’ best emerging artists are being given the chance to create works of art that will take permanent residence at Cadbury’s £30 million new office development in Bournville.

Three new pieces of art, including a sculpture, photographic set and wall-based painting, will be commissioned to coincide with the grand opening of the newly refurbished office space in 2008, which will accommodate more than 600 staff at Bournville.

Short listed artist applications will be selected through staff consultations and an expert judging panel. The chosen art work will reflect the new building’s commitment to celebrating the fusion of old and new, of “looking forward with heritage” to the next phase and future development of the iconic Bournville site.

The deadline is January 11th. All details here.

From the Foreign News desk: “Northampton Arts Collective (NAC) is looking for business partners within the creative sector to assist them in the refurbishment of their Arts Centre situated at the Fishmarket, Northampton. The refurbishment project is subject to a successful bid for funding, the outcome of which will be known by January 08.” More details in this PDF document.

Let’s follow some links from the Woom website as part of their “Booby Hatch- Sexual and Disturbed” show and see what we find, shall we?

Well, there’s Sarah Bereza from Michigan, USA…

local boy Matt Burden…

and New Yorker Alison Brady…

Lovely!

More on Woom in the new year. They’re quite an intriguing establishment…

Charlotte Carey went to the Cultural industries and Climate Change in the West Midlands conference and has kindly posted her notes.

Anthony Herron of Boy Wonder Records is fuming about ticket touts and runs through some ways for event organisers to beat them. He’s keen to get a debate going on this so go join him on his blog.

Audiences Central points us to Own Art, an intriguing Arts Council scheme where you can borrow up to £2000 interest free to buy some art.

Brumcast 79 is up:
[audio:http://ipodnetworks.com/podcast/363/2023_hifi.mp3]

One hour of local music featuring Wrapped in Plastic, Phluxm, Miles Hunt, One Dead Groove, Wurlitztraction , The Drowners, Crashdown!, Rebel Territory, The Detrimentals, The Courtesy Group, Understar, Death05, Doom Patrol, The Skeleton Cartel, The Legatos, Terrorform, The 21cm line, Murdoch, Intelligenazia, Paisley Riot and Relay.

In a somewhat natural development the Beat 13 website has been completely taken over by Lucy McLauchlan showcasing her paintings and selling her prints. I particularly like the scrapbook page showing the wide variety of mediums and situations her work has appeared in.

She also has her first solo London show, Expressive Deviant Phonology, starting on Friday and running until January 19th at LAZ.inc, 8 Greek Street, Soho, W1D 4DG which, I have to say, is a rather impressive location. From the press release:

Expressive Deviant Phonology will present a series of new, unseen canvas work alongside a site-specific installation. The collaborative work will involve the participation of musicians whose music will affect the artist’s drawings while her visuals will influence their playing.

Lucy McLauchlan has always had a fascination with the driving forces that generate social networks, our attempts to fit in with one another and the hidden agendas we carry around with us. The artist creates distinctive characters and freeform organic motifs. Her confident brush strokes become entangled with intense monochrome imagery, rich in graphic elements. She often paints with little or no preparation and engages her instinctive approach to smother spaces with paint, creating chaotic and seductive environments. Lucy utilises different surfaces to work upon, including canvas, walls, metal, wood, cars and breasts. For this exhibition, she will be working in black and white with Indian ink. The use of this medium provides the desired dense line with one fluid stroke, creating a fast and continuous method. Lucy’s drawings create a black and white world ruled by instinct. Its characters interact with each other and the viewer to reveal the more intricate inner workings of the individual subconscious.

Hat tip to Surely

Boxer are a creative design agency based at Fort Dunlop whose web presence is a great example of the sort of thing I’ve been banging on about recently. Their corporate face is all slick and professional while their nascent blog, Soak It Up is a mad pile of bonkers that makes my head spin in the best possible way grabbing inspirational stuff from around the web, linking to useful resources and telling little stories about life in the business.

And then while writing this I come across another designer with the site / blog dichotomy going strong. Mark Murph’s Surely? site is still being constructed but his blog is gaining good traction telling you pretty much all you need to know about where he’s coming from.

To be honest most of the design agencies in Birmingham get the blog thing because they’re in the business of knowing how the internet works. But this can work for you no matter what field you’re in. I’d particuarly like to see Birmingham’s Fine Artists doing blogs like this alongside their portfolios. Let us know what’s happening there, people.

Boxer tip from Jon

Here’s a handy roundup of the local amateur theater scene from John Slim of The Post.

Still on the subject of the Plus+ Festival, 383 Project have posted up some photos of their rather impressive stand.

“See how we’ve grown” indeed!

Couple of things from Sam and George at Stereographic.

They’ve released a series of limited edition prints for sale from their site.

And in looking at that I belatedly noticed their video of their fantastic stand at the Plus+ festival is up.

A little known tradition amongst photog-types is the annual abusing of the disposible camera and subsequent intoxicated shooting with said travesty, as James Thornett explains…

I’ve been following the Thomas Moronic blog for the last week or so trying to figure out how best to slot it into a handy little soundbite and have come to the conclusion that I can’t. And this, of course, is a fantastic thing.

On the whole it seems to be random writings, short stories, poems, snapshots of something or other and the occasional profiling of other folks. I think. Or maybe they’re made up too. Give it a spin.