Mail Art

Mail Art piece for http://marielouiseplum.com/ 

An envelope that was sent to Oslo and returned at the time of the July 22nd events. There are 77 Nordic hearts altogether, to represent the victims, along with various snippets from Norwegian newspapers bought during my last trip to Oslo in 2010 - a story about love letters, and other found paraphernalia. I had this sitting in my studio waiting for an exhibition such as this. Postage is probably gonna cost a fortune though :-s

Jesus is coming, look busy!

Just wanted to share this Good Friday creation. It's been sitting on my desktop for a while. It's based on a dream I had not so long ago, a somewhat profound dream, or so I thought.
In this dream I was in a supermarket with Jesus. At first, I couldn't tell if it was really Jesus or just a 22 year old student that happened to look a lot like Jesus, but my mind resolved itself that he was actually Jesus. 

By the way, he was naked. In a supermarket. I guess that if Jesus really did come back to earth, he may well appear naked. Ref: The Second Coming with Christopher Eccleston.

So anyway, we were doing all this shopping and no one seemed to really notice naked Jesus much, even though in reality there would be a huge tutathon from Daily Mail readers at least! I guessed it was for some kind of party, for some kids at a church or something - the food / party, not the nudity!! 

I wondered how we were going to pay for all this shopping, and Jesus, being naked, didn't appear to have any cash on him or a wallet, but the answer came as swiftly as the question - he's Jesus, he doesn't have to pay for anything!

I wanted to illustrate this dream in A Scanner Darkly type way. Have been sneakily photographing supermarkets clandestinely, googled blokes that look like Jesus, that sort of thing, and spent some time rendering it just as it appeared in my dream. Here's the result.

Over Easter, I also saw Gunther Von Hagens' "Crucifixion". I've only ever seen Gunther's Bodyworlds work on the internet, and amused me in a James Bond film, but I've never had the opportunity to go and see it. And I found Gunther quite a scary bloke. But when I saw him talking about how he nearly died when he was 6, I could identify with that a bit, as I once communed with God after the birth of my first son. I was told by a face in some 1970s wallpaper that I wasn't going to die. It was all a bit Philip K Dick, but anyway, I digress.

The crucifixion never fails to make me cry. And it gave me a respect for Gunther Von Hagens to address this sympathetically, even though I suspected it was somewhat contrived, the result was a somewhat effeminate looking red vascular Christ. Having watched Constantine again, and having been to Hell not so long ago (!) the most recent crucifixion I'd seen was this one by Eric Drooker 

Orange case (the continuing saga)

This Wednesday there is a court hearing relating to the ever-depressing Orange case. Yes, it's STILL dragging on, no outcome has yet come of it, and Orange are trying to have the case thrown out of court.
Meanwhile, Moorcroft Debt Recovery have sent another threatening letter, even though they should actually be working on my behalf to get the £1,300 approx back that Orange owe me. It has been recommended that next time they do this I report them to Trading Standards.


The last month has seen my bike stolen, the cost of claiming on the insurance was offset slightly by being paid for the errant Orange illustration that was published before. It's good to know that people in the industry can find my blogs and see my work, and are in fact interested in it, however, I do not post work on here or any where online for that work just to be taken and used without my permission. I actually need to earn a living (see previous posts re: Open AIR: Effecting Change).
I've been working on the AOI Secret London brief for the past week or so, but now the sun has come out, I feel less inclined to sit in my shady studio than ever.
I'm now wondering whether it's worth starting anything new with only a week left before the Easter holidays, by which time I won't get a lot done at all.


I had started something for Gingerbread's campaign about CSA charges, so that'll most likely be what I'll work on for now. 

Mother's Day visit to Burghley House

Burghley House in Stamford offered Mother's Day free bubbly, so whilst there, it seemed obligatory to look around the house and admire some of the amazing Italian frescos. 

All the time I studied A-levels at Stamford college, I didn't quite get around to visiting Burghley. 

The stone town of Stamford, Lincolnshire, where I studied A-levels in the early 1990s.

 Burghley House

The Hell Staircase fresco by Antonio Verrio was commissioned by the 5th Earl of Burghley 

Orange case

As I await the outcome for the Orange court case and OFCOM investigation, it seems that Orange aren't the only company intent on trying to destroy my career.


A mobile phone magazine published my illos in an article about the case, without my permission or consent. 
So I invoiced them, and they are refusing to pay up!! Well, they should've thought about whether they could afford to use them before using them without my consent!


Here I'm going to share Sally Renshaw's blog 

My final animation has been uploaded onto BAA Sheep Stings vimeo page for voting!!



BAA Sting - Helen Dearnley from BAA Stings on Vimeo.


It's taken me ages to do, the soundtrack is part of "Sounds Of Daydreaming" from the Apparatjik project.


"Everybody Is One Bar" is now finished, and Apparatjik have compiled every submitted edited track into one compilation with an old fashioned CD release due on Pancake Day :-)


Meanwhile, my trip to Colchester to attend OpenAIR: Effecting Change is documented briefly here

Lincs Free Press article 

On my return via Spalding, I came across this article about Network Rail workmen building a snowman.

Lincs Free Press story

 It seems obvious to me that these are artists in action Effecting Change, so good for them for being paid to create a snow sculpture - a step in the right direction, although more needs to be done to ensure artists are paid to create art, instead of having to do another job to pay the bills, effectively doing two jobs at once, which can't be right!

For two months now I've been working on the Sheep Stings animation. Initial attempts with the crystal growing kit that was given as a gift at Christmas didn't quite work out to my satisfaction, so a second version was made. I've since decided to add to my Norwegian sheep, a Swedish disco sheep, a Danish Lego sheep, and an English pixellated sheep, and together they will form Apparatjik, or Apparasheep, whichever, so I hope that if this is successful it will support my other work with them. 

Swedish sheep

Danish sheep

British sheep

Appara-sheep?

I can't do any more work today, as it's being edited on son's laptop, which he takes to school, so will do final bits tonight to submit tomorrow. It needs shortening slightly, and music / sound effects, so won't take long. 


I was pleased that someone purchased one of my Red Arrows Valentines Cards yesterday :-)


I also spent a day re-editing my old Illustration degree storyboard for the Ray HarryHausen project brief here. I never usually receive enough votes to win anything on here, but still I go for it!


Apparatjik aren't accepting any more submissions for their album now, and I had planned to finish the half-made disco track in Garageband, but unfortunately suffered a really bad headache and gave up. 
I've contributed a few tracks anyway, here's "Don't Sue Warhol's Banana!" and "Signs Of Daydreaming", and Superpositions/The Particle is due to be added to Frequency Festival's website / blog sometime as well.


The Orange case has gone to court, so we're waiting to find out if we're successful in our attempts to stop capitalist greed from completely ruining our livelihoods. An article in a mobile magazine highlights the issue, however, someone has taken images from the Facebook group to use with it, without my prior knowledge or permission, so I've sent the editor an invoice. I later thought that maybe I'd over-priced it a bit, but the extra is for the inconvenience, and because it's dated November last year.

Looking forward to attending Open AIR: Effecting Change in Colchester on Saturday, should be an exciting event!