Friday I went off to Not The Oxford Literature Festival were I read out stuff from an upcoming collection called Political Converse including the song Shit Creek.
I gave out my new business cards which I am very happy with from Moo. Each card has a different picture on either of my art work, photos I've taken or me being arty. I have rationed them to one per person as some people want to collect the pictures 🙂
I came home on Friday feeling great especially as I'd worked out the old guy at the festival was infact the guy who's stories I'd been obsessed with as a child!
He's called Dennis Hamley for those of you who are interested 🙂
Then I checked my emails and.... I've won a Bronze Medal in the Gloucestershire Creative Olympics! For my song Windy Gloucestershire. So I am going to to an awards thing at Battle of the Winds in Stroud at the end of the month!
Then Sunday I went off to Art Tournaments No Hoax where I read out more of my Political Converse including another song 🙂 This was all whilst wearing my flashing corset!
Sound quality is naff and I am competing with the band in the other room! But you get the idea 🙂
I enjoyed watching the other acts and knitting whilst Alaric crotcheted - this was then topped off by winning a place in the finals for the Gloucestershire Poet Laureate! Which will take place at Gloucester Cathedral in August 🙂
So with all this I thought I should start working on my web home/hub, somewhere were all the bits of me are collected - I'm still working on it but here it is 🙂
Then I got an email saying I had made the long list for Flash Fiction South West.
I then made a cake with Alaric and Jean for Al's birthday - it didn't quiet work but tasted brilliant!
I feel I am on a roll at the moment and that I may even have reached the 'tipping point' with getting my work out there etc...
The only iffy thing has been that my SponsorMe account will be closed if I don't get some sponsors soon! People keep saying they will sponsor me but haven't yet - so if you're going to do it now please otherwise it will be too late!
I'm off to Oxford tonight for The Not The Oxford Literary Festival at the Albion Betnik. This marks the beginning of a hectic and creative few weeks for me.
I decided as part of this I needed to re-dye my hair - it has not come out as purple as I'd hoped but will probably be more purple after a few washes. The lipstick is also not my favourite but was the only decent one I have so far unpacked and I thought it gave a nice contrast. I've added in my festival hat as well it is a festival and here we go!
Last night we went for a walk with the kids, we were playing eye spy - as any parent will know eye spy with kids is always interesting 🙂
We spent ages trying to guess what began with H and falls off of trees and is a seed with spiky bits (we allow glues if you get stuck in eye spy). The answer was of course Haycorns!
Of course - silly mummy and daddy - Jean has had the whole collection of pooh and piglet and all the other random poems read to her several times.
As it is she thought they weren't acorns and they weren't pine cones but those little almost pine cone things you get on some succulent looking spikey trees we see growing in various places.
She showed us one - and yes it does look like a cross between a pine cone and an acorn 🙂 Felt a bit sad to have to tell her they weren't haycorns and that it is just piglet can't say acorn as he's too little.
The game then progressed and Jean began introducing things like 'I spy with my little eye something beginning with COT' the answer to which was Cut Of Twigs. There was also SWNCII - Sky With No Cloud In It.
She then began to get more and more abstract so we changed the game to 20 questions. But Jean tended to just repeatedly ask if the answer was Horace her House Dragon (a series of stories I've written for her).
When me and Alaric got distracted she announced 'You Guys! Come On Focus, we are trying to play a game here'.
So we then ended up playing word association which was lots of fun though had a tendency to end up in loops of characters from various stories or films - namely Mysterious Cities of Gold and Harry Potter.
It was a fun outing though we did have to keep telling Jean she couldn't whack the bushes with her stick as they were peoples fences but then we found a lovely set of park and tree lined lanes to walk through right near our new house!
Mary has finally walked on her own 🙂 She has been able to walk for ages but just wouldn't - she always had to hold a finger or use the pink truck walker thing my friend gave us.
Of course she is now walking into things and has bruises on her head :/ She has also learnt a new word 'Uhoh!' which she says just as she is about to loose balance and land on her bum!
Ok so as many of you know I did a piece of 3D textural science-art for the exhibition In Braille at Centre Arts last year. I have since been asked to do a second piece - but more interactive so I have designed a sound/sensory cave to show through several media the order and structure of nature.
As you can image it contains proper electronics this time (not just the ipod and speakers) which are going to cost me quiet a bit so I am looking for sponsorship in exchange for things like downloads, art prints and the like. The more you sponsor the bigger the gifts.
Also I have been talking to a local gallery about running a Science-Art Exhibition next year (this is a response to my post about National Science and Engineering Week which very few people had actually heard about!).
Now there are several reasons I feel doing this is important and excess funding over and above component costs will go to fund the exhibition and maybe bigger and more far reaching things in future.
The first is that art is art and stimulating and helps creative thought and then there is science-art which helps communicate the glory and wonder of science - showing people it is not a boring and dead subject. Many people feel science and technology is not approachable so I want to make it approachable - less scary but showing concepts using the medium of art.
It is part of communicating science to the general population for - I am not saying the art is science - just a way of showing concepts.
Secondly - if I am doing this - I want to really comunicate it too everybody reguardless so I am very happy to initially be working on a piece with accessiblity in mind.
Thirdly - Science-Art is not really know in the UK, in other countries there are degrees you can take in science illustration and the like. If this art and science combo had been avalible to me I would have probably gone for that. I did look at Art, Archeology and Art History but was told to reapply for a more scientific degree :/
Art as a form of communication is very important especially for engaging the next generation - that was why even during my degree I was writing kids stories to show concepts with pictures and stories. To show investigation and thinking!
So part of this is to get Science-Art out there to inspire the next generation. Anyway there is a video and things and the list of gifts so go look 🙂
Art and Craft, Music, Poems, Sarah, Uncategorised, Work, Writing | sarah | 
Fri 6th Apr 2012 9:15 am | 
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