late shows

may in newcastle means two things; rain and the late shows.

this year more than 50 cultural venues opened their doors for newcastlegateshead's late night culture crawl receiving around 30,000 visits between them.

to see event photos click here

calling all whistlers!

can you whistle birdsong? do you know anyone who can?

i need to record audio of humans imitating british wild birds for the early stages of a new project.

i've managed a quite convincing great tit and had what i thought was an engaging conversation with one in the park. however after a week of torturing my cats, it turns out i'm not a gifted whistler.

the birds listed below are links to the rspb website and audio clips of their song.
blackbird
magpie
robin
wren
jay

if you or anyone you know can do a half decent rendition of any of the above, or any other british wild bird, please get in touch.

info@sarahblood.com

muchas gracias!

coalesce

pink happy thoughts  steven whitehill

the group exhibition at london glassblowing gallery is extending its exhibition date to the end of the month. coalesce will now be open to the public until saturday 3rd of march 2013.

this has been a great show to be involved with and a fitting start to what is shaping up to be a busy exhibiting year.

coalesce artists:
sarah blood
vanessa cutler
catherine hough
peter layton
bruce marks
james maskrey
timothy rawlinson
amanda simmons
cathryn shilling
steven whitehill

testing... testing...

in an attempt to keep on top of/catch up with my blog, i've downloaded the blogger app on my phone. so to test how much i can do with it, here's some of what i've been up to today:

installed sn;afu into its new temporary home at the northern design centre, gateshead. seen below next to the get carter coffee table by raskl.

collected foam for the orders of cariboo that are due for shipping at the end of this week.

ok, going to press publish. fingers crossed!

super-natural 2012

scrying mirror with 'tituba' projection

this time last year i was working with newcastle based artist sneha solanki on her project super-natural.

inspired by the crossovers between synthetic biology and witchcraft, solanki spent time as artist in residence working in the emerging area of 'synthetic biology' at the centre for bacterial cell biology, newcastle university. here she spent a number of months developing synthetic life from atcg data, enzymes, proteins and chemical reactions.

the findings of this research were exhibited in super-natural at vane gallery as part of the av12 festival 2,804 still images of the created life were animated and viewed though a scrying mirror. 

for the project i made a large fused and etched scrying mirror on which a timelapse microscopy was projected. i also distorted a collection of scientific glassware which was shown as part of the installation.

installation view

manipulated scientific glass and scrying mirror with projection

shelving with manipulated glass

exhibition photography: lindsay duncanson and colin davison, courtesy of av festival

catching up

as usual, life and work have been busy and as usual the blog gets repeatedly bumped off my 'to-do' list.

so far 2012 has been a year of changes, the most significant being a studio move! after seven years at mushroom works, in march this year i moved to 36 lime street studios, in the heart of the ouseburn valley. although i miss my fellow 'shroomers, the new studio is a lot bigger and far more suitable for my kind of mess making.

the new studio had it's first public opening during the late shows in may, where there was fire, wine and neon cake a-plenty.

happy new year!

after almost 3 weeks break over the christmas holidays, the first week back in the studio was a little bit slow, to say the least. this week i'm getting back up to speed and have a whole bundle of exciting plans for coming year.

a good start are two lovely articles featuring my work.

the first is australian vogue who have a feature on works made with neon, which include my traveling light alongside lee broom's bright on bistro and membrane cube big by austrian design collective foruse.

the second is a lovely review of my work in perspective, an art, design and lifestyle blog written by elisabetta gatti. to view click here 

i've never been accused of kidnapping poetry and magic before. i think i like it!