through precision gnome hay trees!!

OILYBEDS comments in the end
Fantastic article!! check this out yawl:
http://toutfait.com/duchamp.jsp?postid=46580&keyword=

also:
Analfoni finally comes up with the goods, check out the fancy pants showing in their hallowed halls at the moment curtously of Hans-Peter Feldmann

www.ARNOLFINI.ORG.UK

Art trail 2007

Jan















Jen















Sue http://suegregor.blogspot.com/

portrait with assistant

front room

The other day Sue Greggor came into the library. She told me that she was getting ready for the 2007 Totterdown arts trail and that if I wanted too I could show some work at her house. I thanked her for the offer but told her I didn’t have any ideas. Sometime later while working at the library I noticed the big box of stamps that the general public had been collecting for the guide dogs for the blind association. The box contained thousands upon thousands of stamps and for some reason I thought it would be a great idea to make a portrait out of them, but a portrait of who? The answer laid waiting in a simple pun and went something like this: Stamps? Royal mail? Don’t you mean royal male? Ah yes but which one? Prince Charlie
of course!!
Next I found an image of Charlie on the web. Whacking up the contrast to create just shadow and highlight I then converted the image into a bitmap in order to create a template. I used the template to make the portrait with the stamps. However as my friend Mat pointed out, the template was made up of square pixels and the stamps where rectangular which meant the portrait would look stretched!! So next I had to mock up the stamps on the computer in order to visualize the effects of the distortion. To my relief the stretching of the portrait did not affect the way you read the image as Charlie. In fact it seemed to have the obverse effect and looked more like him.
I had worked out that the portrait would use up 2120 First and Second class stamps. So Chloe and I spent many hours sorting and cutting them to size.
Next I headed to B&Q to get some MDF cut to the exact size of the portrait ready to apply each stamp with blue-Tac. By this stage I knew the portrait wanted to be temporary. It didn’t want to be stuck down, of fixed in anyway. It had to be able to return to the box with all the other stamps so the charity would not lose any revenue.
Although the Arts trail started on Friday night it wasn’t until Sunday morning that I managed to get across and install the Portrait in Sue’s front room. I had decided to put a piece of blurb on the wall that read:

Royal Male
The royal male was delayed and delivered late to the front room exhibition. Conceived in Bedminster Library amongst the hustle and bustle of the day’s issue’s and discharge, the Royal male is made of 2120 first and Second class stamps. The stamps are part of a larger collection that the public have donated to the library for the guide dogs for the blind charity.

The charity have been collecting stamps for over thirty years raising significant amounts of money by selling the stamps per kilo to stamps collectors. However it was announced on their website that by the end of 2007 the charity would no longer be collecting and selling stamps. The charity said that it was no longer cost effective and that the costs associated with the collection, storage, sorting and selling now outweigh the income received.
Royal Male has been exhibited in an effort to continue the fund raising for the Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Please donate whatever you can. Unless anyone has any better ideas, after the exhibition the royal male will be disassembled and returned to the library ready to go to the guide dogs for the blind with all the other stamps for one last time.

Thank you

Ollie Betts
Library assistant
Bedminster library

can you tell what it is yet?

royal male

one Tablet to be used twice daily