It seems that a few things have passed my attention.  Ginger beer has suddenly been re-discovered by the masses, cupcakes are in vogue and street artists are not only taking themselves seriously, the public are appreciating their talents too.  Most of this was brought home to me in a triple whammy when I went along to the launch night of the Art for Kunst stall at the All I want for Christmas Fair in the Old Truman Brewery last night.

Say what you will about Twitter but without it I think I’d have much less to blog about seeing as I am naturally lazy and inclined not to get up off my backside and seek out things to do.  The problem, I claim, is that London is too big and there is too much going on with the end result being I find the choice overwhelming so end up doing nothing.  However by following a relatively small group of people/organisations I find a lot of the hard work is done for me and the links they post I tend to treat as having been through a filtration process and so it was when I saw a link to Art for Kunst.

Interestingly, when I saw Art for Kunst I immediately thought of the 10cc song, Art for Art’s Sake but it wasn’t until I checked online that I discovered that Kunst is a Germanic word for Art.  Pub Quiz Trivia: Did you know that the Latin inscription above MGM’s roaring lion is Ars gratia artis? Which means… Art for Art’s Sake!

Art for Kunst have come up with a great project, just in time for Christmas, offering pieces from established street and graffiti artists Aida, Dora, Dscreet, Juice 126, Mac 1, Solo One and Zoot.  What you are buying is a gift pack which contains an A6 framed print, a t-shirt, some stickers and some button badges.  There are 10 designs in total with only 50 of each available and if the launch night is anything to go by these are going to go fast.  I’d browsed the website before going along and could only get my short-list down to 6.  I’d initially told myself I was only going to go, take some photos and snaffle a couple of cupcakes but when I saw the prints and shirts my backbone and bank balance crumbled and I trotted off to withdraw some cash, which is where I discovered the Cockney Cash Machine! 

Rainy Sunday afternoons…perfect for getting comfy and pottering around the house or in my case cracking on with some work while I await my delivery of groceries.  Having used a variety of online grocery delivery companies I’ve settled upon Ocado as my retailer of choice, basically because I think they provide great customer service, great products (Waitrose food, John Lewis products) and contrary to popular belief, they are not much more expensive than some of the others.  They price match Tesco on most of the popular food items and bizarrely sometimes under-cut their own suppliers.  Case in point, a few weeks ago I ordered a small John Lewis frying pan and paid £11.50, it arrived and I noticed from the packaging that John Lewis actually sell it for £12… Hey, that 50p almost paid for a tub of Creme Fraiche!  There is a downside of course, every delivery (except Sunday’s) comes with a free copy of that Murdoch rag, The Times.

Art. Love it or hate it you can’t escape it.  Mr Omneo is your classic Dunno about art but I know what I like kinda guy which is probably true of most people if they were honest with themselves, instead however you have some people who insist they know nothing acting as a counter balance to those who believe they know it all. Yes Brian Sewell, I’m looking at you!

After my weekend of ballet, theatre and rock music what better way to start the week than with a visit to an art gallery that would only be in existence for a few hours?  You can’t get more exclusive than that!  Yes, this is how Mr Omneo rolls, get used to it

The gallery in question featured 16 pieces of work from just 7 of the almost 1,000 artists who call B-uncut their home and quite a mixed bag of art it was.  There was something for everyone and I’ll freely admit some of it left me scratching my head thinking, Hmmm… art huh? but isn’t that the beauty of art? it really is in the eye of the beholder.  Personally I felt the pieces by Stephen Farley, Sandra Wray and Shikyba Azizi were very much my cup of tea and whilst I wasn’t sure I’d place either of the 2 pieces on show by Jason Ellis on my wall I subsequently had a look at some of his other work and saw a few bits n bobs that appealed.

What made it a great evening was the ability to chat with the artists themselves.  I’m not sure how you, my dear readers, feel but I’m always curious to know what the real story behind a piece of art is.  I often find myself reading a review and I thinking, OK, that’s what you think but what’s the artist got to say for themselves? I found one of Sandra’s pieces quite disturbing. Nice but disturbing nevertheless, it struck me as quite bleak as if the landscape had been decimated and said so to Tanja who had come along with me.  Later when we found Sandra and asked her what had been going on she explained that she had been inspired by the news stories of the death and destruction during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and just the everyday horrors of what’s going on in the world we live in at the moment.  I think it says something about her work that a regular Joe like me can actually see that in an abstract piece of work.

However this piece by Sandra would have got me reaching for my cheque book if I had some cash in my account, as it was I had to content myself with looking at it a lot. Tanja described it as being like A perfect handbag, it goes with everything.  I’m just not sure where you’d put your house keys?!

Anyway, back to B-uncut, which is the brainchild of Philip Letts, an abstract photographer who decided to take your typical art dealers on at their own game, with a twist.  Philip started B-uncut late in 2007 with the intention of getting emerging artists work seen and more importantly, sold to an art loving public who don’t mind if the art they look at isn’t hanging on some swanky gallery’s wall.  I wasn’t aware that for new artists they are sometimes lucky to get 20-30% from the proceeds of a sale.  I knew the dealer took a hefty cut but I didn’t realise it was quite so one sided!  No wonder those swanky galleries can afford to ply you with decent wine and nibbles it’s the struggling, starving artist who is really footing the bill!  That said, on Monday I had to leave Philip’s impromptu gallery to pop to the bar to buy myself a soft drink as there was only free wine on offer ?!

I recently bought myself a new camera, quite well timed really as I was able to use it to take some rather good, if I do say so myself, photographs at the Deep Purple concert I went on last Sunday evening.  The camera was a smart buy. I also bought a Polaroid Pogo photo printer as well, I’m not so sure that was such a wise buy but I’m a sucker for gadgets and more so when they are on sale. Oh look, I’ve saved £30! Sounds good but when I admit to myself that I’ve spent £40 on something I don’t need just because I’m saving £30 I have to accept it’s not really a bargain!

I decided that I would resurrect my old Flickr account in order to have a better place to put my photos and after reading all the blurb thought I would upgrade to a Pro account, not so much because I think I’ll need unlimited space for photos and HD videos but mainly because I prefer having an ad free service.  Here are the Deep Purple photographs I took in a nice Flickr slide-show.

Do you want the Gift of Flickr Pro?

It got me thinking, how many people would like a Flickr Pro account but didn’t have $24.95 readily available to upgrade from the free version?  I decided there are probably at least four people who have the basic account who would like to upgrade but have more pressing needs for their cash.  So for those readers, Twitterers and Facebookers who would like to win a Flickr Pro account…

My experience of ballet is limited to watching it on TV as a child at Christmas.  My gran enjoyed it and so, when it was on that’s what the TV was tuned to, I vaguely recall trying to stay interested in it but I was no Billy Elliott and I soon retreated to my bedroom to play Scrabble or Monopoly with myself, leaving the men in tights to my gran.  That was around 25 years ago and until today I had never watched, or desired to watch ballet.

If anything I can blame Twitter for this dramatic change in me.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, ballet/dance entered my life after following a member of the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s staff, Rob Lyndsey, on Twitter and subsequently following links and watching clips on various productions.  That led me to buying a ticket for tonight’s performance of Cyrano at Sadler’s Wells Theatre and boy am I glad I did!