Scattered Art April 2012

"Art in the City"

Truro

Filmed and edited by

Amanda Walsh

A Wide World Production

TODAY!

Good morning, Scattered followers. Take your head out of that personliased Thornton's chocolate trough that granny bought you for Easter and make a mental note of where today's Scattered exhibition is going to be...

As part of 'Art in the City', Scattered will be holding its fifth exhibition in the empty shop front next to Bunters in Kenwyn Street, Truro. The space has been everything from a surf shop to a cookery shop but today, from 3 to 6pm, it reaches its peak by becoming part of the Scattered movement.

Okay, you may now go back to scoffing your chocolate and don't worry about wiping your chin before visiting Scattered later - chocolate beards are today's must-have fashion accessory!

Pastry? Discuss...

In this post-Atkins era where any vaguely carb-related food stuff is seen as the work of the devil (be gone thou orange, tricksy knave), anything edible AND consisting of pastry can only be seen as a decadence to either the sane or the remotely slim. (Ask David Cameron – pastry is this season’s hot potato. Yes, I know pastry isn’t a potato. That’s a metaphor and a food-based one at that. And yes, there will be a few more.)

So, how delighted was Scattered to be served a feast of pastry items at this evening’s launch of ‘Art in the City’ held at Truro Arts Company? Pretty darn happy and no amount of grease on the fingers and crumbs of flaky pastry down our metaphorical cleavage was going to kill our joy. Samosas, sausage rolls, chicken and feta (yes, and feta!) roll-like thingies were abundant. There was also something that looked like quiche but without the pastry - it was still beige in colour though so I suspect it shares some sort of food gene with pastry. Blinking ‘ell, we were spoilt.

Thank God, then, that our hunger for art is so strong that we were able to see past the gluttony (albeit our gluttony, yes, but it would have been rude not to) and appreciate the fantastic non-pastry, cultural event that ‘Art in the City’ actually is. If you don’t know about this annual event, it’s probably because you’re spending your time eating too many Dominoes’ pizzas while sniggering at ‘Supersize vs Superskinny’, which is the very reason why you should hoick up your elasticated trousers and get out onto the streets of Truro this week and digest some good quality, nutritious art. (Okay, there’s always a chance that elastic no longer cuts the mustard so if you and your girth are bed-ridden, check out www.enjoytruro.co.uk.)

As part of the ‘Art in the City’ festival, Scattered will be holding an exhibition on Sunday 8^th April from 3 – 6pm. You know the score. We can’t tell you where the exhibition will be just yet - Scattered is too busy picking caraway seeds out of its teeth (agh, feel that middle class indigestion coming on) - but we will tell you after 9am on Sunday morning so keep checking the blog/Facebook.

See you there, our little arty vol-au-vents!

Scattered 4

With its graffitied concrete, muddy breeze blocks and rusty doors, the old Chacewater gun club provided a unique space for Scattered’s first exhibition of 2012 today. For the three hours that Scattered took residence, this rundown building became a candle-lit gallery showcasing photography, sculptures and installation pieces that were as intriguing as the venue itself.

Armed with torches and an impressive resilience to the cold weather, visitors saw work from:

Nick Bradford

Clementine Brown

Edmond Griffith Jones

Rose Hatcher

Seamus Moran

Anthony Neale

Joe Taylor

Hannah Vallis

Janine Wilson

Paper aeroplanes, video tape, continental graffiti, greenhouses, cheese graters, fake arms, epiphanies, binge-Britain, ninja toys, fantastical cities, knot sculptures and freezing-to-the-very-lining-of-our-pants. What a great day!

A huge thanks to John Carley for allowing us to use this great space, to all the artists and to everyone who visited.

The Scattered Team x

Photo by Nathan Coombe

Update! Update!

All is set for this afternoon and, good news, we have some limited off road parking at the gun club so do drive by and check if there's a space and hopefully you'll be saved a walk in this Cornish rain.

Also, even better news - it's a tad wet and cold so this is a great opportunity for you to show off any snazzy leg warmers and chunky jumpers you may own.

See you soon...

Sunday 29th January

The first Scattered exhibition of 2012 is today! The exhibition is so close now (only a matter of hours away) that we can almost smell it...and no, that’s not the smell of unwashed knitwear and pretentious matted hair but the smell of creativity and pure artistic gumption. And the smell is coming from...

The old Chacewater Gun Club on Station Road in, wait for it, Chacewater.

The smell will be pungent and open to sniffers (no, this metaphor just isn’t working is it?) from 3pm to 6pm today ONLY.

Getting parked:

Please park in the public car park in Chacewater as there will be no parking outside the gun club itself and the Scattered team is keen to encourage healthy physical exertion at every available opportunity.

Entering Chacewater from Truro, take a left at the first pub. Entering from Redruth, you will pass a pub on your left. Carry on and take the right just before the second pub. I assume they’ll be some sort of big blue ‘P’ to guide you further.

Getting Scattered:

Back on the main Chacewater road and with your back to Truro, take the right hand turn just past the shop onto Station Road. After a pleasant and exhilarating five minute walk (ah, feel that fresh air in your lungs, clear those nasal passages in preparation...okay, I can’t stop), you’ll see the white, graffitied walls of the gun club on your left.

(NB. There is no postcode for the site so go old school for this – lick a finger and wave it in the air perhaps?)

Enjoying Scattered:

Because of the unusual nature of this exhibition space, no dogs will be permitted on site and we ask that, for their own safety, children stay with an adult at all times and are not allowed to run around and fall down holes etc!

Scattered is looking forward to seeing you.

P.S. I just googled ‘nasal hair’ thinking I might be able to claw back the smell metaphor by adding in some interesting nasal hair facts but I got as far as reading that my nasal hairs prevent foreign particles entering my lungs and started to feel a bit wheezy. I plucked some nasal hairs the other day (painful but aesthetically necessary) and now I’m worried that I’ve left myself at the mercy of foreign objects. Shit.

Ahoy there!

What did I do over the weekend? Me? Oh, you know, just completed my solo circum-navigation around the world. What, how old am I? Oh, 16. What’s that? That makes me a pretty hardcore teenager? Yeah, I guess. It’s just...well, you know, I just don’t feel like I’ve actually achieved anything. Okay, so it was a 43,450-kilometre voyage and I did miss seeing my mates and all and I do feel I sacrificed a lot because, like, I haven’t been into a New Look for what seems like months and, yeah, these deck shoes are chafing a bit now but, ya know, it’s not like the Guiness Book of Records have recognised it or anything. Man, this sucks... I need a new challenge. That’s it, a proper ‘will she or won’t she make it?’ challenge that will push me to my mental and physical limits and inspire people the world over. Umm...What’s that? There’s a Scattered exhibition this Sunday and I have to navigate my own way there? I’ll be told where it is on the day via the blog and Facebook but before then I can access maps secreted around Cornwall if I use my cunning and devil-may-care attitude? Am I up for it? Do I piss overboard? Hell, yeah!

Tally ho,

Laura Dekker.

Important messages from Scattered:

Get your maps for Sunday 29th from: The Old Bakery Studios in Truro, FXU at Tremough or The Fish Factory or, if that really is too much of an endeavour for you (we won't judge you but a certain 16 year old might), message us on Facebook or email us at artscattered@gmail.com and we'll email you the required cartography.

We don’t know if there are any ‘New Look’ branches in Holland but we can only hope that the Dutch have the same access to cheap but on-trend fashion like we do.

Laura Dekker probably won’t be there on Sunday. We bet she’ll be at Fal Week this year though. Probably eating oysters.

Not long now

Are you ready for another fantastic Scattered Art exhibition. It's this coming Sunday-Jan 29th between 3-6pm. You'll have to search for this one, we don't want to make it too easy, so get your friends and family ready and let the search commence!! Log on tomorrow for a sneaky peek!

Tingly Tongue

Blimey, Scattered has just had a major revelation. Well, when I say Scattered, I mean me - I’ve just had a revelation. (I feel so much more powerful when I refer to myself as the omnipotent being that is Scattered. I’m like a soulless, faceless, art dominatrix. Is that wrong?)

Anyway, back to the revelation. No doubt many an aged oriental sage has sat by a big mountain and contemplated the implications of risk and adventure while rubbing said mountain with a silk hanky every century. And no doubt many an arse-wipe banker has sat at his/her desk and contemplated risk before disregarding it completely and selling out his/her granny for a greasy, fat bonus. And me? I’ve eaten a chocolate. Okay, this generally happens on a daily basis but this chocolate was different. This chocolate contained a hazelnut!

I don’t want to bore you with my mundane medical history (shingles and a fractured wrist have been the highlights in case you’re interested and, if you are, I don't want to be rude but that's a bit weird) but suffice to say that a bowl of muesli several years ago resulted in a tingly tongue and hence a self-diagnosis of a hazelnut allergy. This has not been easy to live with. Many a time I have had to pretend to be generous and offer a friend the hazelnut-infested chocolates left in a box. I have had to donate a full, unopened jar of chocolate spread to someone else’s cupboard and, just this Christmas, I had to reject the Ferrero Roche selection box my mum had bought for me. (No, I don’t know why she bought it either. This is the sort of motherly act that could send a lesser person into therapy.)

But this evening? This evening was different. Risk and caution went out of the health and safety window and I took a chocolate out of a box without reading the little chocolate menu thingy. I ate half of the chocolate. I saw an indentation in the half that remained. The indentation was decidedly hazelnut shaped. I crunched on something decidedly hazelnut like. I waited. I thought I may as well make the most of the few minutes I had remaining so I ate two more chocolates from the box in quick succession (although not so quickly that I wasn’t able to read the menu thingy this time because while I knew death was imminent, I didn’t want to be found dead and severely swollen). I waited. I watched Spotlight. Death was slow in his morbid arrival. I flicked over and caught the end of Hollyoaks. I suspected that Death was actually slacking a bit. And then it hit me – the revelation that is and not the anticipated death by tingly tongue. I am NOT allergic to hazlenuts!

And the moral of this emotional tale? Take a risk, god dammit! Go on, go crazy. Make something, draw something, paint something, knit something, sculpt something, weave something etc. etc. Scattered is waiting for you and your revelations...

P.S. If you are allergic to nuts, please do not eat one and then film yourself for some sort of art versus death concept piece. Thanks.

I reckon I could do 6 in a night at a push...

On the second day of this brand new year, anything seems possible. Yesterday’s new year’s day went by in a Cornish mizzle of a hangover fug and so, if you lot don’t mind, Scattered is seeing today as the actual start of the new year. The sun is shining, ‘Wanted Down Under’ is on the goggle box (wish I actually had a skill ‘cos you can live like royalty over there, god damn it, with have a pool) and the Scattered machinations are creaking back into action (don’t rush us, we’re dealing with some cheese-induced weight gain here).

Now, if you’re anything like me, your life sucks, you have minimal self-esteem and you are searching for some sort of purpose to your monotonous and empty life. Great, isn’t it? You can’t start the year feeling upbeat and you, yes you, loser-face, are in the perfect position to ‘reinvent’ yourself. But look, forget all that healthy eating, weight gain shit that other but less imaginative weaklings go far. You must resolve to be creative and, let’s go all out there, ‘interesting’. Think of the shopping and smuggery opportunities this gives you:

1.       New artistic clothes are required (think early nineties stripy tights, dolly shoes and crocheted accessories – I know I am).

2.       Buy a book, read it, tell everyone you’ve read it, make a smart arse comment about the protagonist’s inner turmoil, translate your feeble literary criticism into a mixed media, performance art, installation piece.

3.       Fully embrace the bohemian lifestyle by smoking bay leaves and snogging as many people as possible in one night (that seemed to work when I was 16 and, you know, sometimes the old ideas are the best ones).

4.       Look back at your earlier mixed media, performance art, installation piece and realise you’re not the artist you were hoping to be. Destroy it in a self-hating frenzy while listening to the Nine Inch Nails in candlelight. Sob hysterically while hurling abuse at yourself in the mirror. Look at the remaining fragments of your artistic ambitions lying at your feet. Realise that, shit, it looks much better now it’s been ‘deconstructed’.

5.       Be smug. You’re an artisit, by Jove.

Ah, so much fun to be had and as the first Scattered exhibition of 2012 will take place at the end of January – as ever, details and specifics to follow –  there’s no time to lose. 2011 is soooo last year.

See you soonJ

P.S. Can you believe it? The sun has now gone in. Bloody typical Cornish damp weather. I take it all back. Nothing ever changes. 2012 looks just like to 2011 out of my window. Ooh, what’s this, ‘Homes Under the Hammer’? Yey. Fuck change. I always thought it was overrated anyway. Put that kettle on...

It's on!!!!!!

It's confirmed, the next venue, put it in your diaries Jan 29th! As you well know Scattered followers, they get better and better and this one will not disappoint and is going to be the best one yet. If you haven't submitted, please do so and we are looking for all things creative!

Woooooo Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Another fantastic exhibition, so proud of everyone that took part, it looked great. Pictures will follow shortly, can't wait for the next one!

Sabres at the ready!

And yes, here it is at long last. Scattered is hosting it's third exhibition today at Truro Fencing Club from 4 to 6pm. As ever, expect a fantastic range of art and, unusually for us more horizontal types, some sporty distractions too...

Truro Fencing Club, Harvey Road, Newhamd, Truro, TR1 2XW.

See you there!

Touche Turtle!

Touche Turtle? Yeah, you know, Touche Turtle, the incredibly cool and impressively heroic yet really rather cute animated figure of our youth. Well, when I say 'our youth', I clearly refer to those of us who remember when roller skates were basically metal flip flops on wheels and when corn beef really did seem like a worthy sandwich filler but I think you know what I'm getting at.

Okay, so some of you ker-razy yoof-ful Scattered followers out there (yes, experimentation with spelling really is the way to keep the ageing process at bay) may not appreciate the greatest turtle of our times but I think we can all learn a little from what he stands for.

No? Well, not only does Touche Turtle represent the opponent who is always going to impress his competitor with his worthy and witty retorts, he also represents a species that has stood the test of evolutionary time. And the link with Scattered? Well, it's as clear as a swipe from Touche's blade; Scattered's exhibition on Sunday 2nd October will be in a species of its own, sure to impress everyone.

Keep your foils at the ready and see you there:)

(Disclaimer: While it could be argued that Scattered has short, sturdy legs, it is legally bound to admit that it does not have horny scutes.) 

Pants!

The worst thing about going on holiday, aside from the cocktail-induced-Euro-binge-guilt and the disappointment when you realise that your tan pales (literally) into insignificance next to the golden skin of the person who tells you that they 'sat in the shade' all week, is dirty washing. Specifically dirty underwear. You know what I mean - those pesky pants that sit at the bottom of your travel bag, spreading their dirtiness and tempting you to sniff them in case they're actually your clean ones (they never are) - they really do take the glamour out of travel (and I fly Ryan Air so I know all about glamorous travel).

So, it's almost with reflief that those days of sipping mojitas around the pool in our private villa are over and that the Scattered team is back in Cornwall enjoying the dregs of Hurricane Irene and figuring out how to live off 5 Euros for the rest of the month (eating souvenir tea towels is becoming an appealing option). And better yet, with those pants recently cleaned, the Scattered team is hygenic, fragrant and gearing up to the third Scattered exhibition.

We'll keep you posted so keep visiting the blog. Visas, sun cream, naff sun hats and cheap rip-off sunglasses are not required. We know you're an arty bunch though so the condition of your underwear will be up to you...

P.S. Spent all your money on 'crazy' souvenir fridge magnets? Don't worry 'cos Scattered is free!

Get your glad rags on, you've pulled! Another Scattered Art event coming soon!

We've found a venue and excitement is building. It's set to be another amazing Scattered event at the end of September - so make sure it's in your diaries and tell all your friends to follow the blog and keep in the loop. Remember these are temporary one-off exhibitions so don't miss your chance to be involved.

Scattered 2 - Vanilla Nightclub in Truro 3rd July 2011