The Ultimate Party Animal

By Millie Ross

A chameleon with retro-futuristic skin, Arran Gregory’s Grizzly Bear reflects it’s surroundings. After graduating from Chelsea College of Art and Design’s Graphics and Communication degree with a his handcrafted pet in hand, Arran, skater, illustrator, sculptor and Slam City Skate t-shirt designer, exhibits his mirrored bear in DIY LONDON SEEN this week.

(Click any image to enlarge it)

Why a grizzly bear?
I'm not entirely sure where my interest in bears comes from... I like to represent animals graphically and I find the Grizzly bear has the most impact. It is said that the Grizzly bear spirit is the most powerful of all animal spirits. I find this quite cool.

Did you look to other artists or designers for inspiration when creating this work?
No. my ideas never derive directly from another persons art. i don't search for inspiration, it comes to me naturally, as a result i have found that my ideas are often quite surreal.
Once i get a really exciting idea, I have to see it through. It's a test for myself to see whether it can be done. That's how it worked regarding the Mirror Bear- the idea was there and i could picture it perfectly, so i had to make it happen.

What research did you do prior to and during the creation?
I had to research a lot of different materials and think through exactly how I was going to build the Bear as I'd never made a sculpture before. I researched the muscle and bone structure of the grizzly bear so that I could accurately picture every angle whilst sculpting.

Is this the first lifesize mirror animal you've created?
Yes

What would you do differently next time?
I want to make a smaller animal which is easier to manage. Then after that i want to make something four times as big.

I noticed on your blog you'd approached BAPE to create a mirror animal sculpture for their retail outlets- was this self initiated? Are you a fan of the label- what drew you to them? Would you like to work on interiors more in the future?
Yeah I approached Bape as the project seemed to suit their company so well. I proposed to build an Ape. I haven't really considered interior design until you mentioned it. I guess I'd like to, but i want to concentrate on developing my drawings for now.

Would you call yourself an illustrator or sculptor? I'm an artist, who illustrates ideas; usually I put pen to paper to release them, sometimes I have to take a photograph or make a sculpture. I wouldn't want to restrict my creativity by confining my ideas within the boundaries of traditional illustration.

What or who inspires you?
I'm inspired by animals, nature, sega games, skateboarding, travelling and the city.

How did you come to be exhibiting in DIY London Seen?
My friend Gareth who runs Pointer footwear and Slam showed my work to Bakul and she got in contact. Oh and because I skate.

How can you relate to the artists and work featured in the film? Are you a fan?
I'm a big fan of Beautiful Losers. Actually, I concentrated on the book in quite some detail for my dissertation. I wanted to find out why skateboarders feel the need to create art and why the act of skateboarding is so inspirational.


What's up next for you? Are you working on any new projects?
Proposing to create a giant mirrorball strawberry for Spitalfields Market.

Philip Li

By Holly Willats

Camberwell graduate and This Is Why We Meet player Philip Li fuses disciplines, materials and genres, including performance, sculpture, drawing, ceramics, fashion and new media. Known for his graduate of ceramic works for which he sought to develop new images for the traditional medium, creating a surprising series of fashion cross architectural sculpted ceramic armour.

Your work combines photography, performance, fashion and ceramics. How does you work allow these different disciplines work well together?

As an artist, these disciplines are all methods of expression - and depending on the project, certain aspects get more prominence. I have a very holistic view of art and want to try everything – and I think that’s a very modern idea – the ability to crossover and put things together in a new way – the way I dress, the things I do, the things I make – are all about pushing those boundaries. For me, the excitement comes when you can build those bridges between disciplines - and play with their definitions and the perceptions of the audience. Especially with traditional ideas and materials - like ceramics.

What was it that first drew you to using ceramics?

The tactility – clay is such a responsive material and I’m a maker, so those qualities of clay really appealed to me. It can be transformed to any state – from liquid, to glass, to dust. The possibilities of manipulating it are endless. I also like the fact it's such a subversive material that not many people care or know about – but I do! A lot of people undervalue it – including education systems, which is a huge shame. I learnt a lot from that in-depth focus on one material, which has enabled me to become more questioning with everything else.

What is the concept behind your latest work, ‘The Statue’ and ‘The Commuter’ series?

It was really about developing new ways of seeing – and by placing ceramics into a photograph, I wanted to say that ceramics doesn’t necessarily have to be a pot that sits on a table. It can be an image, it can have a presence in a photograph and it can be used to describe ideas in other ways. Added to that is my passion for fashion images, and how sexuality and gender is represented and manipulated – and how it affects me. So all the ceramic body-sculptures and compositions in ‘The Statue’ and ‘The Commuter’ series are about the construction of masculine archetypes and my attempts at becoming them.

You arecently collaborated with Carl Guilhon, Chris King, and Joel Stephens in POP–ME–UP, a collaborative project as part of This Is Why We Meet – how did this collaboration first come about?

Joe and Jimmy (from Pat + Trevor) asked me to apply for the project, and it sounded such a great idea - so I did! We were friends before but had never worked on a project together – so this seemed a perfect opportunity. Together with Laura (from W+K) they also chose my fellow collaborators. In the back of their mind, I think they wanted to create a new boyband…

Did you find that you worked well with these other artists in this project?

I’m extremely flexible in my work and I’m lucky to have a broad range of media and disciplines – so finding something that could be applied to the project was quite easy – but having never worked with these guys before – you also had to consider what everyone else wanted to add – and then make a good choice from it all! Ceramics was too problematic to use in the short space of time – but we also had to create something altogether. In the end, this project utilizes each person’s strengths quite well – from the performance aspect, the graphics, the styling and the businessman mentality. The theme of masculinity definitely was in there. It allowed us to explore that side of creating a pseudo real-life, art installation – we were the exhibits.

POP–ME–UP relies on audience interaction and participation. Why is this important to the project?

Interaction was one of the key demands ‘This Is Why We Meet’ hence the ‘me’ in POP-ME-UP. We wanted people to engage with the space and us in a very direct, human way. In a way, we were re-appropriating the space and giving it back to the public by selling them sections of the window. It’s about building connections, getting people aware of what is surrounding them, and making them engaged and feel a part of the artwork. POP-ME-UP operates on so many levels, but ultimately it was important for me that there was something deeper for them to engage with – and this idea of finance and advertising was fundamental to this project – our survival as artists and as humans, in an increasingly financed and commercial world.

What has been the reaction to the project so far?

Everyone’s been extremely positive – we thought the W+K guys might think we were taking the piss out of them – but they didn’t thankfully! It is a site-sensitive piece and the public are interested in it. It’s human nature to read those ads – we’ve got lonely hearts ads, restaurateur posters, signed Gilbert & George flyers. Once that wall is filled, we’ll have a great document of everyone who’s participated in the project.

What will happen to the contributions for POP–ME–UP after this week?

They’ll all be popped up somewhere else! Hopefully they’ll be compiled together for a publication and for further viewing online or in an exhibition. They’re definitely not going to be thrown away. Hopefully some of the advertisers get some responses too!

Do you have any other projects or exhibitions coming up?

Yes - I’ll be showing at the British Ceramics Biennial in Stoke-On-Trent later on this year, and then I’m doing some work with LuckyPDF – we’re hopefully moving into our new studios soon so I can get going on some more work. I’m going to start some more collaborations too – that’s very much how I’d like to move my work forward! That’s pretty much the plan now – work, work, work!

See more of Philip's work here

London Fashion Weekend

By Millie Ross

LFWend catwalk will see designers such as Matthew Williamson, Jaeger London, Basso & Brooke, Luella, Eley Kishimoto exhibit immediately after London Fashion Week in an event tailored for the shoppers.

London Fashion Weekend will take place from the 24th to the 27th of September at the Somerset House and urban 180 The Strand - the new home of British fashion, London Fashion Weekend will again be using the official London Fashion Week catwalk.

LFWend have launched a new Photographers pass which gives photographers, both amateur and pro, the chance to photograph or film 2 of the London Fashion Weekend catwalks of their choice throughout the weekend. A stellar opportunity for those wanting to build their fashion catwalk portfolio and also to use images editorially.

We have 20 of these passes to give away, so 20 photographers can come and snap away for free.

email us at editor@jotta.com to win.

Register for tickets here

Boring Journeys Effect Your Mood

By Millie Ross

jotta popped down to the week long workshop commandeered by glueLondon and onedotzero, the international festival of innovative adventures moving image, to find out what their crack teams of students had in mind to change our urban environment for the better.

glueLondon and onedotzero selected 40 graduates from across 17 creative disciplines and threw them into the Doodle Bar in Battersea for 6 days to get busy brainstorming. With daily workshops from design and creative industry mentors, the students were split into teams and briefed over the week to produce an interventionary piece that reimagines their urban environment and improving it in some was. Drawing from varying frames of reference, even basic issues like communicating an idea becamea challenge.

jotta caught up with three of the teams:

BLUE team

Members of Blue crew span disciplines of spatial design, illustration, interaction design, and come from colleges like Central Saint Martins, Camberwell College of art and Design and Middlesex.

"We went through loads of ideas, we over-analysed the ideas and actually kept coming back to this one. The creative process went in a circle.

Basically we’ve subverted the Facebook and blogging phenomenon, taking the online interaction experience physical.

It’s been hard because of our different backgrounds, and the way we approach things differently, also we only just met, the first 3 days we were all spent being over polite".

Coming from different frames of reference sometimes made it tricky, but Blue team caught on to one of Britain's favourite moaning past times- the weather!

"Our idea is trying to celebrate bad weather, coloured umbrellas float above a town square in a flock, when the weather is good they stay condensed and when it rains they follow individuals by GPS or Bluetooth. It’s playful, relaxed, homely, it’s meant to brighten up your day."

Thebluegroup.wordpress.com

MAGENTA team

Their cross disciplinary skill set spans motion graphics, photography, graphics and illustration, "We took elements from a few different ideas."

Magenta team decided to focus on changing the environment to encourage people to be nice to others simply for the sake of it - interventions which demonstrate the mantra:

"It’s Nice To Be Nice."

Check out their blog here-

playgrounddoor.tumblr.com

ORANGE team

The Orange gang were looking pretty productive when we stopped by, with pairs working on an animated site, pieces of wood were being chopped and painted as miniature models of their instalation plan.

"We looked at how we see our environment, something that you walk past everyday and see but that will change constantly."

Their idea looks at patterns of the city and migration flows. With a functional property, for instance if the station is full the multi- coloured poles grow higher, people can see it online and plan their journey.

Creates an effect almost like the city is breathing, like a Mexican wave effect. We liked this one.

Onedotzeroorange.tumblr.com

For more details on the week and the cascade project visit:

www.onedotzero.com/blog

www.gluelondon.com

Get Involved

By Stephanie Grace
Since jotta launched earlier this year, we’ve worked with literally hundreds of people from the jotta community on exhibitions, workshops, special projects and more. Below are some of the ways you can get involved.



jotta animate the V&A

We try and keep you up to date on all our projects well in advance, and offer ways you can contribute and participate with exhibitions and events such as the V&A Friday Late, The jotta Craft Fair, The Legion and The Trafalgar Hotel exhibitions. But sometimes there’s just so much to keep track of, so here’s some tips on how you can get involved. Don't forget we're always here should you want to get in touch with us directly too, email ben@jotta.com or call us on 020 3286 9291



jottaContemporary

Looking for a place to exhibit your work?

We select from the best artist’s on the jotta network to exhibit work in various locations, from the grand halls of the Victoria and Albert Museum to weird and wonderful sites such as pop-up boutiques in Soho to re-claimed shopping centres in Elephant & Castle.

Contact ellie@jotta.com



jottaBoutique

Want a place to sell your work in a credible space, without the worry of being exploited over commission?

A platform to promote and sell your work directly, from original art pieces, limited edition prints, fine art photography to one-off design pieces. Sell your work in a trusted space and in good company, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design have chosen jottaBoutique as their only online store.

Find out more here



jottaLab

Keen to work within a design agency environment?

Solving business and brand challenges through design, jottaLab is a multidisciplinary full service design agency, which brings together a wealth of experience with the best emerging talent to create intelligent design solutions.

Find out more about jottaLab (link coming soon...)



Ones To Watch

Want some extra exposure?

We spotlight the hottest talent from within the jotta community, interviewing and showcasing their work in the magazine and on the homepage.

Are you the next big thing?

Apply to be interviewed by emailing millie@jotta.com



Marketplace

A realm of opportunities

We list some of the best jobs, internships, competitions, scholarships that the creative world has to offer, from Conde Nast illustration commissions, to internships at Vice magazine and the Institute of Contemporary Art, residencies in Australia and Berlin and competitions with BBC World.

Jump into Marketplace



The Magazine

Have you got something to say?

Well jotta is the place to say it! We are on the look out for budding journalists and art critics to contribute to the magazine.

Email millie@jotta.com



Groups

Looking to collaborate/discuss/debate?

Want to start a collective, find your creative soul mate, have a group exhibition, ponder over the latest offerings from your favourite artist or rant about an awful exhibition you went to last week?

There’s a group for nearly everything, and if you don’t find what your looking for, start your own here.

The Next Big Thing

The seven short films chosen by art and design collective Tomato from this years’ graduates show that in these dark economic times, filmmakers seem to be satisfying the public appetite for a little escapism.



Organised by Film Friends Forever, the selection of seven films contained elements of magic and surrealism, a mixture of quirkiness and poignancy.

Royal College of Art graduate Rafael Sommerhalder’s animation piece Wolves, set the tone for the evening - a tale of two lonely commuters on the tube becoming part of a lupine-esque mating ritual. The simplicity of the sparse black and white animation enhanced the humour as well as the painful awkwardness of the character’s interactions.

What followed was the sole exception to an otherwise animation dominated bill - London College of Communication’s Luke White's Tide is a dreamlike story of a father sending his son down a small tunnel, equipped with a camera to bring back footage from a place very different from the bleak, barren landscape they inhabit. Inter-spliced with 16-mm projections, its ominous, dramatic atosphere was reminiscent of sequences from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Helen Piercy of the National Film and Television School (NFTS) presented Goodbye Mr Pink, a mixture of live action and stop-motion animation in which two children, on discovering their pet rabbit has died, perform an amateur autopsy and imagine the afterlife in store for the eponymous Mr Pink. With elements of twee and the sinister combined, this film had a distinct Roald Dahl feel.

Another NFTS graduate, Li Marhaban’s film End of the Line is a stunningly crafted mixed media animation of a woman navigating a city, run down by hours of work and commuting. Beautifully evocative, End of the Line was tipped by Tomato as the pick of the bunch, followed by Seong Jun Lee of the RCA’s experimental animation Cityscape, which conjures up scenes of London through flowing layers of spidery line drawings.

The evening closed with two funnies. Yellow Belly Up, from Philip Bacon, also of the NFTS, depicted an assortment of people wearing animal suits jumping of a cliff, meticulously recorded by a bespectacled, bird-suited, jellybean-eating overseer. Comparisons can be drawn with the black humour implicit in the work of young animator David Firth, creator of Salad Fingers.

Lastly, David Lopez Retamero, again from the RCA, showed us Sam’s Hotdog’s . Hot-dog vendor Sam introduces us to his life, his girlfriends and his vicious pet bear. As well as sublime animation, the comic dialogue set thsi film apart from the other, less talky pieces and ensured it drew the biggest laughs and audience response of the night.


The animation and cinematography of the films is uniformly beautiful and highly impressive, but what is interesting is the total absence of grit or realism. While, as a society we are in need of a good cheering up, the occasional change of tone wouldn’t have gone amiss to avoid the tone becoming mono. None the less, independently, each piece is impressive and the creators are definitely ones to watch.

www.tomato.co.uk
www.filmfriendsforever.com

Stories of the Eye competition

By Millie Findlay

Vice and Olympus have teamed up for a new photography project, where four ladies in the limelight use a camera to showcase hidden talents and create an interactive blog, allowing us a rare glimpse into their worlds.

Lovefoxxx's toes, Daisy's ginger boy with money, Alice and boy, Miquita's pool table shot. (Click any image to enlarge it)

In 1959, Olympus changed the face of photography with one simple idea: create a camera as easy to use and carry as a pen. Designed by renowned style guru Yoshihisa Maitani, the original Olympus Pen sold over 17 million units to become one of the most popular and trusted camera series ever. Now some of the UK's leading young women have been invited to take part in the relaunch, by choosing a theme for their own photographic blog which they'll then populate with pics taken on the new Olympus Pen.

Lovefoxxx, while renowned as the lead singer of CSS, the former illustrator and fashion assistant uses her natural creativity as she travels the world with her band. Model Daisy Lowe uses 'eye style' to take us behind the scenes of her fashionable world. Alice Dellal indulges her passion for photography, the model with the copy-cat inciting style offers us a glimpse into her life beyond the catwalk. London-based TV presenter Miquita Oliver uses 'eyeLondon" as a vehicle to take us on an insider's tour of her hometown.

Each will upload the photographs they snap on their Olympus Pens over the course of six weeks, giving us a privileged peek inside their worlds.

Mean while the public, you, us, anyone with a trigger finger, can browse through their photographs, and if they feel inspired, upload their own original snaps.

Lovefoxx, Daisy, Alice and Miquita will each judge the images uploaded within their own section, and picks their choice of images to be displayed on the website. At the end of the project each girl will chose one contributor to be displayed alongside the four celebrities in the Stories of the Eye exhibition. All the winners will also receive an Olympus E-P1, worth £699!

The exhibition will open with a typical VICE party bang, attended by industry insiders, press and special guests. Date and venue tbc.

See the story so far at www.viceland.com/storiesof theeye