at Jelly Open Studios

many thanks to the visitors of the Studios Open Day at Jelly  last Saturday, very nice meeting you and chatting with you. Hope you enjoyed the event and the exhibited work.
The work will be still displayed at the studio so if you didn't manage to come last Saturday just let me know and I'll be more than happy to arrange ad hoc visits.
Of course in addition to act as a gallery, shoots still take place at the studio as normal, so just let me know.
Finally many thanks to Vicky Slater Photography for allowing me to exhibit her work too. Her images will be available to view at the studio until Friday this week.

 

And of course many thanks to those visitors and exhibitors at the Jelly Open Studios who were so patient and allowed me to take their photos to put together a small visual memento of the day

and here you can see the stills (click on the picture for a larger image)

Open Studio and Gallery at Jelly Open Studios Day

As some  of you know since early this year I have been using a pop-up studio in town centre of Reading in collaboration with local art charity Jelly.

The photography studio will open for the day with an exhibition showing a selection of my work and I will also have the pleasure of showing the work of talented Salisbury photographer Vicky Slater .

When:  Saturday, 6 April 2013; 11:00 until 16:00

Where: 42 Market Place, RG1 2DE Reading, Berkshire , map

I will be at the second floor welcoming you and available for a chat about all those photographic things and more. I will also have a photo studio corner and I'll invite visitors to have the photo taken as a record of the day.
There will be a variety of photographic prints for sale too and part of the proceeding will go to support Jelly for the work and activities.

photo by salvo toscano photography

photo by vicky slater photography

At Jelly  for the first time in a very long time, we are opening all the doors in our space at 42 Market Place for you to come in and see what we do in there in the Jelly studios.

The first floor will be host to the resident artists as well as The Vintage Studio, we will be serving teas too (all contributions to the tea go straight to jelly and our community work). Floor two will also include artists guests who are taking part in the forthcoming Reading Contemporary Art Fair, with a taster of the work they will be showing. Floor 3 will be a chance to see the linocut by Mark Webber, the artwork of Martin Stubbington and the other third floor residents. This is a chance to see our studios in their working state, feel free to ask questions, relax and spend some time with us. You can read more about it on the Jelly website.

For those of you using social media, here are some links to Facebook and Google+  pages of the event.

Looking forward to seeing you.

heritage open days 2012

Heritage Open Days celebrates England’s fantastic architecture and culture. Heritage Open Days is organised by a huge network of people who share a passion for places, history and culture and managed in partnership with organisations such as the National Trust.
I had the pleasure to be commissioned to capture for the organisers the events happening in Reading under the last sun of the summer. During these days people could access places that are usually closed to the public or normally charge for admission and street events brought more buzz and vibrancy to the town centre.

while it rained out there

It was time to put the old boozer to good use again after the Outside/Festival. So here continuing to my chronicle and cooperation with Jelly and their monthly appointments with 3rd Thursday, the old pub became an open stage on the street with local band You Have Spoken and music charity Readipop performing for the people to celebrate the town musical creativity.
All of this while a heavy rain battered outside, in one of the wettest days of the year.
More about this event and Jelly here.

The Third Thursdays

For the past couple of months I had the honour and pleasure to be invited to participate to a new art programme in Reading, the town where I live: The Third Thursdays, another brainchild of the art organisation Jelly. 

The Third Thursday is a monthly event showcasing the creative talent of Reading and includes visual, literary, music and performing arts in non-traditional arts venues. This is another of a series of programmes and events that contribute to the enhancement of the local cultural life.

The launch event included an art auction where attendees had the opportunity to buy original works raising monies for charity.

Below is the image of my piece that was sold at the auction. Part of a Venice inspired lith prints series

the second and latest event took place last week and it was a great evening of photography, stories and poetry from Reading. I was invited to present and talk about my latest project and exhibition and I was glad it had such a positive response. People showed interest in the exhibition and asked questions about the stories behind it and the people that participated and about my photography and approach.
Particularly rewarding and chuffing was listening to the poet Anna-May Laugher from the Brickwork Poets group read 2 poems inspired by my exhibition.
You can read here a review of the event and I suggest you take a look at the Jelly website to find out more about them and the great things they do.

40 people: 40 little stories

“40 people in Reading: 40 stories of passion”
it is a photo portrait project and exhibition to explore, talk to, acknowledge and celebrate people within the community in Reading that dedicate themselves in activities motivated by a passion, a personal drive (could be volunteers, artists, activists, entrepreneurs). It is a local project, as it focuses on people that work within and with the local community and look more into what possibly is an aspect of Reading that many people do not look at or are not aware of. As we know normally Reading gets a pretty bad press (see the recent “clone Towns” survey or the notorious binge drinking culture) for me this is also a way of telling a different story and putting some faces in this story of people that break a mould. All these people have some form of connection with Reading, either through live, work, education or taking part.

The images are now an exhibition part of the Open for Art programme by Jelly, in 173 Friar Street, Reading town centre

I would like to thank the individuals and the following organisations for participating in this project:

• Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC)
• Reading Refugee Support Group (RRSG)
• Rising Sun Arts Centre
• True Food Co-op
• Jelly
• Amnesty International, Reading group
• Age UK
• Age Concern Berkshire
• Progress Theatre