Collect Connect

Tuesday, 12 February 2019

Susie Mendelsson - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Susie Mendelsson - Walthamstow

Does love endure forever? Does a bad penny always turn up? During this Valentine month the artists and writers from CollectConnect explore this flip-sided theme with an exhibition of 32 miniature sculptures. These objects are placed in public places (#unsettledgallery), helping us to remember those who we hold dear - or cast off those who we would rather forget. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these tokens/pennies on this website. A writer will also use the art as inspiration to create something new and fresh.

Art - Susie Mendelsson / Words - Ed Arantus

Stag man as white as your boots

Wig wam you flick me the truth

Boom! The boot of your heart

Stamp! I want that crackle and burn

Walking the line with your sweet sickly jive

Take roads out to the most haunted of drives

War baby it’s not my real lick

I shoot the darts, redeye and slick

Sweeeet! flame on your lips

Purse your mout' dry baby, don’t why?

You want the rough of the beast of my belly

The burn of a rose, the beat on the road

Don’t think that I won’t put you the boot

Stag man kick up and white, Stag man kick up and white, Stag man go hit-beat my life

Susie Mendelsson

Susie's little man stands on a communications/signals box in Wood Street, Walthamstow. He stands proud like a Subbuteo player who has escaped from his miniature world. Perhaps he is a member of 'The Stags' (Walthamstow FC) who play at Wadham Lodge in the Essex Senior League. Walthamstow FC are having a good season in 2019, they are currently 5th in the table (out of 20 teams), their team kit is white.

Susie Mendelsson

Susan Mendelsson was born at Hackney, London and educated at the Manchester Metropolitan University, gaining a B.A. (hons.) in Graphic Design. She then took a Teaching Diploma in Art from at University of Haifa, Israel and an M.A. in Fine Art from Coventry University. A figurative artist who has been influenced by the German expressionists as well as medieval art and works mainly in paint and mixed media. In her Suffolk studio she creates the most amazing 3D figures and characters often made from found objects.

https://susiemendelsson.co.uk/

Ed Arantus is no stranger to art and writing, he first published his work in the Censored Zine (July 2010) and has exhibited his work ever since at venues like the Contemporary Arts Research Unit in Oxford (2014). Last year he exhibited his poem 'Google If' at the Museum of Futures as part of the Enemies Project. He used to own a Subbuteo set when he was a boy and is named after a the Brazilian footballer Pele (Edson Arantes do Nascimento).

http://edarantus.blogspot.co.uk/

Monday, 11 February 2019

Barbara Dougan - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Barbara Dougan - Epping Forest

Art - Barbara Dougan / Words - Ed Arantus

We could be all grown up

Hard pruned and razor-cut

Scar street criss-cross lover

Trace the lines of heart and chart

Eternity carved forever

On the bow, our dawn treader

Pinpricked

All sewn up

Stuckeyed

All sewn up

Patterns punched in sinewed thread

Overlapping seasons, the longing spread

Into a tornado ring

Hand grenade pulled within

In the wake we are lovers interwebbed

A film created by Barbara Dougan accompanies this artwork.

You can find Barbara Dougan's artwork near the covered water reservoir in Epping Forest. The Forest is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, bordering London and Essex and is an Ancient Woodland, one of the few left in London. The sculptor Jacob Epstein lived on the edge of the Forest. Nowadays the Forest is used by dog walkers, mountain bikers, horse and pony riders and picnicking friends and families as well as footballers, bird watchers and runners. I like to imagine all the lovers who might have left their own love tokens in the forest over the centuries. The Forest has also had its share of Bad Pennies reaching up to the present day.
Take a walk through the Forest and see if you can find a Love Token or a Bad Penny.

Barbara Dougan - Epping Forest

An interest in the environment informs Barbara Dougan's work, along with an ongoing exploration of constraint, change and adaptation. For two years she collaborated with choreographer Darren Ellis and dancer Hannah Kidd, leading to films Tea Break and Living Room, and a participatory work Unentitled: channel your angst in the Edwardian Cloakrooms in Bristol. Currently she is collaborating with fellow artist Henry Driver. They are artists-in-residence with Collusion, developing TEO for a showcase which will bring together all the innovative interdisciplinary work commissioned from artists. Work will be installed at Cambridge Leisure Park from 5 - 14 April 2019 with the public launch on 5 April.

http://www.barbaradougan.com

http://edarantus.blogspot.co.uk/

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th April 2019. More at http://collectconnect.blogspot.com/p/submit.html

Sunday, 10 February 2019

Dean Reddick - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Dean Reddick-Bad penny

No Point

I remember Nina telling me a joke in Paris one night about sticking a finger in a dyke. She was shocked at how shocked I was. I was shocked at how shocked she was at how shocked I was, and we realised how little we knew each other. I know now that was the moment we chose to try to find each other and that was the moment that condemned us forever to looking at each other from afar.

Nina left Paris before me and I met Dalida soon after and Dalida was beautiful and doomed and sad and hated Americans and hated the blues and every time she beckoned me to her in that Italian, Egyptian, Martian way of hers, I thought about Nina. One broke Spring day I wrote a song for Dalida based on an old Django thing I half-remembered from Vancouver and every time she drank too much wine, she'd demand I sing it, wherever we were. I remember jumping on stage and pushing an old jazz man out of the way once at Le Bar Blomet and playing it, just to make her smile. By the time I'd finished, she'd already left the place and I wouldn't see her for a week.

I can't remember the words of D's song at all. It's funny: I could play you every note, every chord, I could tell you what I was thinking every time I sang it, what she was wearing. But the words have all gone, even the title has disappeared. I suspect Nina removed it from my mind, some time between Paris and Greensboro.

From 'Chopsticks Nelson: In His Own Words', published by Faber (1984)

Dean Reddick's Bad Penny on a tree limb

at the #unsettledgallery Epping Forest

Epping Forest is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, bordering London and Essex and is an Ancient Woodland, one of the few left in London. The sculptor Jacob Epstein lived on the edge of the Forest. Nowadays the Forest is used by dog walkers, mountain bikers, horse and pony riders and picnicking friends and families as well as footballers, bird watchers and runners. I like to imagine all the lovers who might have left their own love tokens in the forest over the centuries. The Forest has also had its share of Bad Pennies reaching up to the present day.
Take a walk through the Forest and see if you can find a Love Token or a Bad Penny.

John 'Chopsticks' Nelson

John 'Chopsticks' Nelson (February 14th, 1926 – July 13th, 1979) was an American blues singer, guitarist, actor and composer. Notoriously reclusive and hostile to both media and fans alike, Nelson remained a little-known but passionately-followed figure in the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia for much of his life, before becoming more widely known with the release of 'They Call Me Chopsticks' in 1976.

Originally a backing singer and session guitarist, he contributed to many albums by other musicians, including Sonny Boy Williamson, The Rolling Stones, ZZ Top, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters.

Over the course of his career, Nelson's music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension, culminating in the controversial 1974 triple album, 'God, Allah and Yahweh' and live shows that became a focus for attacks by the Ku Klux Klan.

Nelson remains one of the most influential - if least understood - bluesmen in music history. He died in a hunting accident in West Virginia the day after his fourth album entered the Billboard charts at Number Two in July, 1979.

https://twitter.com/ChopsticksNels1

Dean Reddick is an artist, an art therapist, occasional lecturer and editor on the Art Therapy Journal ATOL. He has a small studio space at his home in Walthamstow where he works on sculptures and drawings often based on his fascination with birds and trees.

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th April 2019. More HERE.

Saturday, 9 February 2019

Bryan Benge - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Bryan Benge - Bad Penny

Art - Bryan Benge / Words - Ed Arantus

Bye bye head it’s me ol’ battery boy

Ready to blow into acid style iron

Bye bye ol’ head hear the big boom boy

Life boy

Stand by

Hear your idiot mess rhythm

Sound boy

Shout boy

I don’t want to be your Jedi

War rhymes chew on DC canons

South sound boy with a dirty frock smile

Bolt white I sick out your outage

But your angry firehole swings back into life

Bryan Benge's Bad Penny at the #unsettledgallery

Walthamstow

Bryan's Bad Penny squats on this grand old lamp post in Walthamstow.

Waltham Forest is currently the London Borough of Culture and many parts of the Borough are undergoing extensive change with rapid housing development and large scale gentrification.

Bryan Benge is a practising artist, currently exploring digital media in his Fine Art practice.
He has always been an exhibiting artist. In 1992 he became a Member of The London Group.
Bryan's first involvement with CollectConnect was at the Open Fridge Gallery 89 in March 2010. Since then he has enjoyed working alongside his colleagues Alban, Dean and Stuart.
The philosophy of CollectConnect sits alongside his belief that creativity and all its outcomes need to be encouraged and supported for all ages and backgrounds, that is without sanctions of selection or application of a personalised aesthetic. To enable artists opportunities to exhibit their work, free from barriers and gatekeepers.
From all the CollectConnect collaborations the one that stands out most for Bryan was CollectConnect’s collaboration with the Foundation students at the University for the Creative Arts, Surrey (UCA). Bryan worked for 15 Years as a Senior Lecturer/Course Leader where he managed the Foundation course at UCA.
During 2013 the students produced artworks which were reproduced in the Future Bound book. This gave these young students exposure for their artwork for the first time outside academia. To this day some of the students are in contact with his colleague Alban encouraged by that collective experience.
http://bryanbenge.co.uk

http://edarantus.blogspot.co.uk/

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th April 2019. More HERE.

Friday, 8 February 2019

Simon Brewster - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Simon Brewster-Love Token or Bad Penny?

Art - Simon Brewster / Words - Dean Reddick

Initially we thought they were little worms or maggots sticking up out of the penny.

Thoughts of corruption and putrefaction swarmed our eager minds.
Then we noticed they were legs, marching round and round so that the penny slowly span on the spot, one revolution each century, or thereabouts.
The heads were on the flip side and lived upside-down their whole lives, unaware of the ceaseless marching of their lower bodies.

We looked down at our legs which seemed quite still as the world span round.

Simon Brewster

Simon's penny can be found on a beautiful cube of oak, part of the mini holland scheme in Walthamstow. The oak cube serves as a bench, an impromptu table and plinth and as part of controversial road calming measures aimed at increasing cycle use and deterring car use.

Simon's art work on the oak block

at the #unsettledgallery Walthamstow

Simon Brewster -

Since completing an Arts residency at Canary Wharf last year, Simon’s Fine Art practice has begun to make more overt references to political and environmental issues.

The series of works made over the past year or two are small and intimate, yet aspire to evoke dark themes such as slavery, corporate capitalism and systems of power and control.

Simon is interested in notions of Art as a commodity. He celebrates qualities such as impermanence and fragility and often uses found, appropriated or degraded raw materials.

https://www.simonbrewsterart.com/

Dean Reddick is an artist, an art therapist, occasional lecturer and editor on the Art Therapy Journal ATOL. He has a small studio space at his home in Walthamstow where he works on sculptures and drawings often based on his fascination with birds and trees.

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th April 2019. More HERE.

Thursday, 7 February 2019

Eskild Beck - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Eskild Beck - Epping Forest

Art - Eskild Beck / Words - Natalie Low

In the morning, when you leave the room in the dark before me, I reach over and feel inside the space you have left behind in the sheets. It’s like the cast of a still-warm person from Pompeii. I marvel at the series of steps that have led you to live here with me.

In the bathroom, the toothpaste is leaning over in the cup, clutching its stomach like it’s been punched, and your toothbrush is minty and damp. The mirror is misted over and you have scrubbed out a space so you can see yourself. I like to place my reflection where yours would have been.

Your plate is by the sink, sprinkled with crumbs that fell from your mouth. Your glass has a millimetre of liquid left in the bottom. If I was a detective, I could itemise exactly what you had eaten and drunk today.

There are other signs of our skirmishes: closing the windows that you have opened; opening the curtains that you have drawn; lid up, lid down; tidying up your mess. I like to track your small trail around our home and through my life. I like the physical evidence that you are here.

Eskild Beck

Eskild Beck is an internationally respected artist, his imagined world drawings have been enjoyed by art lovers around the world. His work has an ethereal quality that often transcends the physicality of this world. Eskild lives in Aabenraa, Denmark and last year hosted the Small World Futures exhibition in a gallery in the centre of the town. He has been exhibiting with CollectConnect since Freezchester in July 2010.
http://starflight.dk/

Natalie Low enjoys putting words on paper and believes that everyone has a book of some sort inside them. She has published two chapbooks, Dementia (2015) and School Run (2017). She also appears in this exhibition as an artist/maker.

Alban was recently interviewed about Love Tokens and Bad Pennies for the Talking Walking podcast by Andrew Stuck, the founding director of the Museum of Walking and Rethinking Cities. Listen here - https://www.talkingwalking.net/alban-low-talking-walking/

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th April 2019. More at http://collectconnect.blogspot.com/p/submit.html

Wednesday, 6 February 2019

Lesley Cartwright - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Lesley Cartwright Bad Penny

Art - Lesley Cartwright / Words - Francesca Albini

Fragile, ephemeral, trickster,
Shape-shifter,
With a hint of a smile
You tell me,

It’s not all as it seems.

Lesley Cartwright's Bad Penny at the

#unsettledgallery Walthamstow

Lesley's Bad Penny sits on a plinth in Wood Street Plaza, which was revamped a few years ago to contain a series of water fountains for children to play in during the hot summer months and a bespoke adventure playground for the local children and young people. More recent developments have seen new flats built on the site, just one of the many building projects in the area. It remains to be seen whether the latest incarnation of the Wood Street Plaza will continue to provide a play space for children.

Lesley Cartwright was born in Liverpool but later moved to Essex to run a Hostel for homeless teenagers. She made her name in the commercial graphic field and music photography until she developed MS and now paints portraits from her Billericay studio. Cartwright is a multitalented artist who is not bound by genre nor convention. Cartwright has been exhibiting with CollectConnect since the Cardboard City exhibition in 2013.

https://twitter.com/ley9

Tuesday, 5 February 2019

Francesca Albini - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Francesca Albini - Love Token

Art - Francesca Albini / Words - Natalie Low

Love has broken my back

So I need new ways to

Reach my destination.

Love has laid me so low

But I can still enjoy

The view from the gutter.

I have more loves to find,

More selves to re-invent,

More ways to win and fail.

It helps to remember

That love is a monster

But also a comfort.

Francesca Albini

You can see Francesca's artwork on a bridge above the River Crane next to the Mill Road Allotments at #unsettledgallery No.11. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover. The River Crane runs through the slim woodland and pasture area of Crane Park in Twickenham. It is managed to encourage wildlife, Marsh Frogs and the scarce water vole breed on the banks of the river. You can also find important industrial archaeology with relics from the Hounslow Gunpowder Works (1760s) at the western end of the park.

Francesca Albini divides her life between literary and artistic endeavours. She is a PhD in Classics, and has worked in publishing for her entire adult life, as a translator, author and editor. She is a self taught artist and photographer. Her work is inspired by folk art, but also by design. Albini is a collector of memories, and uses any medium that allows her to remember and share, express feelings and narrate stories. From line drawings to plastic cameras, from collage to upcycled jewellery and dolls. "My work is playful and dreamy, child-like but also philosophical. I fall in and out of love with many styles and tools, but I'm always me, whatever I do."
https://www.francescaalbini.com/

Natalie Low enjoys putting words on paper and believes that everyone has a book of some sort inside them. She has published two chapbooks, Dementia (2015) and School Run (2017). She also appears in this exhibition as an artist/maker.

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th April 2019. More at http://collectconnect.blogspot.com/p/submit.html

Monday, 4 February 2019

Alban Low - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Alban Low at #unsettledgallaery No.10

Artist - Alban Low / Words - Ginny Reddick

It seemed like a great way to cut down on workload so of course they bought a load, programmed them with the mission statement and released them at the Monday meeting. People seemed to quite enjoy it – it was something different and of course anything to save time.

They worked well at first, reminding pupils and staff of key points. The DON’T TIP ON YOUR CHAIR message was really helpful and saved valuable minutes. Average progress scores increased by 5%, staff engagement with data improved and messages were transmitted in a fun and effective way.

Then something went wrong. Some said it was IT support (as usual) and others suspected the geography department of programming them to control entire lessons and they’d never been meant for that. The problem was, it got to the stage where you could never quite tell where they’d turn up or what they would say when they got there.

The PROGRESS SCORE reminder turned itself into GROPE ROSES. Teachers just laughed and failed to engage with the development plan. BOOK CHECK alerts were presented as BOK-EH-COCK which failed to convey the gravity of that particular process.

The final straw came during a pop-up inspection when USE THE WINGS turned up to PE, which was expected, with the message WEEING TUSH, which was not. Pupils took advantage of the ensuing chaos and overall an unsatisfactory hour of physical learning was presented to the inspectors.

Their report recommended removal and destruction of the devices as they did not promote the appropriate values. However, they are difficult to catch and seem to be multiplying.

Alban Low

You can see Alban Low's artwork in the Hospital Bridge Road Tunnel beside the River Crane at #unsettledgallery No.10. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover. The River Crane runs through the slim woodland and pasture area of Crane Park in Twickenham. It is managed to encourage wildlife, Marsh Frogs and the scarce water vole breed on the banks of the river. You can also find important industrial archaeology with relics from the Hounslow Gunpowder Works (1760s) at the western end of the park.

Alban Low is involved in many creative projects, these include album artwork, publishing chapbooks, making films, maps, conceptual exhibitions, live performance and good old drawing. He is artist-in-residence at the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Kingston University and St George's University of London. Low spends his evenings in the jazz clubs of London where he captures the exhilaration of live performances in his sketchbook. On Wednesday evenings he sketches the performers on the radio show A World in London at Resonance FM. This year Alban is working on a walking project about London Musicians from the 1920s-1940s.

http://albanlow.com/

Ginny Reddick is a writer and educator. She was one of the artists who exhibited at the first ever CollectConnect exhibition, Open Fridge, in March 2010. Although there has been a 9 year hiatus between that exhibition and this one she has curated numerous CC projects including the Walthamstow street art favourite HideBird.

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th April 2019. More at http://collectconnect.blogspot.com/p/submit.html