Yesterday I travelled to The Big Smoke to visit theme park of the illustration world Pick Me Up at Somerset House. Attending the festival each year since graduating in 2012, I find it a good excuse to get creative chums together to talk about the discipline over coffee from the comfort of a cardboard tee-pee. I remember turning up in 2013 armed with my job seekers letter to get a concession ticket and, whilst a lot has changed sine then, it still feels relevant to my own practice to pay attention to PMU's selections and showcases, as well as indulging my appetite for eye candy.
Here are 5 words that go some way to summarising my experience of this year's festival:
- Gelato - Studio Fludd were one of my favourite collectives this year and I made the chaotic cone above in their Gelatology workshop based on the words confusion | ghost | muddy
- Science - With an emphasis on process running through the event, experimentation and scientific approaches seemed to play a role in quite a few displays, including Sope Studio's Laboratory, Luke Evans' electrical field xerox images. and delicious Specimen books printed by Paolo Berra.
- Hell - No, not the queue for the gift shop. I liked Laura Callaghan's interpretation of the nine circles of hell as described in Dante’s Inferno, particularly getting to see her original images using watercolour and pen. The series had a Grayson Perry-esque quality with highly symbolic pleasingly patterned scenes.
- Printing - Oogling the outcomes of different print processes is always a highlight for me, and the smell of ink was in the air as Sope's metallic tile printing and Hato Press' risograph machine took the floor.
- Dialogue - New for this year, the Pick Me Up Platform gave lots of insights into the creative industries including debates, show and tell by exhibitors and daily demos. It's good to talk.
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