As the new academic year pick up pace, we find ourselves tentitively adjusting to something of a return to a more conventional office life. Albeit one in which venturing out in public my still result in failure to recognise someone you’ve known for years on account of only being able to see half of their face! Nevertheless, it is encouraging that we are able to look forward to some work taking place in ‘real life’ settings rather than in the ether. (more…)
Over the past five years I’ve been in business as Gatekeeper Art. My small creative business is my full time occupation and when asked what I do I usually term myself as an artist and social historian with a community practice. I wrote a blog recently for CCSE called “Welcome to the Lockdown Lounge” which outlined how I had with my social historian “hat” on been designing and delivering heritage/ cultural related workshops online. (more…)
At the beginning of the Pandemic Lockdown period in March 2020, I began an online page – “Covid Island Diary”. I began to document and collate images, memes and political comment made by artists during the situation as it unfolded. I was extremely interested in the artist response to this immense world event. It became very clear, early on to everyone that as a society we rely heavily on artists every day. Designers, film makers, writers and musicians all helped to make an enforced lockdown at home more bearable for us all. (more…)