I’ve been a big fan of Roo Abrook’s work for ages, in particular her recent work which incorporates vintage printed pages as an in keeping backdrop for her print designs. Roo has been a busy creative within the city for a long time, with work appearing in loads of local places and shops. You may also have seen some of Roo’s work late last year featured in the national press and if you like to find art and gifts that are off the corporate high street but you still want to shop online you may well have seen lots of Roo’s work on the very popular Not On The High Street website too. You can also pick up one off originals and prints direct from Roo at her personal online store too HERE. All the prints are particular awesome and really reasonably priced.
If you too are liking Roo’s work you might also want to Like Roo’s Facebook page as you have a chance to win a print every month of the year, visit Roo Abrook Art Facebook Page for more details.
Find out more about Roo’s work at her personal website below and have a look at the following images showcasing some of her work. You can also find out more about the ‘Queen of Collecting’ with Roo’s interview on the Roost Living blog HERE.
Raw & Auburn is a brand new Southsea based company specialising in hand crafted designs using raw and unique materials. Each item bears it’s own individuality and is different than the last making your purchase all that more special. Using traditional techniques every product is finished to a high standard and comes with it’s own Mill Cloth bag and they are all finished with the Raw & Auburn signature cross stitch.
Be sure to head over to the Raw & Auburn shop at rawandauburn.com for a browse. All items can be made to order so don’t hesitate to ask about any sold out products or personal requests.
Jono White is a 3rd year student at the University of Portsmouth and has closely documented his time spent here in Southsea and Portsmouth with his 35mm stills camera and has succinctly captured with his photography some of the feelings of youth and being carefree within the context of the city, the island and further afield.
We are always keen to promote local shops and makers in the run up to the festive season. My little trip around Southsea this morning enabled me to shop local and get some quite unique gems. There is a pop-up shop from The Yellow Kite Cafe in Bellamy’s featuring some unique decorations and gifts. Aldelphi Books always have a large stock of local historical books and the owner will help you sift through the thousands of books on offer. Flo and Stan’s are stocked up with an amazing range of vintage and unusual items which also feature quite a few local creatives including Strong Island’s Oh La Lapin. I am totally in love with Bored of Southsea’s new Long Live x Grow a Brain – Long Live Southsea tees, sweats and tote’s. New women’s sizes out in the new year. The design also features South Parade Pier in the background.
Southsea local and recent graduate of the University of Portsmouth Phil Shenton is a 3D character animator and recently updated his showreel with footage of his recent work, good stuff. If you want to see more of Phil’s work and get in touch regarding possible future projects visit:
Dale Silvester is a long time Southsea resident who recently completed an Access to Arts course. Last year Dale made a life changing decision to quite a dead end job and throw himself 100% in to the arts and with the completion of this course will now be joining an illustration degree course this year to continue his studies. Going by his five foot square Albert Road final piece he has a long and amazing career ahead.
Jonathan Ring is a student who in his own words “adores design/posters/photography and being all creative!’ He went to Priory school and is now in his second year of Fareham College. He has always lived in lovely Southsea! Strong Island has featured some of his work before.
Jonathan is currently looking at courses to continue his creative education and has put together a great magazine showcasing his projects. The magazine preview can be seen via this link – http://issuu.com/jonathanring/docs/retrospectif
David Kirby just got in contact regarding his new book Stone Dead Forever II, a series of messages written on to pebbles along Southsea Seafront. A unique and interesting way to add a little treat to your walk, if you’re keeping your eyes out…
“In 2008 I started a project writing on pebbles on Southsea beach. I photographed the stones and left them there for people to find and enjoy. The first book, “Stone Dead Forever”, came out in 2010 and featured over 60 photos of inscribed stones.
In 2009, photos of the stones were featured on the GPS website by the South Bank Centre, London. There is a group on Flickr, at http://www.flickr.com/groups/stone_dead_forever/ where you can see the full set and upload pictures of your own poetical pebbles.
Three and a half years later the project is still going and I have scribbled and drawn on over 450 stones. Text comes from experiences, ideas, song lyrics, poetry and conversations. A few have been written by request, but I would rather encourage you to grab a permanent marker and go out and scribble, write or draw on your own pebble. This new book, “Geologic Shift” collects together 40 or so of the most recent photographs for you to enjoy.”
Local photographic artist Diana Goss MSc ARPS is celebrating some more International Salon acceptances with a 50% success rate of the 8 images she submitted to the Swansea International Photographic Salon this month
Ellie Lauren Kirk a photography student at Havant college featured in this one (Sweet child of mine) when she undertook her work placement with Diana whilst she was at Oaklands School. Mica Lee also a former Oaklands pupil featured in another. (Remember when we used to play)
Another local young lady Stephanie Gudelos modelled for Diana whilst Diana was teaching the Filipino Photographic Society some studio lighting techniques. ” I called the picture Darkness, says Diana “as it has a threefold meaning for me. I like to play with light and dark to create dramatic images, I love shooting at night and I shot this at a dark stage in my life.” Of course I am thrilled with it’s result. All my models are very beautiful young women.
De Molen was shot on a long exposure whilst Diana was visiting her family in Holland last year.
Diana teaches her specialism night time photography, technical and practical with her creative stance both on the camera club circuit and on a private group basis. Her most recent teaching was on the Square Tower roof at midnight last week with local models, which we will feature soon.
To see more about this you can visit Dianas website www.notmagnum.co.uk or call her on 07770 453693. You are invited to join Diana’s night tutorial Facebook page by sending an email to this address nightphoto@groups.facebook.com
Lovely work by Portsmouth University BA Fine Art graduate Richard Oakes. Really like his illustratrative drawings around Portsmouth and Gosport. His website can be viewed at – http://www.oakesart.moonfruit.com/ and he can be contacted at : richard.oakes79@hotmail.co.uk.
This year we have changed the way we are compiling our 2014 calendar. Instead we are inviting entries of all themes all year round.
We will dedicate at least two of the months for images taken on Instagram. If you’ve taken a photo that you’d like to submit for consideration you just need add the hashtag #SIC2014.
We will still primarily be accepting submissions via email calendar@strong-island.co.uk.
This year the calendars will be available from mid November from the Strong Island online store and Southsea Gallery. I’d also ask that you keep 14th November free from 7pm, we’ll announce why in late July.
This year we will again be supporting the Alzheimer’s Society as well as another local charity which we will be announcing very very soon!
Strong Island & Strong Island Recordings are very proud to present our 2nd year at one of the premier new music festivals, Southsea Fest and we are also very proud to be the first stage announcing this year too. We follow up from last year’s ‘Drunken Sailor’ event where queues of one in one out were formed within the opening 15 minutes of the stage starting and where our infamous stage was known for sweat dripping from the walls and ceiling while rabid mosh pits brewed…all in the early afternoon.
This year we have upgraded venues to just across the road with the upstairs of the Southsea Social Club where we have a few new ideas planned for the day while ensuring the same chaos and vibe from our label parties resume. To celebrate what will be Strong Island Recordings’ 1st birthday we like to think we have pushed the boat out this year with a heavy line up ranging from grunge, surf punk, noise pop to space math rock.
So we are really stoked to present the following who will be playing our 1st drunken, messy birthday bash:
Arrows of Love
The Black Tambourines
Slowcoaches
The Physics House Band
PLaylounge
Yoofs
Tyrannosaurus Dead
Battery Hens
Cycle Schmeichel
Ricky Fitts
Perch
You’re All Smiling But We’ll All Turn Into Demons
A Spotify playlist of some of the acts can be listened to HERE.
We are stoked, as always, to be working once again with local artist My Dog Sighs on what is set to be one of the largest mural paintings in the city.
Rick from Head Hairdressing on Albert Road conceived the idea of having the courtyard to the rear of the local barbers transformed in to a permanent giant art piece. From precision multilayered stencils, through bubble gum cutsie to surreal illustrative mayhem, My Dog Sighs has hand picked his favourite artists from across the country to produce the ultimate street art dreamscape courtyard.
Head Jam will run all day so feel free to pop along, take a look, have a chat, hang out, meet the artists and enjoy the atmosphere. There will be music on all day, a BBQ turning over in the background if you want to stick a burger on (not supplied), and please feel free to bring along a beer too. Everyone is welcome, so bring the kids so they can see some of the countries finest street artists working together in this unique environment.
As you are probably well aware from reading the news recently, the Portsmouth Supporters Trust succeeded in their bid to take control of Portsmouth FC making it the biggest community owned club in the UK. It is a long and hard fought victory by the fans that have endured years of bad fortune, bad news and bad performances and a couple of the SI crew have seen most of them! PST’s aim is to bring about responsible, democratic representation at Portsmouth Football Club and so help promote the highest standards of transparent governance, accountability and embed Portsmouth FC deeper into its community through greater communication and co-operation with its fans.
We contacted the PST back in November last year to put forward our idea of doing a Strong Island PFC edition T-shirt to raise money towards buying a share in the club. The PST warmly welcomed the idea and we are pleased to say we are now putting our plan into action.
Strong Island is keen to get behind the trust as are many others. We’re going to pledge £5 of every limited edition SI X PFC tee sold towards Strong Island buying a share of the football club, therefore financially helping PFC in it’s aim to become stable again and continue to be a hugely important aspect of the city.
The design itself is a re-imagining of the common elements from the iconic Portsmouth FC logo from the 1980s and the Strong Island logo, with two swords in place, each dated with the club’s FA Cup wins. The Strong Island Clothing Co. items are normally hand screened in East London but for this particular tee they are produced literally just down the road from Fratton Park and will be at a special price of £15 (plus P&P).
No matter if you are passionate about football or not, we hope this tee is a way of showing support for a club that is now a beacon to the rest of the country for a city and a community that strives to work together for the better.
To pre-order the t-shirt click on the link below. Tees will be back from the printers soon and we hope to have orders in the post by the end of the month, if not sooner.
We are very proud to announce The Creating Balance Project, a new, collaborative project between Anglepoise, Strong Island & the University of Portsmouth to celebrate a design classic and local creativity in Portsmouth. The project aims to showcase the working studios and disciplines of artists and designers across the island and connect them to local photographers to capture, document and collaborate.
Anglepoise lamps have been given to each of the 10 participating artists/designers and the 10 photographers involved have used the lamps to light the photographs, give a sense of place and document the artist, where they work & how they create. During the collaboration sessions University of Portsmouth BSc TV and Broadcast students Massimo Marzullo and Jonas Jakunas have been documenting the project, producing short films for each collaboration.
Later this summer key images from each photographer will be printed and displayed with the films, lamps, photos and more in an exhibition in Portsmouth and one in London (TBA).
The collaborations are:
Andrew Whyte & Peter Clutterbuck
Matt Sills & Lorna Apps-Woodland
Paul Gonella & Tristan Savage
Russell Squires & Farkfk
Josh Knill & I Love Dust
Thor Haley & William Pounds
Rob Luckins & Roo + Barry Abrook
Cotton Candy & Neal Layton + Sadie Tierney
Matt Saxey & Deer Park Alpha
My Dog Sighs & Jack Daly
The project is progressing over the next couple of months and already two films are finished and many collaborations complete. Below are the completed collaboration films and we will be posting updates on The Creating Balance Project regularly here on Strong Island. To keep up to date with the project also please check the Creating Balance website where you can see loads of photos from behind the scenes of the collaborations.
It’s been a while (apologies) but the Strong Island Clothing Co. spring 2013 capsule drop is now available and online in the Strong Island Shop Ahoy store! The drop includes some brand new Branded tee colourways, a new grey crew (highest quality, carefully selected and sourced) and a collection of accessories including new beanies, our seriously high quality Branded iPhone cases (4 & 5) from Etch and our hand crafted, leather coin pouch collaboration with Raw & Auburn.
To kick this capsule drop off right we visited the home of Portsmouth’s Eberhardt signwriters and neon sign specialists. Eberhardt are a true creative business gem of the city with a very long history and still produce hand crafted, carefully designed neon signs, a rare and special craft these days. Check the photos below and the behind the scenes edit too to see more. Photography principally by Jack Daly.
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