Albert Road continues to support local artists and designers

So many shops and businesses are continuing to support local artists and designers on Albert Road. It really is so refreshing to see the explosion of creative talent in the city being fully embraced. The road has always celebrated an independent and community spirit which harnesses and promotes ‘local’.

Southsea Gallery has long been promoting this creativity and has a dedicated section in their gallery selling prints by locals. Recent additions include Ken Leung, Weaver, Jodie Silsby, Mark Persaud, Kate Cooke, Alex Ings, Kingsley Nebechi and our very own Tristan Savage. Loving the Salty Old Sea Dog by Kate Cooke. Many of these also took part in the Strong Island exhibition at the Round Tower back in April when nearly 6,000 people came through the doors.

Flo & Stan’s are also wonderful at highlighting and selling local artwork. From badges, necklaces, bags, clothes, prints, canvases to postcards, books and quirky vintage objects that every home should have. A new book of photographs by Irma Rose Pettitt has just gone on sale there along with gorgeous skull necklaces by Elle Sexton.

Wallspace Gallery has recently started selling Simon Whitcomb’s ‘Zombie’s in Southsea’ print.

Bonzo Studio is the new kid on the road and fully celebrating being part of a thriving creative scene by offering workshops in screen-printing, software and business development and also selling work by local artists and designers.

Thanks to all the traders on the road and of course not forgetting Parmiters, Bored, LJR’s, Garbo’s Salon, Head Hairdressing, Dead Man’s Glory, Bellamy’s Antiques and many more who also help promote artists and designers by collaborating, advertising, exhibiting and selling their work.

Below – Southsea Gallery

Below – Irma Rose Pettitt book at Flo & Stan’s.

Below – Elle Sexton necklace at Flo & Stan’s.

Below – Bonzo Studio

Below – Local books for sale at Bellamy’s Antiques

Last Saturday at Wallspace for PRINT THIS

A quick reminder that today will be the last Saturday the PRINT THIS exhibition will be open at the Wallspace Gallery in Albert Road so if you want a look pop in between 10am and 3pm. The show will be open next week too, get in contact if you want to know what days and times.

I’m also selling some Quiet Corners prints, books, cards and pin badges in there for cheap today too, A4 prints are only £5. Roll up, roll up.

Edit: Just confirmed that the exhibition has been extended to include next Saturday too.

PRINT THIS Photography Exhibition Opens

Thursday night saw the opening of the PRINT THIS Photography Exhibition at Wallspace Gallery in Albert Road. The show is an exhibition of photos submitted to the PRINT HERE photography competition put on at the end of last year with Bored, Blueprint Skateboards and Quiet Corners to mark the launch of the Blueprint X Quiet Corners series of decks. The opening was also supported by Carhartt and London’s Meantime brewery and had an amazing turnout, despite the bad weather Southsea was heavily represented plus people made it over from Gosport, Chichester and all the way from London.

The exhibition is now open today and next Saturday (plus some week days to be decided) so feel free to pop by between 10am and 5pm. A selection of Quiet Corners prints and other bits and pieces will also be on sale too.

A HUGE thank you to Tom, Gary, Hussey, Matt Sills, Dan and Paul at Blueprint, Meantime and everyone that contributed to the show and a big thank you to everyone who made it out for the opening too.

Photos and video by Claire Samborook. If you have any photos from the event please email them over.

More photos and video HERE.

PRINT HERE Winners

The winners of the PRINT HERE competition were announced at the end of last week and are listed and shown below. You can see the winning photos and all of the submitted photos at the PRINT THIS photography exhibition that opens on Thursday night at Wallspace Gallery in Albert Road. Free drinks and then an after party in Little Johnny Russells. Hope to see you there.

The PRINT THIS exhibition is by Bored, Quiet Corners, Blueprint Skateboards and Carhartt, find out more at the Facebook event.

The PRINT HERE winners are:

1st. Phillip Thomarin
2nd Matthew Maber
3rd Maxwell Thomlinson

PRINT THIS Photo Exhibition

A little while ago Bored, Blueprint Skateboards and Quiet Corners (myself) organised a photography competition called PRINT HERE to celebrate the release of the Blueprint X Quiet Corners deck series. The winners of that competition will be announced very soon. The competition was a huge success with over 200 entries from not only Southsea but all over the UK and the World and from that we are happy to announce details of the PRINT THIS exhibition at Wallspace Gallery in Albert Road. The exhibition opens with an opening party on Thursday 13th January from 7 to 9:30 with free booze supplied by Carhartt, if you get there early enough, and then an after party in LJRs. The exhibition contains highlights of the photos entered in to the competition and everyone is welcome to pop down. Some members of the Blueprint team will also be in attendance too. If you can’t make it the exhibition runs for two weeks. Hope to see you there!

Check the PRINT HERE website to see the photos and check the Facebook event for more details on PRINT THIS.

Coastline

Local artist Simon Whitcomb & Wallspace Gallery currently have an exhibition at The Kings Theatre (Dress Circle Promenade) on Albert Road. With over 30 paintings and framed artworks there’s plenty to see.

The exhibition opens Friday 1st October and runs to 11th October. Private view on Wednesday 6th from 6pm to 8pm and everyone is welcome. The bar will be open for refreshments, so don’t worry. Public viewing days are Thursday 7th & Saturday 9th between 10.30am and 2pm.

You can ‘Meet the artist’ during the public viewing session on Thursday 7th- everyone welcome. For more info check out www.simonwhitcomb.com and also www.wallspacearts.com

Strong Island Charity Raffle Prize Update

Excuse the really long picture post again. It’s another little update to keep you up to speed with our 2nd Birthday Party at The Belle Isle this Thursday 30th September and I thought you would like to know what’s on offer as the date gets closer.

The tickets will be £1 each or £8 for 10 and will be available on the door on the night only, so grab a strip with your FREE Strong Island Ice Tea (limited drinks so get there early). Pet Sounds will provide the background music with a Strong Island VS Pet Sounds Playlist to accompany this relaxed social.

We will call the winning numbers sometime around 10pm. Listen for the bell…

All the donations to the Raffle will be available to win on the night and all of the proceeds are going to The Portsmouth Autism Support Network and The Portsmouth Lifeboat Station.

We look forward to seeing you.

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Strong Island 2nd Birthday & Charity Raffle

We hope you can all make it along to our 2nd Birthday Party at The Belle Isle next Thursday 30th. It’s shaping up to be quite a nice evening with a few friends new & old, accompanied with some drinks and a cheeky Raffle.

All the donations to the Raffle will be available to win on the night and all the proceeds are going to The Portsmouth Autism Support Network and The Portsmouth Lifeboat Station.

Raffle tickets will be available on the door on the night only, so grab a strip with your FREE Strong Island Ice Tea (limited drinks so get there early). Pet Sounds will provide the background music with a Strong Island VS Pet Sounds Playlist to accompany this relaxed social.

Prizes have kindly been donated from the following people: The Belle Isle / Bored / Portsmouth University / Paul Gonella / Claire Sambrook / Desperados Beer / Ian Parmiter / Rob Trigg / Wallspace gallery / Head Hairdressing / FarkFK / Southsea Fixed Gear / James Weaver / Mikee Ayling / Matt O’Neill / Diana Goss / Caleigh Illburn / Cat Vaughan / Steve Bomford / Owain Harris / Miki Organic / Louise Bush / Nick Hicking / Candice @ Inksquatch / MyDogSighs / Paul Thurlow and more to come. Prizes include tee shirts, drinks, hair cuts, photo shoots, art, prints, meals, photography and more besides. Check the photos below for just a taster of what’s on offer.

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Simon Whitcomb at Wallspace

This Friday & Sunday Simon Whitcomb will be painting LIVE at Wallspace on Albert Road. If anyone wants to come along and check out how he works or ask him any questions about working as an artist, his work or life in general etc then feel free. Wallspace is at 2C Albert Road.

Art Sale at Wallspace

Matt Sills has a SALE on currently at The Wallspace Gallery. Everything in the Gallery is on sale with 25% off. Get down there this weekend and grab a bargain before it all goes. Nice one.

PRIMARY – Extended & Improved

We have some great news about our PRIMARY phonography exhibition (find out all the details here) that we can now announce:

- The deadline for submissions has now been extended to Sunday 4th March. We have had some incredible submissions but want to set aside more time to make the exhibition something really special.

- The competition is now open to up to 10 submissions from each individual. With the ability to capture many photos on your phone over the next two months we we want you to not feel restricted to just three. The same rules apply about the photos conforming to compositions using the primary colours though. If you have already submitted feel free to send more photos over as and when you please.

- The exhibition will be hosted by Albert Road’s own Bonzo Studio who are also partnering up with us in the creation of the exhibition space. More news on this soon!

- Finally, we will be running a competition as part of the exhibition where the best three photos submitted will win some incredible prizes. We will be announcing the prizes available very soon but got to say, these will be the best prize haul we have ever offered.

- We will be putting together a poster for the exhibition that will be on sale on the opening night. The poster will feature some of the best submissions and all profits from the sales will go to a local charity (details to follow soon). Due to this we need to say that any photos submitted to PRIMARY will involve you giving us permission to use them for commercial purposes, if you do not want your photo used in this way simply let us know via email.

Well, that is it for now! We really hope to drum up as much coverage locally for PRIMARY in the next couple of months so if you could Facebook/Tweet/+1 about the exhibition we would really appreciate it. We would love this exhibition to be a real reflection of the whole population of Portsmouth with everyone taking part and feeling involved.

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage