Happy Birthday to Frilly!

Hurrah!  We've made it through our first year - and in such a blur that we actually managed to miss out on our birthday itself.  Kirsty was looking through accounts and numbers and suddenly said, 

You do realise it was our birthday last week?  Frilly is 1!

Obviously, in my overworked endofyear brain I probably just grunted back at her - but we did decide it would be a useful moment to pause and reflect.  The past year has been mostly manic, and unsurprisingly stressful - but it's also been an amazing time for us.  We've met SO MANY new people and organisations, we've worked with a LOT of different people, and we've made some awesome things.  Above all, we've had a lot of fun! In a snapshot, here is team Frilly in the past 12 months.  Kirsty has experimented with various shades of orange, and Adrienne has had long, medium, short, then medium hair starting off black then bleached all the way back to white (with some pink and grey thrown in for good measure.)

We've worked with lots of people and made lots of things in the last year, including: 

• decorated and moved into our awesome studio with Lee Allen
• secret codes
• cardboard kinetic sculptures
• multisensory classroom environments
• films
• animations
• books
• websites
• blogs
• pillow heads
• photographic alphabets
• nail signs
• cling film sculptures
• outdoor installations
• zines
• maps
• resin embedments
• modelling clay self portraits
• lifesize interpretive bodies
• masks
• mini sensory environments
• learned how to letterpress 

And here's the visual evidence as a quick rundown - not in any order!

Frilly began in response to a very unpleasant situation and was our way of moving forwards and continuing to produce work and engage audiences in a variety of fun activities.  We had no idea where our first year would take us, and would never have been able to guess the range of people we would work with or the types of projects we would be involved in.  Our first year has been awesome, and we've really loved it all...

..but now I wonder what we'll be blogging about this time next year?!

Martin Parr lecture at The Public

Billed as a private view I thought the event would give a sneak peek at his Black Country commission and was surprised when it was a retrospective of his work.

The talk was a bibliography of his work and his travels. Mr Parr confirmed that as an artist he revels in the cliches and the worst of society. When his photographic style and choices were questioned as portraying people in a patronising light MP defended his position by attacking the intention behind every family photo to present a smiley, united front rather than the dysfunctionality of real life. Where many walk on eggshells over photographing people in the public domain this grey area is clear cut for MP who sees it as his mission to portray the truth of the situation by snapping life as it is without any gloss. In this case should MP's critical social portrait offer a more rounded context? Whilst his work may be accurate reflections, are his intentions as honourable in his choices of subject matter?

The final project and book plug shared before the Q&A was a 15 year project in the making that turns the mocking eye onto MP himself. Whilst Portraits collated MP's studio snaps from around the world it is most interesting as a documentation of the evolution of portraiture techniques. However one can't help but feel that MP is mocking the taste levels of the studio photographers by again seeking out those he deems are worst of the genre.

MP's presentation of his work didnt leave me convinced that his critics aren't right. I'll reserve judgement till I see how he captures the spirit and uniqueness of my home county.