Hi all,

Another occasional missive from my seeming sabbatical from the online world. If you subscribed to this for updates from my art life, here are three bits of news.

1

I’ve got two pieces in the Artefact Winter Open group show, where all residents of Stirchley can submit work and pretty much all of it will be accepted. It’s usually a glorious hodgepodge of styles and media that reflects a community in a delightful and often amusing way.

The pieces are a framed print of Brexmas Address and a copy of the Coronavirus Press Conferences book.

Fiona also has a couple of collages in the show which are super good.

It launches tomorrow night (Friday 19th) and runs until late January.

2

In between the lockdowns I was part of the Sunset Social Club project in Druids Heath, a relatively deprived area of south Birmingham, where I ran sessions photographing the sunset. Because this mostly involves standing around for an hour waiting for the sunset to become awesome (or not) it’s a great excuse for people to meet and chat, with the byproduct of some nice pics.

Most of the work showcased was by residents, of course, but three of my own photos are on show in Pattines hairdressers, and the response from Elizabeth, the manager, tore me to shreds. It’s the sort of emotional and intellectual feedback you never get in a “proper” gallery and it turned what was a nice job-job into something very special.

Watch a short video of her talking about them here.

3

This is more Fiona than me, but I’m helping manage an artistic exchange between three Birmingham walking artists (Fiona, Andy Howlett and Beth Hopkins) with Jalan Gembira, a collective of walkers in Indonesia.

Parallel Walking between Birmingham and Yogyakarta is funded by the British Council and runs from December through February.

I’m very much back-office with a bit of light mentoring where needed, but have volunteered to build a pos kamling, a neighbourhood watch shelter that doubles as a notice board and meeting place, in the Artefact gallery in February.

In non-art news I’m happily working away at the Loaf office, writing the weekly newsletter and blog, doing the accounts and plotting the next couple of years which are going to be much interesting. Meanwhile, most of my days off are spent on the allotment where I have been getting very into composting. More on that another day.

Hope you’re well. Apologies for any typos, as ever.

All my love,

Pete Ashton
http://peteashton.com