DIY Summer at Site pulls together all sorts of creative talent, hosting workshops, events, talks and parties from 23 August – 7 September, so summers-end is no longer a drag but a makeshift, experimental, cultivating, insightful and artistic splurge! [[Show as slideshow]]

The cool, neat paintings of Sarah Abbott (who we interviewed earlier this year) have begun to take over the main gallery wall and front gallery windows. She celebrates the brilliance of traditional hand sign painting and is forming a map of sorts which will track the ideas, collaborations and contributions to DIY Summer, a sweet approach to recording progress.

Article attended the launch party last night and flicked through a myriad of zines, courtesy of Rotherham Zine Library which has been relocated to the gallery in Sheffield, becoming more comprehensive day by day. Zine subjects ranging from ‘Sugar Paper; 20 things to make and do’ to ‘The Hare’ to ‘Bido Lito’ to very early issues of Article Magazine. These are all for browsing and there are more available to buy. This showcase is a sufficient catalyst to make anyone grab paper, scissors, compile something together and do a budget print run no matter how odd their topic/obsession. The odder the better!

Band Real Fur had the live music slot of the night. They have a tendency to shoehorn audiences into launderettes and other unlikely haunts. They were perfectly summery and jaunty for the occasion, sticking with their preference for spaces not built for gigs but perfectly befitting the moment – appropriately diy.

The programme is jam packed and we recommend a look into the whole deal. Download their programme, and put a stopper to any late-summer lethargy! Galleries tend to go quiet in August and Site Gallery is offering to keep our brains engaged.

Here’s a shortlist!:

• T-Shirt Screen Printing workshops
• ‘Crocolage’ – collage, paint and fire a mug, cereal bowl and plate
• Make a DIY Couture cape
• Zine talks
• Book launch
• Tree-rubbing workshops with Sheffield Publicity Department
• Audacious Art Experiment gigs
• Screeenadelica gig poster exhibition
• Collage Party and collage the front of the Site Gallery building!

DIY Summer at Site from 23 August – 7 September

Site Gallery,  1 Brown Street, Sheffield S1 2BS

Scouring archives and the internet, those behind Amazing Future offer a strange, wonderful cross section of suprising, nostalgic, sci-fi , cutting edge material. It has itself become an archive devoted to wonder and varied phenomena and there is little chance you will find it uninteresting.

From levitation to bears on bikes to architectural structures which surely cannot hold up, to the naturally astounding and the artificially absurd.

They picked out this video by Joakim on Tigersushi Records. Perfectly mirroring Amazing Future in terms of collaging disparate ideas, pictures and moving images from volcanoes to beautiful girls smoking, typical of Joakim’s tendancy towards eclectic compilations.

Joakim – Forever Young (Official Video) from TIGERSUSHI on Vimeo.

See Amazing Future, today!

Jane Faram

Whipped up in one artistic mass, you might like to keep your peepers sharp for this short selection;

Phillip Sinclair has nicely produced some bright and glittering work in Graphic Design, and similarly glitzy, Scarlett Begi in Fashion has produced designs for ‘Living Jewells’ (pictured above) and further designs have classic but edgy Vaudeville style.

Charlotte Avent in Art and Design has a neighbourhood of tiny glowing houses habouring secrets in miniature, handmade and stiched form.

Bruce Usher, an already impressive young designer who exercises his talents in illustration, graphics and art direction and has already started up a small press publishers ‘Yoke Books‘, His work can be seen outside the university, such as recent print design for the collective No Culture Icons .

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You can’t fail to miss the perturbing childhood toys and dolls of artist Kathryn Burr, as they compete with us in height and look like an outgrown worst nightmare! We asked Kathryn to elaborate, before her work in the Art&Design show met the public.

Your work is a very warped remaking of innocent objects, the stuff of childhood nightmares – why?

People may feel unnerved by ‘Mr Snuggles’, the dominating, 6ft tall bear. It is free-standing so that people could cuddle it. It invokes a feeling of inferiority because of the viewers’ own sense of diminished scale. This work arouses conflicting emotions of playful joy and discomfort.

All were entirely hand-stitched by myself, as I believe that hand-made toys display much more charm, appeal and skill in their manufacture, as opposed to how breakable and flimsy most mass-produced toys are. These traditional art toys are based on the templates once used to create such toys before the mechanising of production.

Where will you put them post-degree show?
A few traditional toy shops in Leeds, with particular interest for ‘Mr Snuggles’ to be displayed or purchased by a shop with sells many forms of teddy bears. Otherwise, I’ll have to make room for them in my own home!

Have you made this kind of work throughout your degree?
I started properly working in Sculpture in the second year. Considering my generation I developed a range of plaster-cast teddy bears and modified them to look like other kinds of favourite girls and boys toys from the 80s and 90s, such as Action Man, Optimus Prime and a Lego man, and a My Little Pony, Barbie and Pikachu.

The cosmetic bears are all made from plaster, covered in plush material to look like a cuddly Teddy Bear, but which conceal make-up. Either the heads lift or twist off, or the stomachs can be opened to show the 6 different cosmetics available. I will be studying an MA Advertising and Design at Leeds University from September, hopefully positive advertising, such as for charities or health campaigns. I would still love to continue making my art-toys, if anyone is interested in any commissions…

Leeds University Degree shows, open 13 June – 17 June.

Jane Faram, Arts Editor

Blog here.
Before you get on your high horse, he also does a Boys on Film edition too.

The photographer on the shoot was Igor Termenon. Clothes were provided by Supreme Being, Carhartt, Levi’s, Doc Marten’s, Clark’s, Kuji and Ideology. A massive thank you is in order to Mercy, Emma and our models! Funtimes

After cruising in the van for thirty minutes, we settled on shooting on Stevenson Road. An industrial back street which provided a suitably run down industrial vibe. We figured at 10am on a Saturday it would be a good quiet spot. This proved not to be the case. Cars constantly whizzed past, usually aiming at our photographer, Jodie Blackburn, snapping from the road, and bemused looking locals carried plastic bags full of god knows what as they walked god knows where.

Clothes for this shoot included Carhartt, Acne, Libertine Libertine, Penfield, and women’s designer Harriet Gould. The models were the Heebie Jeebies and Sophie Bailey. Photography was by Jodie Blackburn. Assistance and documentation Anna Westerman. Clothes courtesy of Ideology and Carhartt. Issue 1, the Drift issue, will be out in mid October.