Badaude

May Day Poster

I've had a few requests for copies of my Oxford May Day poster, which has been all over Oxford bus stops during the last month or so. 

I can't get hold of original posters at this size, but am making a limited-edition signed and numbered giclee print (10 prints only) of the poster, size A3. They're printed on conservation grade paper with pigment inks so the colours will probably be brighter and last longer than the poster version. If you'd like a print, they're £25 + £5 p&p in the UK, £10 p&p for the rest of the world. You can pay by Paypal or UK cheque, or if neither of these options work you can buy me books to the value of the price of the poster + postage. Get in touch if you'd like one - badaude-at-gmail-dot-com.

A Bigger Bang #4

...long shots, last...

scroll back to previous posts for details.

 

A Bigger Bang #4

...long shots, last...

scroll back to previous posts for details.

 

A Bigger Bang #3

...close-ups. See last post, and the one before...

Bigger Bang #2

...in progress

A Bigger Bang

Work I did at the new Big Bang restaurant, Oxford, last weekend...

 

sketches...

...more tomorrow

Catalyst!

This Thursday I'm convening a chapter of the David Bramwell's excellent Brighton-based Catalyst Club at the very fine Oxfork cafe.

Three speakers will talk about their passions: historian, Richard Barnett on the history of gin (cocktails will be served); games designer, Holly Gramazio, on, well, games, and Catalyst Club founder, David Bramwell, on mail art.

The evening will begin at 7.30pm. Tickets are available here or direct from Oxfork. Come! It will be fun.

A Bigger Bang!

To celebrate the pop-up Big Bang restaurant at Brookes University (while the much-lamented Oxford original finds permenant new premises) I designed them a menu:

It will have some food on it, eventually, mostly The Big Bang's excellent sausages.

Sausage entrepreneur, Max Mason, will also be decorating the restaurant with some of my early - and rather rare - colour line work (look at some of my very first blogposts), and selling each signed a3 print for a bargain £40.

(but to be honest I'd go for the sausages).

The Big Bang pop-up is open Thursday to Saturday evenings from 5pm till 11, with last orders at 10:30pm for the foreseeable future. Bookings are being taken on 07766331150 or by email or on twitter@BigBangMax or @BigBangPopup

May Morning - The Photos

I'm not going to draw this one: I got up at 5am and I'm too tired.

But I am going to post some photos filtered through a nifty app on my phone that makes everything look like the 1970s. So today (or, if you prefer, in 1976) I saw:

6am: Oxford High Street packed...

 

Some interesting hair:

 
Before the choir sang (amplified this year: bah) I met Ted Dewan, artist and super-mischief-maker. Here he is with a couple of friends.

 

He lent me one ...

 
and we had fun scaring people:

 

But also lending them out so they could feel the power of the heads for themselves.

 
(All these fantastically interesting types are on my Twitter account.)

We also entertained the emergency services who, made slightly redundant by the peaceful vibe created by Magdalen Bridge not being cordoned off by police for the first time in five years, were looking a little bored:

 
(as far as we could see, no one jumped).

...and we saw people idyllically picnicing on traffic islands (this is actually a practice I recommend in my forthcoming book).

 
Were you there? Did you see the heads? What did you do? 

Who gives a **** about an Oxford Comma?

Sally and Dave Emery do. In October they opened a design shop on an up-and-coming corner of Oxford's Iffley Road. And, no it's not named after the song.

 

A self-confessed 'grammar nerd', Sally used to work at Oxford University Press, birthplace of the aforementioned grammatical mark. After a career in marketing, Sally and web-desinger, Dave, saw a gap in the market as well as an opportunity to introduce art into everday life. In 2008 they started online designer teatowel boutique To Dry For, before getting married (in a non-teatowel-themed wedding) later that year.

 

Firm believers in William Morris's maxim, Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful, Sally and Dave found the demand for their beautiful and useful teatowels was so great that they started to produce their own, commissioning four new designs each year, including work by Rob Ryan and Gemma Correll, who drew the gorgeous mural in the shop.

 

The teatowel business was such as success that Sally and Dave found they needed to move their business out of their house before the teatowels took over. Though they were looking for an office, an empty shop round the corner looked perfect. After a 'Why don't we do the show right here?', moment they realised they could combine their business with their love of beautiful things and open a work space and shop in one.

Here's Sally...
 

and here's some of Comma's stock, from hand-printed stationery...

 

...to quirky kitchenware to...

 

...handmade glassware to...

 

... graphic cushions.

The more you look, the more you find. Not just artist's books...

 

...but a shelf that winks shiny kitch, tongue firmly in cheek.

 

Am I posting too many photos? I can't help it. There's an endless selection of fasciating stuff here...

 

I particularly like the 'pocket money' boxes on the counter, revealing badges...

 

...vintage stick pins...

 

...and temporary art tattoos.

 

If Sally could take one thing from her shop home with her, I ask, what would it be? She answers...

 

It has to be the 'Love' and 'Hate' oven gloves. And as for me, I'd take...

 

The 'dog bowl'. Now wouldn't he look sweet surrounded by bon bons?

Oxford Comma

247 Iffley Road

Oxford, OX4 1SJ



01865 202400

(I wrote this for the beautiful and useful blog, Uniqueboutiques)