Glug Notworking at Pick Me Up, Somerset House

Last wednesday I hauled a tired and stressed body over to the Embankment for another Glug Notworking session. You remember I reviewed the last one at The Book Club, and said I'd prob go the next one.

I really wanted to go see Pick Me Up so it was great they held Glug there - killing two birds with one stone so to speak. Like I said, I was tres tired and really stressed from work so was really looking forward to a fun evening and lots of wine. That turned into 1 small cup of wine as it was so expensive! £4 for a small glass of what tasted like very cheap white wine wasn't fun :( What I really wanted was a Bulmers but they told me they had sold out - which was strange as I got there early so they must have only had a very small number. Anyway. No cider for Rachel.

I went on my own this time as I wanted to try and actually network  - but actually bumped into  Cynthia off my Immersion course while we were waiting to be let in, and I'm so glad I did - it wasn't really an environment conducive to real networking! So we spent the evening together, chatting about our work and what we were seeing etc. We also saw 4 or 5 others off our course too so that was really nice :)

Everyone got handed a free Mr Bingo print at entry so that was ace. Here's mine on my wall of my 'studio' (...desk in loft...)

Lovely.

Because of last time's issues with the talks (just too many people; couldn't hear/see very well), they decided to do a raffle type thing this time - there were 3 talks, 90 people in each, and you can only see one of them. To get in it was a free ticket thing, first come first served. We got there early so got a ticket easy, although it wasn't very well organised - just girls standing around handing out the tickets - they very easily got mobbed. Would have been better if they were behind a desk, and you could queue for the respective talk number. We went for talk no.2, which had Chrissie Macdonald, Emily Forgot and Sam Arthur from Nobrow. I really like Chrissie Macdonald's work for Orange (have talked about it before) and the other two seemed interesting. We met Sam before the talks actually, he was really nice and was telling us a bit about how Nobrow works and how it started, we also got chatting about Wolverhampton as he went to school there! He hated it lol. I still have fond memories of it obviously, from going to Uni there, but we agreed it was definitely a place you had to escape from!

We mooched around for a while, got some overpriced drinks and checked out all the art. There was a lot of it! Some really big names too, like Hellovon, (who makes me sick because he is so good) Hvass & Hannibal, James Joyce, Mr Bingo, Peepshow, and Rob Ryan. There was also Erin Petson, who I'd never heard of, but is my new favourite love:

Her work is amazing and seeing it on screen really doesn't do it justice. It's totally mixed media and experimental with a really strong colour palette and definite roots in fashion. Close up it's so delicate yet strong and we both agreed it was our favourite - a lot of the other work there was amazing too but very digital-heavy. Don't get me wrong, I love using the computer in my own work but I've always favoured the handmade quality and such a lot of illustration at the moment is too digital, in my opinion. It was so refreshing to see Erin's work.

When it was time for the talks we battled our way through (it was very busy... again... and hot! So hot) back to the entrance, and after asking around figured out the talks were right outside of the building and then back in again. I've heard some people say they couldn't find the talks at all, which is bad... but it wasnt that hard, bit tricky but not impossible. I think it's just the nature of Somerset House that it's very twisty and lots of little rooms that it's not the easiest to navigate.

The actual talk was great though, we got in in time to get a seat and it quickly filled up. The basis was for each speaker to briefly talk about 5 things/images which inspire them and their work. It was really nice to hear this from other creatives and the variety of things which inspire them and why. I loved hearing inside Emily Forgot's random mind, she definitely made us giggle the most. Sam's confession of his love of Ladybird books was great too.

After that we decided to check out all the big rooms around the exhibition where the live stuff was happening - Print Club London doing live screenprinting, Rob Ryan's fully functioning studio, Landfill Editions with their crazy Risograph Printer (which we'd never heard of and were fascinated by), etc. Rob Ryan was in his studio but we couldn't think of anything to say to him except 'you iz well good innit' so we decided not to. Great studio though, and it solved the mystery I always wondered about how prolific he is when his creations must take hours - he has minions! Many minions! Who sit there scalpoling his creations and screenprinting others etc etc. Ah. When you are successful, you can afford minions I suppose. Here's a video from Creative Review of Rob Ryan in his pop-up studio:


We ended up leaving at about 9.15 I think - I had to drag myself back to Euston and then home to Leighton so couldn't stay late with work the next day. All in all it was a really inspirational and fun evening, so thanks Glug. Just wasn't really a networking event! If I had have gone on my own, I fear I would have just walked roun don my own wthout really talking to anybody - I didn't see anybody else on their own, everybody seemed to be with friends again. Which is fine. I just think that the exhibition was too interesting and immersive to really have to make the effort to talk to new people. Especially with the lack of free flowing cheap alcohol.

Click here to see some photos taken by the Glug team - good stuff.

Pick Me Up finished today so I'm really glad I got round to see it - if you didn't, then it's too late. Boo to you.