Brixton Village

It's good to get ones work in shops locally and so I thought I let you know that Emma Calder's Moody Day Sticker Book, plus some of my small sticker books and my new childrens book Paper Angels are all selling in Circus, in Brixton Village. London.

Circus sells a mixture of vintage and artist driven products. It was their attractive decor that brought me into the shop and made me think that they could sell my stuff.

Brixton Village is in the old Granville Arcade, which recently had lots of empty shops transformed by artists and performers in an attempt to regenerate the market area. In fact I suggested this idea on some consultation form from Lambeth and they did it, but I am sure lots of people must have said the same thing. The artists all had a rent free period although not many could stay on after it was over. New cafes and shops have opened now. so it's still quite buzzy. It's a pity they couldn't have let the artists stay longer. But the vintage shops and Cafes are doing OK. Luckily for the Arcade it has recently been listed which is a relief, as we thought they were going to turn it into flats.

Emma Calder's Sticker Books at Other Criteria

I thought I let you know that my original hand made, Long Thin Sticker Books are now back in stock at Other Criteria in London's Marylebone. Several of the designs in the shop are not in Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book, so if you want to collect more here's your chance, It's a lovely shop too, if you are in the area. 

Emma Calder's Hand

These books are great for going out and sticking up stickers and this one of the reasons I designed them this shape. Here is a picture of me just before a sticker outing.

One of the Other Criteria's favourites are my XXXmas Stickers which are getting very seasonal again. Here are a couple of Photos from a sticker outing last year.

XXXmas Sticker's Brixton 2009

Emma Calder's Santa Sticker Oxford Street 2009

Photos are welcome of my stickers, stuck up, if you find any in interesting places.

Funday Stickers from Moody Days

When Jamie Camplin managing Director of Thames and Hudson, publisher of Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book first discussed the book with me. He tentatively enquired if I could add another section to the themes I had already planned, one just a tiny bit more up beat, a set of happy stickers and illustrations.

He was by no means forceful, it was just a suggestion. I liked the idea, it seemed a real challenge. I had already done the Bad Day Stickers, Stuck and Love and all were a reflection of difficult times. It seemed a good idea for the balance of the book to cover a more optimistic frame of mind.

 The Funday title was a photograph of art on a balloon by Oliver aged six

But Happy......? Actually, I ended up calling the section Funday, well that was hard for me to get my head around. Mainly because, my personal work exists partly to cheer myself up through the process of writing, drawing, exploring all the thoughts and feelings that make me and others I know feel bad. So the end result is often tinged with sadness.

Maybe it's just me, maybe I am a very negative person most of my childhood memories in particular reflect this. Just because unfortunate things have happened, it doesn't mean that everything need always be bad. That is the great thing about having the confidence in oneself as a creative being. Because in that world you can make anything happen.

So taking Jamie's suggestion on board I racked my brain for moments of happiness. All my happy memories of recent years have been with my own children and partner, ironically.

Luckily, for one of the illustrations for the book, I found the perfect collage already done, on a page in one of my current sketchbooks.

So for the accompanying writing I wrote down the true story that had inspired me to do the collage in the first place. For those of you who haven't seen the book here it is. 

The first lollies Oli ever had, he carried
around with him all day unopened. He'd never
had a lolly before, because his mum was very
strict, usually. But today she had relented,
when the shop keeper offered them, for free.

He held them tight all day, not once asking
if he could open them, his mum was surprised.

When his big sister came home from
school, he went and sat down next to her on
the sofa. He told her quietly that he had
something for her and he gave her one of the
lollies. She helped him unwrap his, before she
unwrapped hers and then they sucked them
silently and happily together.


 As silently as it was possible to suck a lolly.

 

Also included in this blog is the photo of Oliver trying to touch stickers that I had just stuck up in the street and holding the very same lollies mentioned in the text. 

Oliver Elephant and Castle 2004

Bad Day Stickers by Emma Calder

The day I started to design the bad day stickers that ended up in Emma Calder's Moody Days sticker book, I was feeling really fed up. Also I was thinking about my father who had died some seven years earlier.

 Bad Day Stickers

This is the piece of writing that triggered the stickers off.

On Bad Days

On bad days I think of the saddest things like the day my father died for instance. (I also think of my own mortality.)

I had been sitting in the hospital for about four hours my father had very bad pneumonia and couldn't breath without an oxygen mask. He hadn't spoken once but, then he said, “I feel so sad.” Those were almost his last words.

Then the nurse came and asked me if I wanted the priest to come. I didn't know what to do, so I said: “Yes” even though we were not religious.

The priest stood by my father and my father opened his eyes and said, “Oh fuck.”

And those really were his last words. I knew then that getting the priest had been wrong.

Two hours later he was dead it was exactly 9.20pm.

Later I slept.

I began to fall

and fall.

Then a dull thud.

He had landed somewhere.

When I woke up, I went out to the shopping centre.

Somehow I did what I did.

But it was odd, my feet didn't touch the ground and my head was up to the roof.

Floating home out of my body.

Then to the hospital to pick up his things.

The grey plastic bag with his shoes, wrist watch and old clothes.

I know it's still down the garage somewhere.

Orginally the bad day stickers were cut up to make a long thin book, that is partly why the woman featured was so long and thin, but it was also to reflect the strange feeling of tallness I felt after my father died.

 Bad Day Woman

Google Me

It's been a long Summer Holiday and I am just getting back into work, even though one child is not even back at school yet (due to the rebuild of the once iconic Pimlico School) and the other is ill and off school. 

As I try to pick up the threads of what I was working on before the holidays, I have been going through my notes and ideas for stories. Flicking through my file, I came across the piece of writing that inspired the cover of Emma Calder's Moody Day Sticker Book and also one of the other illustrations featured in the book.

Emma Calder's Moody Days in Foyles April 2010

Black Paper

A large piece of black paper dropped in front of her face.

The tears pushed towards her eyes.

A pain spread down her throat.

She felt sick and desperate.

Her head buzzed and buzzed.

The room became smaller.

The windows had gone.

She walked from wall to wall, up and down.

A trickle of brightness came from nowhere.

Dust particles danced in the light.

Now I am grown up I google myself all day long

Coco Cripps Graffiti

I have been bad at adding to this blog recently since finishing Emma Calder's Moody Days and have been so busy working on new stuff, that I have had no spare time. But yesterday morning, I was so distracted that I went and stood by my fourteen year old daughter, as she sprayed her first graffiti stencil in the Skatepark in Stockwell. 

 Coco spraying in Stockwell Skatepark

Her work is so good already but, what is the future for the young creative artist now, even less opportunties now, than before. Less places at colleges high fees, student loans etc...no jobs!

 Tree Kiss by Coco Cripps

I do have a new book coming out soon, so I shouldn't be gloomy, Paper Angels published by Bloomsbury, 4th October 2010. There are always ways to get work out there if you don't get too fed up with the effort. Doing the stickers were one way for me and now Coco with her graffiti.

 The opening page from Paper Angels by Emma Calder

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Emily The Inventor

Emily The Inventor by Emma Calder

When I was digging through old stuff, I found my first ever attempt at a children's book 'Emily the Inventor', which I wrote when I was thirteen. It was a story about a little girl, who hated doing things and was very lazy. She invented loads of gadgets to save her the bother, unfortunately she got very fat, so she chucked them all away and wrote a book instead. It was very before it's time, or maybe not. People were very aware in the sixties and seventies about environmental/ consumerist issues.

They just forgot it all in the eighties.

I never did anything about getting it published, I suppose I thought it was too scrappy looking. Or I had just moved onto other things and thought I could do better. The story of my life...

So before I forget, if you haven't seen a copy of Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book yet, please check it out.