The Dentist

THURSDAY MARCH 1st at the Westgarth, Southfield Road Middlesbrough, part of the bill at 'Above the Parapet 2'. £2 Entry, Doors at 7.30, The Dentist after 9pm.

The Dentist - a mini opera. Starring Rebecca Prescott, mezzo-soprano and with music performed by Matthew Neil. Stylist to Ms Prescott - Alyson Agar. Stage consultant Harry Peach. Libretto by AJ, Score by W. Mozart, M. Neil and G. Bizet.

Brought to you in association with My Event 2012, for AV Festival 2012. With special thanks to John Noble and Shipyard Songwriters.

AV Festival 2012

Hello. How are you? I am fine.
To mark the March 1st launch of AV Festival - a biannual festival of art, technology, film and music in Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Gateshead - Middlesbrough Counil's 'My Event' scheme is presenting a 24-hour programme of events. These are the one's I'm involved with:

INSTANT PEN PALS

Would you like to make a new pen-friend, getting to know each other by sending letters and drawings the old fashioned way - in one afternoon?

This February a small group of individuals will settle down in a café in Middlesbrough for a fun and informal letter writing session using the stationary and quirky prompts provided to introduce themselves to someone they've never met. The letters will then be express delivered by hand to their recipients in another café elsewhere in Middlesbrough. They will reply in kind, and their replies will be run back to the first group of pals and so on and so until, after an hour or two of writing, drawing and tea drinking, everyone has made a new acquaintance. A sped up version of the slow way of making friends with no facebook, instant messanger, form spring or chat roulette required.

This experiment will be recorded in a short film to be shown as part of Middlesbrough Council's My Event: 24 hours of arts events to mark the launch of AV Festival 2012 on March 1st.

Devised by AJ Garrett of the Peg Powler Gallery. If you would be like to take part in the experiment or have any questions just email aj@pegpowler.com

FREE ZINE MORNING
March 2nd 8am-10pm. AJ and Rebecca of Peg Powler Gallery patrol the streets and businesses of Middlesbrough providing  everyone we meet with the best of local, national and international zines. For free.

THE DENTIST
Taking place Thursday March 1st 9pm at Above The Parapet - a new night of socially informed music and spoken word at Westgarth Social Club. The Dentist is a mini opera concerning modern dentistry and the privatisation of the NHS. Inspired by the unpredictable and satirical performances of the futurist, dada, surrealist and Bauhaus movements from the early 20th century.

The Clip Art Exhibition

Currently at Peg Powler Gallery at Green Dragon Studios, we have the world's first exhibition of 'clip art' - the free illustrations that come with word processing software etc. Our reasoning behind this show was initially for a laugh, but it has also become part of an ongoing interest in the aesthetics of a period when computers became common in the home, office and school but before the rise of the internet. This was a time when unless you had all the latest graphics cards etc to play games, the way to get some fun out of a machine primarily made for spread sheets and writing documents was through things like minesweeper, MS Paint and the clip art. The drawings, which appeared in flyers, posters and newsletters and presentations across the world, are funny, familiar, sometimes strange. All created by anonymous artists, they represent a modern form of pop art, considered disposable and utilitarian. This show shines a focus on clip art in the way that in the 50s Eduardo Paolozzi drew attention to the film posters and comics considered detritus by most people. Now superseded by the likes of Google images, clip art belongs to a genre of PC imagery that can now be seen as drawing to a close and viewed in retrospect, embodying many cultural indicators of the time they were created for.

And now here's me in a funny hat pretending I painted all the pictures:

The show is still on for a bit, viewing by appointment (email info@pegpowler.com) or for anyone using Green Dragon Studios (why not form a band for this reason alone?)

The Canny Comics Con and Clip Art

I will be appearing at The Canny Comics Con at Newcastle Library on December the 10th. Here is a bit of blurb about me and the convention: http://cannycomiccon.blogspot.com/2011/11/aj-garrett.html

In other news, the world's first (as far as I know) Clip Art Exhibition is on in Peg Powler Gallery at Green Dragon Studios. Extra special guided tour by influential and reclusive artist Arthur Clip on TUESDAY NOVEMBER 22ND at 7.30pm. Free and open to all. It should be an unusual night in company of the great fictitious artist, and the show is a celebration of a genre of overlooked pop-art a generation has now grown up with

September 2011

'Paperbugs' is an exhibition featuring festival goers and performers' drawings of Stockton International Riverside Festival - one of the most vibrant street theatre festivals on Earth - in association with the Big Draw 2011. On show at Green Dragon Studios, Stockton on Tees. Monday to Saturday all day ( early closing Thurs and Saturday). A Peg Powler Presentation.

Last week my Peg Powler Gallery co-conspirator Rebecca Little joined me in travelling down to to the Black Heart in Camden to take part in the Earth's best comedy club Lost Treasures of the Black Heart, created by our friend and all round hero Josie Long. We did a Bad Art School drawing workshop in between all the amazing comedians, with the most lovely and smart audience imaginable really going for it. It was for charity too - check out http://www.justgiving.com/Josie-Long.

Also, on Saturday, we did a Middlesbrough version of (our award winning art thing) A Secret History Walk - combining weird local history with drawing and exploring.  Thanks to everyone who took part in the event - part of discover middlesbrough, it was a really nice day.

X X X

A special occassion...

Cement Factory / San Jose / The Bad Art School

1. Cement Factory, a film I made with Sheena Cox, had its premiere last Saturday as part of Square Eyes film festival. A review of both the film and the festival here http://fansonline.net/onegiantleap/article.php?id=608

It was a great occassion, thanks to Russell the curator of Square Eyes for helping us complete the magical jouney of making a £0 budget satirical movie about murders in a cement manufacturing company.

2. I had some zines in a zine show in San Jose. I have virtually no more information but I hope it went well.

3.  This Sunday will me and Rebecca Little of the Peg Powler Gallery do our debut cabert type event. Our show is called The Bad Art Show and it the latest incarnation of the Bad Art Workshops and shows we have done before. Our special guests and members of the audience will attempt some daring drawing related stunts, and hopefully create some wonky art brut masterpieces in the process. The gig occurs at The Waiting Room in Eaglescliffe and is the support act to ultra class comedian Josie Long.