Lost and NOT Found!

[Bev]

It has been well over two weeks and it seems like both of our teeny tiny postal experiments have been lost in the postal service, or in the bottom of the postman's bag, forever!

So we don't recommend sending these tiny letters through the post by themselves, make sure you put them inside a larger envelope. We are very happy that these itty bitty letters are enjoyed by many, and we thank everyone who has bought one! There shall be more at the next event, and remember, we can personalise them too!

It was an exciting experiment to do and it's a shame it failed... (and I really put my hopes up to find it in my postbox...)

Itty Bitty Locker Exhibition...

Sophie and I (Bev) are going to carry out our own little locker exhibition at in our course studio at Leeds College of Art! There are a few unused lockers, but so far we have started to coat the insides of two of them with white paint.

As you can see, the lockers are tall, deep and quite dark. We may need to install some lights inside to illuminate it! At the moment we are planning to exhibit our own work inside - ranging from two-dimensional and three-dimensional artworks. We are also considering in exhibiting artwork outside Itty Bitty Art Committee, which has to follow a specific theme that we set (generally small art), but we are still discussing about it!

Our aim is to get this locker project up and running after the Easter holidays, so we hope everyone has an enjoyable Easter!

Gold

I (Sophie) have been having a little mooch around Manchester and it's great China town for a bit of product inspiration and in between sticky buns I grabbed some fortune cookies which lead me to have a go at making some one for myself.

On a previous crafting occasion I had a little play around with some jewellery making experiments with two little brass rings, Shrinkies and a little bit of gold pen. The plastic shrinks down by supposedly three times which makes accuracy on a small scale fantastically easy without the huge of dirty great big magnifying glass, awesome no?

These two rings where put up for sale at The International Artists Book fair

This Video is 8 shades of awesome

Itty Bitty Postal Experiment!

We have decided to experiment if the itty bitty letters can survive through the postal system! Sophie has sent one to me and I (Bev) have sent one to her address. We have used a second class stamp for both letters, so it could take about three to five days to get delivered!

Sophie has written one to me!

..and I have written one to Sophie!

The letters are so small that the stamp covers half the letter (as you can see)! We just hope that the postman has good eyesight to read the tiny address! However we did put the post code and number of the address the largest in the text which is the most important details.

Goodbye teeny tiny letters!

We just hope that they are not left forgotten in the bottom of the postal sack because they are so small! We'll update the blog if they have survived!

We look forward to seeing our experiments in our post boxes soon!

Retro + Vintage Fair @ The Faversham!

On Saturday 13th March, Sophie and me (Bev) brought our itty bitty work and vending machine to the Retro + Vintage Fair, hosted by Bad Sneakers. Our stall was located in the conservatory of the Faversham, next to the delicious refreshments provided by The Marvellous Tea Dance Co., there were also plenty of vintage clothing, accessories and jewellery to satisfy anyones vintage needs! Here's the wee stall we were given!

tea party!

At this event we were selling (Sophie's) itty bitty letters with sweet and rude/humorous messages inside, as well as mother's day letters and ones that can be customised by Sophie! My magnets, pin badges and rings were also available, expect most of my rings were at the International Artists' Book Fair.

The Mother's Day letters went down well as last minute cards, but there were plenty of requests for personalised letters!

The vending machine filled with lucky paper cranes was also at the event! The Marvellous Tea Dance Co. offered to take our machine to Harrogate to an event they would be featured at. That was a generous offer made by them.... our itty bitty vending machine is on tour!

Before Urbis was lost...

IT WAS CHUFFIN' FABULOUS!

Says I (Sophie)

Like quite a lot of cool kids that have been lucky enough to get to visit The Urbis in Manchester more than one time, I'm really going to miss it. Seeing as there is a group of ass hats somewhere that think a football museum would be an on the whole more worthwhile experience than this literal slice of lovely.

This beaut is The Tiny Travelling Treasury by The Ultimate Holding Company, you are given instructions by way of lucky cat...

and with that you explore the city with the aim of bringing back your hoard to display in the cabinet of wonders.

At every installation I see where the viewer is told to contribute train tickets always seem to be in total abundance, I may start creating dirigible tickets instead.

I'm ashamed to say that I didn't contribute.

scruffy yet effective.

The scale of the whole thing was great but it was a bit of a shame to see that some of the draws where a bit bare, I think with a lot of care, attention and the right sort of contributers over time it would have been really great.

whosits and whatsits.

inspecting more whosits and whatsits.

After delving a bit deeper into The Ultimate Holding Company I found that they do all sorts of fantastic cross disciplinary collaborative business, go check it out...

http://www.uhc.org.uk/index.php

After first finding out about Yoko Ono's 'take a piece of sky' I have coveted a little piece of sky but then again I have always have a soft spot of installations (irrespective of the works standing be it high or low art) where you can contribute or snaffle away a little piece of the work to keep for your own.

'Take a piece of sky': a Yoko Ono installation at the Baltic Centre. Photograph: Colin Davison

And finally... an installation of piles of luggage free for anyone to add their own personal tags to at The Manchester City Gallery, sadly I cannot recall who created it and Google is being no help either but I remember contributing to one of the tags years upon years ago, I don't remember what I wrote for the life of me..

End.

The International Artists' Book Fair

Today and tomorrow (Saturday 13th March) is the International Artists' Book Fair which is held at The Parkinson Tower (main hall area), Leeds University. Our Itty Bitty Art Committee work is featured along with many other artists' work from our Art & Design (Interdisciplinary) course - 1st, 2nd & 3rd years, as well as artists from Furniture. It is quite amazing how much artists' books were made and how much of it could fit on one table!

(the vending machine along with Sophie's itty bitty letters, my magnets and shrinkie rings)

So far from what I have experienced at the International Artists' Book Fair (which was literally two hours as I was helping at our stall and also having a peek around) is that there are plenty of stalls to keep anyone busy, and the place is crammed full of people! (Which is obviously good!)

Itty Bitty Art Committee will once again be featured at another event tomorrow (Saturday 13th March) at the Faversham, while the International Artists' Book Fair is still on... However, we will have both works at each event but the vending machine will be at Faversham (where us two will be!)

Here's the flyer...



Oh, and here's another event with The Marvellous Tea Dance Co. on Saturday May 29th! We are very much likely to be there!

See you then!

Itty Bitty Art Committee

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Itty Bitty Stuff

Here are some of the bits and bobs which will be available for sale at the International Artists' Book Fair, Leeds, as well as other events.

[Beverly Cottrell's work]

White and Red Roses - North and South... the War of the Roses theme, an itty bit of English history!






Shrinkie rings and pin badges inspired by Victorian broaches and other jewellery. Here's a personal broach I have...


My concertina zine inside a shadow box the size of a doll house frame - approximately 3cm x 4.5cm, depicting illustrations of different types of heirlooms...

Three handmade itty bitty magnets in packets with playful illustrations of heirlooms...

Plenty of stuff I made for previous events and events coming up!

Thanks for taking a peek!