Since I last wrote, the animation has really come together, and I now have a finished piece of work to exhibit as part of Alice In Disneyland at Lincoln Central Library from 4th - 7th May 2010. Private View 5.00 - 7.00p.m.

Lincoln Artist's Network had a small exhibition with three artists at The Terrace from 7th - 21st April, as a prelude, and it went very well. Images and feedback are here: http://sites.google.com/site/lincolnartistnetwork/projects

The exhibition at the library will be the main exhibition.

I do wish to extend my time on AA2A, because I spent most of it grieving for my father and not enough time creating work. And I have another animation that I now wish to create.

A-ha.com have a competition to submit videos, I'm keen to exhibit art in existing and appropriate contexts, and I feel a piece of animation based on Take On Me would be excellent exhibited at one of their gigs in front of an existing audience of fans. 

This may also be exhibited as part of an installation at a gallery in Nottingham in November. I have contacted one, they said they were very interested, but so far no reply to confirm. 

If anyone here has a gallery space available in Nottingham for November (around the time of Saturday 20th onwards), please get in touch, as I wish to exhibit work there in time for the East Midlands leg of A-ha's final tour.

Since I last wrote, I've suffered a series of unfortunate events that have prevented me from getting much work done.

My father passed away suddenly in the early hours of 20th December 2009 and this came as a shock.

My thoughts have obviously been on that, and have been annoyingly distracted by another problem that arose, which I don't want to bring up here now, because fortunately it's now resolved, it's simply a problem that should never have occurred in the first place.

I'm now getting close to the Alice exhibition and haven't got any animation work done. So to say I'm frustrated by that would be putting it mildly. I haven't been able to make a start on it due to the animation dept having gone away on two trips, one after the other. All I need is to know what software will be best to make my animation in and a brief introduction possibly. 

I can do the rest once I know what I'm doing, but at this rate it'll never get done!

I have all the images finalised and some are here: http://helend-blackbird.blogspot.com/

(have I mentioned before how tedious the image uploader is on here?)

I've booked my son into Kids Club this week so that I can use the time, but I can't afford for that to be wasted now.

I have been working steadily and collating thoughts and ideas since I began. In November I exhibited some previous work from The Unreal God exhibition in the form of a banner at A-ha's O2 gig in London. Whilst travelling there I spent my time on the train sticking stills printed out from The Unreal God comic into my sketchbook, and adding quotes from Alice In Wonderland to see how that would work.

I felt that reading Alice In Wonderland on the Tube was most fitting!

Aside from the success of the banner exhibition (Magne of course loved it!) and the existential possibilities of wandering around London wearing a t-shirt depicting my work, I serendipitously chanced upon some intriguing inspiration for Alice In Wonderland. 

This image uploader seems very convoluted, so I won't post pics, but I accidentally came across some Barry Flanagan sculptures "Mirror Nijinsky" whilst looking for a comics exhibition on the way to the Mall Galleries, and in the free paper I read on the train home, there was an article about Tove Janssen's latest book, something about a rabbit house in a village set in Norway - how apt.

I've been researching Jonas Bjerre animations, and discussed my plans in depth, and I now feel that the juxtaposition of A-ha's Take On Me video with Alice In Wonderland is very timely (A-ha are retiring next year with a final World tour)...

I've been working on a storyboard for this, but won't get in to Uni to start working on it until the New Year now. Merry Christmas!

I've been accepted onto the AA2A scheme, and plan to use the time to create a body of work on the theme of Alice In Wonderland for a proposed exhibition in March 2010 to coincide with the Tim Burton film due for release at that time. This is for the Lincoln Artist's Network, a group I set up for undergraduates and graduates of Lincoln University, funded by Enterprise Inc at Sparkhouse Studios at the UL.

This will involve dolls, and/or animation to follow on from previous work. I hope not to follow too closely the version by Jan Svankmayer, but instead will incorporate something more contemporary. The theme of Alice In Wonderland is a Simulacrum worth exploring and I hope to add a visual commentary on the traditional elements and reconstruct a narrative within it that draws on contemporary issues and relative philosophical discourse. For instance, references to Alice In Wonderland appear in the film The Matrix, so I hope to look at where that's relevant, and perhaps to introduce additional elements, for instance, what happens if Alice meets The Lady of Shalott? Or what if I were the protagonist? Or my Dad?

I noted that Through The Looking Glass was dated Nov 4th - that was the day I got married and spent 6 years in a wonderland of my ex husband's creation, so I may decide to include that somewhere.... on Nov 4th 2009 I am due to see A-ha live at the 02 and will exhibit some work from The Unreal God And Aspects Of His Non-Existent Universe, so this could form a point of departure from which to begin the new body of work.

I'm going in for my first AA2A meeting at Greestone tomorrow. As a lone parent and recent graduate I've been itching to create some form of animation since graduating, but not only have I not had sufficient income, I have to balance being a (lone) parent with work, and at the moment, parental demands are taking over. I look forward to getting out of my studio space at home and escaping the distractions that stop me from creating anything remotely useful, and having the time, resources and space to actually create work.