“At the heart of the Conference lies the question: ‘What is the relationship between Welsh poetry and other art forms?’ In order to have an interdisciplinary debate, we have invited poets, artists and composers to discuss the topic from the perspective of their own discipline; discussing their work and their reaction to other people’s work,” explained Professor Gerwyn Wiliams, Head of the University’s School of Welsh.

Professor Gerwyn Wiliams takes part in the discussion himself, considering examples of poetry that react creatively to other Works of art, such as an ode by Sir Thomas Parry which responds to a sculpture by Jacob Epstein and an ode by Jâms Nicholas reacting to Henry Moore’s sculptures.

Two recent Eisteddfod Crowned Bards, Dr Christine James and Dr Jason Walford Davies, will discuss specific examples of their own work inspired by individual works of art. Christine James won the crown at the Eryri National Eisteddfod in 2005 with a series of poems responding to a number of pieces of visual art.

Composer Dr Guto Pryderi Puw, of Bangor’s School of Music will discuss the way in which he has responded to poets as varied as R.S.Thomas and Llion Jones in some of his compositions. The artist, Wil Rowlands, will discuss how he approached reacting to poems by R.S. Thomas and literary works by other authors in some of his paintings.

The opening and public reception for Urban Legends and Country Tales will be 6 to 8:30 pm on Saturday, Oct. 4th.  Admission is free to the Bonita Museum, 4355 Bonita Road, Bonita CA 91902.  Hours are 10:00am - 4:00pm - Wednesday through Saturday. For museum information, contact Vicky DeLong, Museum Director, 619-267-5141.

For more information visit the Digital Art Guild website

Graduates from the College’s innovative range of undergraduate degrees - from Garden Design and Graphic Design; Fine Art and Film Studies; and the whole spectrum of Art, Design and Media disciplines in between - received words of wisdom from several distinguished speakers during the six ceremonies held at Falmouth’s Princess Pavilion in the presence of friends, family and staff.

Cornish-born Chairman of the Guardian Media Group, Paul Myners, advised the students to embrace change in today’s rapidly evolving media industry and to be multiple and serial specialists, able to rise to the challenge of its ever-changing demands; distinguished writer and lecturer on art and architecture, Professor Mel Gooding, expounded on the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; and design critic of the International Herald Tribune, Alice Rawsthorn, reminded the students of the importance of self-belief and determination, citing the story of one Jonathan Ive, who had nothing but confidence in his own talent when he started out, but who, as the designer of the ubiquitous iPod and iPhone, is now one of the most successful designers in the world.

University College Falmouth also conferred Honorary Fellowships on Lady Carol Holland MBE, for her outstanding contribution to the arts in Cornwall; on bestselling author, Patrick Gale, for his outstanding contribution to literature; on Simon Broughton, for the outstanding contribution he has made to world music through writing and documentaries; and on Alan Zoeftig for his outstanding contribution to furniture design.

“This is a time for celebration and reflection, and of excitement and relief,” said University College Falmouth Principal, Professor Alan Livingston. “External examiners have confirmed that we have exceeded national standards of academic excellence, which will help us to pursue our national and international aspirations,” he added. “The Irish poet, W.B. Yeats, said that education was not about the filling of a bucket but about the lighting of a fire. Your creative fire, your imagination, has been ignited by our staff, and as someone else once said, your parents give you an awareness of your roots and a pair of wings - so fly high, fly free and enjoy the twists of your incredible journey.”

A number of scholarships and prizes were also awarded to graduating students: Joanna Beard from BA(Hons) Film Studies was congratulated on winning The Art Design Media Subject Centre - Higher Education Academy National Student Essay Competition; Timothy Sargent from BA(Hons) Fine Art was presented with The Denis Mitchell Sculpture Award; Sam Hofman from BA(Hons) Photography, and Chloe Reynolds and Tasha Stevens-Vallecillo from BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts were awarded Ferdynand Zweig Memorial Scholarships; and Karen Cotton from BA(Hons) Journalism, Dean Leivers from BA(Hons) Photography and Sadiqur Miah from BA(Hons) Textile Design won Sorrell Awards for Widening Participation.

The occasion also marked the tenth anniversary of the College’s well-respected and successful BA(Hons) degree in English with Media Studies, which also hosted a reunion for its graduates at the weekend.

In April 2008, University College Falmouth merged with Dartington College of Arts to create a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth’s expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington’s expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing.

The merger will pave the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall in 2012, creating a Higher Education institution unique to the South West.

University College Falmouth is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall County Council.

For further information about University College Falmouth, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk, email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 213880.

Why?

• Hemp requires little fertilizer and is an incredibly hardy crop. It therefore is cheaper to grow, easier, and can be grown in many different parts of the world.
• Hemp is remarkably pest resistant and therefore needs no pesticides
• The Cannabis strain of hemp is actually different from the crop strain and is no good for the uses I am outlying here
• The fibres of hemp can be used to make strong, long-lasting rope, paper, clothing, shoes, baby nappies, canvas, cellophane, paints, chain lubricants, biodegradable plastics, fibreboard, cement blocks, food, cosmetics, soap AND FUEL
• Hemp seeds are comparable to sunflower seeds in their nutritional properties.
• Hemp seeds can be used in cooking and combined with cereal and granola. They can be processed to create a nutritious protein powder. Hemp seeds also contain Omega-3 fatty acids.
• Hemp puts down deep roots which is good for soil and the leaves actually return goodness to the soil thereby allowing crops to be grown again and again on the same land.  In fact it has been known to grow a hemp crop for up to 20 years with no ill effects on the land.  NOT like most produce.
• With no pesticides, no farmland turnover, no chemicals, and easy growth it is far cheaper than most crops.  If therefore we grow locally, less fuel costs too will make this one of the best crops for future farmers.

If therefore every country grew more coarse hemp, we would have a natural, cheap alternative to destroying woodlands and rainforests.

Now trees can always be used, but this would give us time to regrow the tress that are rapidly being depleted worldwide at present.

Unfortunately the industry is not growing trees correctly.  Most trees need a vast number of years to become a proper ‘oxygen machine’ and the industry only replants 30 year trees, quite often not even allowing these to reach natural maturity.

This conversation is continued in our Talk Art Forum that has FREE membership. Come and join in as we explore what it takes to be an Environmentally Friendly Artist

Or read all the posts so far in this section HERE

The market is flooded with inferior products from areas that are felled and not regrown properly.  Cheaper yes, but for every tree felled there is another loss to oxygen and wildlife.  Loss of trees is one of the biggest sources of the carbon dioxide warming the atmosphere, accounting for 18% of annual emissions.  We dont need only trees to make paper, hemp for instance makes a great canvas! It is easier to grow too and could be a sustainable alternative to tree pulp.

Consider also the use of the fossil fuels involved in transporting products over such large distances, not to mention the handling time. This is of great concern when you learn that many of our wood and paper is actually imported from other countries rather than using locally grown sources.

So what SHOULD the artist and photographer be looking for?

We need to start demanding from our printers and framers that they use locally, well tended forest trees for their materials.  If enough people demanded this then more trees would be grown and the price would come down.  Less fuel costs and less transport charges would apply so the difference in costs may not be as bad as you think.

Hemp is easily grown and could replace the fields that farmers are told to keep empty by the government. Again, locally grown hemp could then be widely available for canvas, clothes, paper and much more.

My personal opinion is that compainies like RedBubble in Australia and Imagekind in America, to name just two, would benefit by looking at the larger picture now and starting to take control over their businesses to incorporate more and more local produce and not just go for the cheap option.

This conversation is continued in our Talk Art Forum that has FREE membership. Come and join in as we explore what it takes to be an Environmentally Friendly Artist

Or read all the posts so far in this section HERE

The Wellcome Collection, on Euston Road, is one of four museums shortlisted for the Art Fund Prize.

The others are The Lightbox, in Woking, Surrey, Shetland Museum and Archives, in Shetland, and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol.

The £100,000 prize is being offered by the art charity, The Art Fund.

CreateAds.com provides customers with its Virtual Ad Agency service, a set of easy-to-use tools to design and create advertising artwork for newspapers and magazines in the UK, with web and mobile phone advertising design coming soon. Advertising and design studios will benefit from access to the extensive image collection, enabling more people to create adverts in shorter time frames.

No graphics skills are needed by users; according to John Reid, Chairman of The Newspaper Society, “It’s hard to create a bad looking ad using this system”. Semi-display ads will never look dull again, with rich iStockphoto imagery at every advertiser’s fingertips.

Globally, small and medium enterprises (known as SMEs), invest £45 billion in advertising each year so the contract opens up a lucrative market to both iStockphoto and CreateAds.com. CreateAds.com offers a compelling service to SMEs short on time, creative skills and budget. This can save customers more than 80% of reproduction costs and 70% off the cycle time, when compared by CreateAds to outsourcing the work.

CreateAds.com users can create as many designs as they want, choosing from 300 fonts and over 2.6 million iStockphoto images, only paying when they choose to send an ad for publication. CreateAds.com provides a unique image-cropping tool so that images can be sized and placed directly into the Ads without the user having to worry about the publisher’s technical specifications such as DPI or colour profile. Patented resizing options allow alternative ad shapes to be generated in moments, from landscape to portrait, automatically tailored to any UK publications’ specification. Outdoor, Web and mobile media ad creation services will launch shortly.

Clive Gay, CEO of CreateAds.com, says: “Good images are essential in advertising but most small businesses can’t afford traditional stock images. It’s vital for our business to offer our clients the best images at the best prices possible and we selected iStockphoto for the quality, range and affordability of its collection. We have found iStockphoto to have the most varied and culturally diverse collection. The deal should help us to achieve our ambitious growth targets by significantly increasing sales.”

Garth Johnson, Vice President Business and Community Development at iStockphoto, commented: “Like iStockphoto, CreateAds.com offers a great service to budget-conscious and time-constrained businesses, so it’s a perfect fit for our business. We were particularly interested in its success in key vertical sectors, such as automotive, travel and local services, and believe this partnership provides an ideal channel for us to increase our presence and depth of content in these areas.”

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About CreateAds.com
www.CreateAds.com is the Virtual Ad Agency for Small businesses, enabling anyone to create quality ads in minutes on the web, book space in their chosen medium, be it print, outdoor, web or mobile and automatically dispatch their artwork electronically to the particular media owner in accordance with their specific requirements. CreateAds.com makes advertising easier and at a lower cost, benefiting both advertisers and media owners. Self-service ad creation is the future, and CreateAds is the only way to do it.

About iStockphoto
iStockphoto, www.istockphoto.com, is the world’s busiest image market, with an image downloaded every 1.4 seconds. iStock pioneered the micropayment phenomenon in this industry, enabling buyers to license images for as little as a dollar. iStockphoto entered the stock video market with similarly enticing price points in September of 2006. In partnership with its members, iStockphoto has turned community into commerce, transforming the digital imagery market by encouraging passionate dialogue and education, while making imagery affordable to businesses that may not have licensed imagery otherwise. iStockphoto is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Getty Images.

For further information please contact:
Lorna Thompson / James Warnette
Octopus Communications for iStockphoto
E: iStockphoto@octopuscomms.net
T: +44 (0) 8453 700 655

Venue:

V&A and RIBA Architecture Gallery, Room 128A, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL

Description:

To mark the centenary of the founding of the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE), this exhibition celebrates the importance of engineering in creating some of the most iconic buildings of the past 100 years. Using three themes (towers, bridges and large enclosures) to find a pathway through a wealth of structural achievement, the exhibition brings to life the design and construction of edifices including New York’s Empire State Building, Switzerland’s Salginatobel Bridge and Poland’s People’s Hall – as well as more modern projects including the Millau Viaduct, the Eden Project and the still-rising Burj Dubai.

Through a dramatic variety of media – models, drawings, CAD imagery, video and photographs sourced from all over the world – the ambition and ingenuity of these structures is revealed.

Developments in material, form and technique are also explored.

The exhibition is curated by architectural writer David Littlefield with the support of the IStructE.

Fees:

Free

Contact:

www.vam.ac.uk

Organiser:

V&A and RIBA