HelloCatFood

Oxfam Stewards, originally uploaded by hellocatfood.

Even at Reading Festival there’s still time for art! I was there stewarding over the week and it was quite good! The best act was definitely Rage Against The Machine!

B-VAC Flash Art Mob, originally uploaded by hellocatfood.

As advertised on the B-VAC website we had a Flash Art Mob on Saturday 16th August. It was kinda small but it went really well and I can’t wait to do another one with more and more artists involved!

I was finishing off some artwork when I came across a clipping from a newspaper I picked up on my travels in America. After a bit of researching I found out it was an article written by from the California Herald. Here’s an extract:

It’s painfully obvious it’s not about talent anymore, in the one place an individual could take refuge, in art and music. It’s about effortless attempts of self validation through promotion. This is now branching out though, into a national phenomena. Thanks to media and reality shows like American Idol, easy-to-use computer graphics, widely available electronics equipment replicating instruments that could fool even the most trained of ears and build- your-own webpage online communities like myspace, we’re nothing more than the time we spend typing or what our image invokes. Notoriety has never been more desirable or promising.

The rest of the article can be read here.

One thing that’s stood out to me a lot recently is that a lot of art that I see isn’t really driven by it being fun. It’s all about the CV and exposure and whatnot. OK, so I’m not totally innocent, but a lot of the work I do with other people is because it’s fun. The CV can wait.

Good artists make good art, not great CV’s

CECI at Roam The Rows Festival, originally uploaded by hellocatfood.

Last weekend I was in Chester with CECI to perform at the Roam The Rows Festival.

I’ve been to Chester before and it really is the quaintest town I’ve ever been to. I really like how it’s modern yet has a historical feel to it.

This is the first time I’ve performed to an audience that isn’t exclusively arty and the first time I’ve ever done some sort of street performance. My main concern was that the public would just walk by uninterested. However, when there’s a guy with a massive balloon on his back it’s hard not to be interested! It was all very well received and everyone who experienced the art piece enjoyed it, even if it did leave their hair a bit static at the end (hence the sexy hair nets).

I have another street performance this weekend with B-VAC, but more on that soon.

As you may or may not know I do a bit of community work and workshop work. I’d usually document this on this website but I felt it deviated from my personal artwork a bit and I consider the hellocatfood name to be my artist persona, so for that reason I set up www.antonioroberts.com. It focuses completely on my community and education work and hopefully gives that side of my work a more professional feel. Go have a look-see!