Last night the Smith Family went to see our very favourite band: Fleetwood Mac. This was the 4th time we'd seen them live and, as always, they didn't disappoint. The band has a collective age of 338 but, like a fine wine, they only seem to be improving with age.
Things kicked off with 'The Chain' which is the ultimate gig opener. Just listen to that bass...
The entire concert was absolutely fantastic but Stevie Nicks is one of my ultimate ladies (up there with the mighty Kate Bush), so it was her songs that I enjoyed the most. Anyone who can pull off twirling around the stage clad in various lacy shawls, brandishing a tambourine and belting out songs about Welsh witches, snow covered mountains and sisters of the moon is my idea of wonderful.
My favourite song of all time is Rhiannon and Stevie really gave this one some welly to haunting graphics of a lady emerging from a lake. If you've never seen a live performance of this song, watch it. Watch it now.
In the words of Mick Fleetwood, "much fun was had by all"!
In December, Alice Brunt and I created our very first children’s book together for Christmas h.Art. ‘A Yuletide Tale’ was received very well and the sales meant that we were able to reach our goal of funding a trip to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. This is the major international children’s publishing event of the year.
We spent four days at the Fair in Bologna. There was an incredible atmosphere at the Fair - the exhibition halls are enormous and are packed with representatives from publishers, agencies and rights agencies from across the world. (There were also a couple of ice-cream stands for a bit of light relief!) The Bologna Fair is a trade-only event, and everyone there is a professional in the children’s publishing world. We worked hard beforehand to secure a series of appointments with a range of those professionals; we were delighted not only to have had the opportunity to talk to these people, but also to have had incredibly positive feedback from everyone we spoke to.
One of the brilliant illustration walls
We sought out these appointments because we wanted guidance from the best in the business. ‘A Yuletide Tale’ is to be part of a series of books and we thought that it would be helpful to discuss the best way to go about this new project with those who know what they’re talking about.
Everybody was very impressed with ‘A Yuletide Tale’, particularly given what we’d achieved in the short window of time we gave ourselves to produce the book. We made sure that we had come prepared, and it boded well for us that we were able to produce and sell our own books.
We were told that there is nobody else like us, and our teamwork and traditional English handmade approach is something that makes us stand out from the crowd. One of our USPs is that we’ve made our books ourselves, and we want to continue to work independently which means we can explore our ideas with freedom.
We believe that children’s books should be treasured, and the stories that we have in mind currently buck the trend for the UK publishing market. Many people we spoke to commented on the commercialisation of the UK market at present; as we were walking around the Fair, we noticed a greater variety in the European market and felt creatively much more at home amongst the continental publishers’ stands.
We loved seeing so many creative displays
We were thrilled with the comments we received over the four days, and we feel very proud that lots of people suggested that our book was too beautiful to sign over to commercial publishers. Everyone was very impressed at our dedication; they thought that we had the ability and more than enough chutzpah to take on the challenge of producing our books ourselves.
We would like to continue exploring our mutual creative ideas, and we are very excited to announce that we will develop the next few stories in the series independently under our own publishing name… Watch this space for news of our new name and for more information on our next books!
Well January didn't exactly get off to the productive start I had planned. I was summoned for jury service and placed on a particularly tough case made all the more bearable by a wonderful bunch of fellow jurors. We kept each other upbeat with good conversation, snacks and my latest addiction- Boggle.
I am, however, currently working on a number of very exciting projects which I will be able to fill you in on over the next few months. One of these is that I have been accepted into the Hereford Arts Markets. The markets take place in Hereford High Town and are a chance to meet local designers and makers and purchase their work. Entry is free. Come and say hello!
The Hereford Arts Markets dates for 2015 are:
Saturday 11th April 9am-5pm
Saturday 12th September 9am-5pm
Saturday 12th December 9am-5pm
Sunday 13th December 10am-4pm
Further information is available at the Brightstripe for Culture website here
In other news, I visited my brother Harvey over the weekend. He is a real film buff and we always end up watching loads of films together because he usually despairs at how little I've seen. The film I really enjoyed over the weekend was 'The Boxtrolls' by Laika Animation Studios. It's pretty dark for a children's film and would definitely have frightened me when I was younger, but the story is great fun and the stop motion animation is incredible. I really enjoyed watching the special features and seeing how much work went into each movement in the film.
Over Christmas I realised I'd accidentally been subscribed to Audible for the last few months and decided to quickly use up the credits I'd stored up in my ignorance. I stumbled upon 'The Art of Asking' by Amanda Palmer. I must confess (and I'm very sorry if she ever reads this!) I had not come across Amanda Palmer before but she had me at the description of being a living statue. Who doesn't want to learn more about the life of a living statue?!
Amanda Palmer is an artist with many strings to her bow and is most famous (although not so me as I seem to have been living under a rock for the last few years) for her million dollar funded Kickstarter campaign and her 3 million view TED talk on the subject. 'The Art of Asking' is basically about how nobody successful has reached their level of success without asking for help along the way with lots of examples from Amanda Palmer's life along the way. A lot of creative people shy away from doing this, me very much included, and her message is 'take the donuts' (take the help that is offered to you and don't be afraid to ask for it either).
I'm really pleased that I didn't google her before listening to the audiobook because Amanda Palmer is quite a controversial figure online and I didn't have any preconceived ideas about her beforehand. When I was listening to her book all I kept thinking was 'what a warm, kind person'. I truly admire her ability to make friends wherever she goes and how open she is to new experiences.
I found the book very inspiring, listening to it in just a couple of days, and recommend it to all creatives. Particularly with fresh starts and new projects in mind for the beginning of 2015!
It's a very rare and special thing so meet someone by chance and instantly 'click', knowing that you are going to become great friends. I've been lucky enough to make two such friends over the last year.
One of those friends is Alice. We met by chance at 'A Celebration of Nature' in May this year and hit it off straight away. I was so pleased when Alice 'made the first move' and invited me to meet up for cake as I'd been wishing I had suggested the same thing. We have since bonded over a mutual love of art, books and good food. Alice secured her place in my heart as one of my favourite people in the world when she bought some gluten free cookbooks especially for cooking me supper (hands down the best pudding I've eaten this year).
During September, Alice invited me over to her house to ask me something important. She asked if I would like to make a children's book together. We got chatting about possible stories and I had the mad idea that we could make a limited edition fine art print book in time for the Christmas h.Art Weekend (5th-7th December), giving us just a few months to write and illustrate it. 'A Yuletide Tale' was born.
I'm a perfectionist and if I have a year to do something, it would take me a year, so working to a strict deadline has been very good for me. I definitely wouldn't have stuck to such a short time frame without Alice's encouragement or wanting to live up to her beautiful writing. It's been a very, very hectic few weeks but we did it!
We wanted our book to be a special Christmas gift and didn't want to cut on any corners and I'm so proud of what we achieved. 'A Yuletide Tale' is inspired by 'The Holly and the Ivy' Christmas Carol. It features my dip pen and ink illustrations as well as archival quality colour fine art prints. Every book is bound by hand and is a signed and numbered limited edition of 50.
Extra special thanks go to our parents for chipping in with our mammoth production lines, Iris Print for producing such beautiful miniature colour prints and The King's School Worcester reprographics department for such a fantastic printing job.
'A Yuletide Tale' will be available at our Christmas h.Art Open Weekend this week (5th-7th December). For details and directions, please see the flyer below. We will have plenty of mulled wine, mince pies and sausage rolls for visitors too. Just follow the pink signs for Venue 10!
We've already had pre-pre-orders so if you would like to reserve a copy to avoid disappointment please email me at katebsmith89@mac.com. Each book is £45.75 and will be available for collection during the h.Art weekend or can be posted if this is not possible.
It's been a very busy few weeks recently, with a very successful first h.Art open studio in September and preparations for Christmas products and events well underway now.
As the season is now well and truly upon us, I thought I would share an autumnal recommended read.
'Autumn Story' written and illustrated by Jill Barklem is part of the Brambly Hedge series of books. The illustrations remind me a little of Beatrix Potter and the stories are just gorgeous. I thoroughly recommend them for children of all ages.
Surprisingly, 'Autumn Story' is the only book from the collection that I actually own, although I have fond memories of reading them at school and watching the charming TV series when it was released. I have a sneaking suspicion that Father Christmas may be rectifying this situation for me this Christmas though!
On Wednesday I was lucky enough to go and see Kate Bush's magnificent comeback, Before the Dawn. She is one of my all time favourite singer-songwriters thanks to my parents playing her albums, especially 'The Red Shoes', as I was growing up. Dad was only able to get hold of two tickets and very kindly let me go in his place.
I love Kate Bush. She is well-read and not afraid to show it, and has an incredible imagination (who else can write songs about a foetus, Cathy Earnshaw and a rain making machine?). Whether or not you are a Kate Bush fan, I don't think anyone can deny that writing this song, amongst 100 others in your early teens is anything short of phenomenal talent.
On top of all of that she is stunningly beautiful, but relies on her talent rather than her body to sell her work. You'll never find her twerking, bumping and grinding à la Miley Cyrus, or so many other female singers today. If she wants to unleash the wild eyed stare, flail her arms and don roller blades then that's exactly what she's going to do.
It was a very special evening for Mum too, as she had been to the 1979 tour at the tender age of 17. When I asked her what she thought would happen during the show, Mum confidently said, "This will be the best thing you will EVER see." So I was expecting great things!
I had been incredibly excited, but had resolutely avoided all news and social media relating to the opening night (Tuesday) so that everything would be a complete surprise on the night. We didn't even look at the programme until after the show and were so glad we were spoiler-free. As a consequence, our faces looked like this for most of the evening.
The atmosphere was amazing when we arrived. Everyone at the Hammersmith was clearly very excited to be there and there was a real sense of occasion. We all knew we were about to see something truly brilliant. Mum uses a wheelchair so we were sat at the front of a balcony with a fantastic view of the stage. We were quite surprised because the band's instruments seemed to be taking up a lot of room on stage, so we assumed a screen might come down at some point for a video.
Bang on time Kate Bush arrived to 'Lily' barefoot, dressed in black and looking beautiful as ever. I lost count of the number of standing ovations the audience gave her during the evening and it was difficult to hear the beginning of the song because of the applause and cheering. Everyone had waited a long time for this and wanted to show their appreciation. As in her more recent albums, her voice has become lower and richer with age and was incredibly powerful as she belted out 'Hounds of Love', 'Joanni', 'Top of the City', 'Running up That Hill' and 'King of the Mountain'. It seemed to be more of a traditional set-up than we were expecting, but we were loving it.
At the end of 'King of the Mountain' to the lyric, 'The wind is whistling', the real show kicked off. The drummer, aptly described by one reviewer as looking like an extra from 'Pirates of the Caribbean', then leapt to the front of the stage and started flinging something over his head in circles and the Hammersmith was plunged into darkness with lightning illuminating him to stormy sound effects. Wind canons blasted slips of paper with a quotation from Tennyson's 'The Coming of Arthur' into the audience.
The stage was covered by a large screen and we watched a short film in which an amateur astronomer had picked up a distress signal from a boat at sea with a woman overboard. The much anticipated Ninth Wave had begun. If you didn't already know, this is the second side of 'Hounds of Love' and is a series of songs about a woman alone at sea. The screen lifted to unveil the huge bones of a shipwreck and spooky fish skeleton men wafting huge stretches of fabric to create a sea effect. On a smaller oval screen at the back of the stage area, Kate Bush appeared in water wearing the life jacket from the promotional photo singing 'And Dream of Sheep'. She had spent days recording the film in the suspension tank and had caught hypothermia in the process. Her vocal was recorded whilst she was in the tank and really made you feel cold for her.
From my sketchbook: One of the fish skeleton men.
She then sang 'Under the Ice'. Her backing singers by this point had become life jacket-clad rescuers. Kate Bush then realised she was the face she could see beneath the ice and fell through the stage. Some large black wings poked through the stage after she had disappeared (a clue for the second part of the evening). 'Waking the Witch' was just as scary as it should have been and her own son Bertie played the part of the son in a swaying living room where Bush imagines her husband and son living life without her in 'Watching You Without Me'. It was especially sad when she tried to hug Bertie and realised she was only a ghost before disappearing to leave the room as it slowly became engulfed by water (very clever lighting). I can't remember exactly which point it happened (there was so much to take in!) but at one point the whole stage went black and a helicopter search light appeared from the ceiling and moved across the audience, with one of Bush's brothers voicing the pilot searching for her. She decided she was ready to live to a rousing 'Jig of Life' with the fish people creating waves around her. A huge buoy appeared on stage next, with backing singers/supporting cast searching for her and pulling her out of the waves before six fish people then carried her away into the audience. The magical first part of the evening then finished with the band returning to the forefront for 'The Morning Fog'.
From my sketchbook: Kate Bush being rescued at sea.
She then announced that they were off for "a little break". There was then a mass love-in for Kate Bush in the queue for the ladies loos. I felt a lot less embarrassed for getting a little teary when she first appeared on stage because one of the ladies I met was still crying and apparently had been throughout! More gushiness followed with the lovely couple we were sitting next to before it was time for the second part and we had no idea what to expect!
The second part was a completely different mood. Set to 'Aerial: A Sea of Honey', snow was softly falling amongst silver birch trees when a small artist's model puppet appeared through some huge wooden doors and interacted with Kate Bush and her band throughout. Bertie played the role of the artist and was painting a huge framed canvas while various birds appeared in slow motion flight across the large screen at the back of the stage. There were still darker elements though, with a half-bird, half-human creature jerkily dancing in the painting and the seemingly sweet puppet killing a seagull he found on the ground. Bertie had his own solo to 'Tawny Moon' and the songs built in drama until the stunning 'Aerial'. There were silver birch trees on stage, a band clad in bird skull masks, dancers dressed as birds and a truly unearthly Kate Bush dancing whilst wearing a black wing. At the end of the song she then disappeared behind the painting which moved away to reveal her wearing a pair of jet black wings and flying towards the audience. Magnificent.
From my sketchbook: There was a single black feather painted on red silk
as our clue for the second part of the show.
Needless to say the applause could not have been warmer, and she returned to the stage alone at her piano to play a beautiful 'Among Angels', finishing with a rousing 'Cloudbusting' before disappearing from the stage again.
When will we see her again? Who knows. I think her choosing to perform her newer material, rather than performing a greatest hits tour, is a good sign that we haven't seen the last of Kate Bush. We'll be waiting.
Mum was absolutely right; it really was the best thing I've ever seen.
