Timelapse of Carnigie on youTube

Itchee Wasp & NEOS

Gabi & Phil will also be showing some 3d work as part of the "Itchee Wasp" collective's NEOS show at the Waldorf School, Aberdeen.

Artists exhibiting with Itchee wasp for NEOS are: Chris Bailey, Kelly Mcmeekin, Phil Thompson, Elspeth Winram, Margaret Stewart, Gabi Reith, Kelly-Anne Cairns, Linsay Macdonald, Nicole Gildea, Charlotte Campbell, Cowan Watson, Clifton Forest, Alison Watson, Lynne Strachan, Katarina Chomova, Naomi Leckie, Fergus Connor, Sophie Ormerod, Monica Wisniewski and Graeme Milne.

Click here for more info about NEOS

Gabi is also showing her full range of Small Stories work at Oriel Art, Skene for NEOS. Oriel Art will be open for the entire 3 week duration. (Sept 7th - 29th)

PlayPark / Oor Monsters game

Gabi & Phil have been asked to create an alternative version of the old carnival game "hook & hoop" for the SMart Consultant's "Play Park" event on September 28th & 29th in Rubislaw Terrace Gardens, Aberdeen .

Full details on facebook here :

Here's a quick peak at some of the monster heads (Oor Monsters) that'll be making up the game parts....

Oor Monsters III at Junction Art, Aberdeen

Preview Evening - Friday 26th 6 - 8p.m

During the months of May and June Junction arts will become a temporary monster emporium!
Created by artists Philip Thompson and Gabrielle Reith, this will be their third venture into the world of all things monstrous and with many other special guest artists invited to take part we are very excited about what will most definitely be a very memorable and exciting show.

The Idea of the "monster show" has been left open to interpretation by the artist and maker.
Work will range from fantasy to reality ‐ utilising the very open idea of what a "monster" is. The one
parameter of the interpretation, should be "creativity" ‐ what monsters work with or against artists and makers when they create work? Be that in everyday life (a car breaking down) or those little (but oh so weighty) little critical daemons on our backs…

Artists taking part are;
Philip Thompson, Gabrielle Reith, Cosmic Nuggets, Iain Gildea, Mags Gray, Katie Guthrie, Melodie Stacey, Aubin Stewart Max Stewart and more...

Small Stories on PapaStour !

We're so pleased to be included on the PapaStour website, a brilliant on-line store promoting the best in Scottish hand made crafts & design items. Here's the PapaStour intro text for a better idea :

Papa Stour is an inspiring showcase of Scotland's best designers and artists, curated with a keen eye to offer collections of exciting contemporary craft and design.

The products are crafted and handmade to order or produced in small batches and we are dedicated to support the artists we represent as some of Scotland's brightest talent.

http://www.papastour.com/artist/Small-Stories/

Oor Monsters II @ Aberdeen Art Centre 17/03/2012

Oor Monsters

17th March - 7th April

Preview Sat 17th 2-4pm.

A selection of prints and new illustrations from Gabrielle Reith & Philip Thompson.

Aberdeen Art Centre

33 King Street

Aberdeen

AB24 5AA

Tel: (01224) 635208

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Continuing their monster themes recently shown in the Pictoplasma Paris Exhibition 2011, Aberdeen artists Gabrielle Reith & Philip Thompson will be showing new illustrations utilising print, drawing, found photographs and objects.

During the preview, Gabi & Phil will invite children to partake in creating their own monsters on paper... RAR!

Gabi's "Small Stories" apparel will also be on sale during the preview.

Gabi @ Bridge View : "BIRD"

Click the image to download the PDF (258 Kbs)

8th March - 26th May
preview 6-8 Thurday 8th march

Aberdeen Pinterest

I've been kindly added to the "wild wolves" Aberdeen Pinterest Board... it's a great way of seeing who's making what in Aberdeen... and I'm very happy to have been asked to join.

If you think your work should be up there, send the WW boys an email.

http://pinterest.com/wldwlvs/aberdeen-artists-illustrators/

Gabi @ Bridge View 8th March - 26th May

Gabi will be showing new work at Bridge View (Aberdeen) along with Martha E Anderson, Hazel Fortescue Irvine & Mel Shand.

"Bird" will run from 8th March - 26th May Preview 6-8pm - Thursday 8th March.

for the downloadable full resolution invite, please click here.

Gabi at the Lighthouse, Glasgow

Gabi will be selling her Small Stories wares at the fantastic Made in the Shade craft fair at the Glasgow Lighthouse Museum today. Along with many other fine Scottish crafters, Gabi will be selling Xmas Decorations, Baby apparel, drawings, prints and much more...

Getting busy...again...

Just a quick post to let everyone know we (Gabi and I) used to post our news through the G-R-A blog - which we have let slide for a while now...

BUT! We promise to get back on top of this - post more news regularly, and not rely on faceBook to drop our news onto... after all, this is a little more "permanent" and specific. We're also using the blog to populate other streams... filtering news etc, and feeding it through www.feedburner.com (pulling out Small Stories specific news for example).

Anyway... we promise to put our news on here more often.

Eyes peeled for news about up and coming Craft Fair's Gabi will be taking part in leading up to Christmas...

Our NEOS 2011 event @ the Wyness Hall, Inverurie.

Here's a wee video by Phil showing what the NEOS 2011 event at the Wyness Hall looked like. hope you enjoy!

Gabi has been accepted for the Lovely Pigeon Pop up!

Nice one! Gabi will be showing with the Fife's lovely - Lovely Pigeon! at their Festive Pop Up, which will take place in the Murray Library, Anstruther from Friday 26th November to Friday 24th December ... full details can be found here :
Lovely Pigeon

Phil & Gabi's work on the BBC NEOS feature "in pictures"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/northeastscotlandnorthernisles/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_9015000/9015583.stm

Thanks to Dave Officer for reminding the BBC that NEOS was on...

Saturday 18th (NEOS day 8)

Quick! get some coffee down your neck, lets get to the Wyness Hall... ground hogs day? That's a little unfair, as every day we've had a varied and different audience come and see our work at the Wyness Hall. We once again open the doors on a Saturday morning... with over 20 guests within the first 30 mins... slowly but surely building to well over 100 by the end of the day.

During a wee lull in the numbers, Gabi Poppy and I skedaddle off to see some other venues (we give ourselves 2 hours... a drop in the ocean, really)... we head of to Susie Hunt's place - fantastic, lots going on, Alan Florence, Anne Thomas, Sarah E Thomas, Magnhild Hauge, Ane Smith...(live sculpting, Painting, printmaking, photography, jewellery, ceramics, lace...and a whole lot of banter.)

We head off to the Bothy (Ruth Simpson) fantastic - a lot of lovely art (Stuart, amazing prints... but you really should join NEOS to get the full benefits of being in one of Scotland's best Artist, Maker and gallery Directories).. I think that goes for the other 9 or so people in the venue, under one entry (wink wink).

We end up at the Don View Studios, with Lorna Purvis...(oh, and a lot of other people that don't have a NEOS entry either, but benefit from hundreds of people coming to visit thanks to NEOS happening). I think you can see a trend here...

remember folks, NEOS isn't just for September, it's for the whole year round... Scotland's best Open Studios? Certainly the Largest, certainly a professional and well sought after directory... imagine if everyone participating had an entry? we'd be able to get 50,000 booklets printed...

just a thought.

We head back to Wyness Hall (where 8 out of 9 participants have a NEOS entry) and we'd missed the "rush"... gabi had some fans in.. and sold some works... doh! just like NEOS, you never know who's going to come and see your work, and... you're more likely to get people coming to see you, if you've got an entry in the catalogue.

just another thought....

Friday 17th (NEOS day 7)

Once again... miserable weather.. bah! Freezing too... what's that? Hoards of NEOS fans streaming in the door for the first hour or so?! (20 in 20 mins again!). It appears that there are a lot of groups of "NEOSphiles" - lots of happy faces, making trails, going out with friends, talking to artists, generally having a fine old time thanks to art and creativity on their doorsteps.

We only have slight problem today, a group of kids appear (no mum / dad to be seen), which we're promised "our mum's just coming"... 40 mins later... hmm.. someone thinks we're a free after school club. The brave Suzanne lets mum know it's a bit unfair, as well as worrying for us... it all got a bit tense... not sure how we can deal with this one if it happens again? Should we turn kids away? (Especially if the Mum's just done an A-Team stylee "open the doors, spill the kids out and off to freeeeedommmmmmmm!") Be warned NEOS peeps... don't be too kind and open when sharing your skills and materials! some people can take that offer a little too far...

Anyway, we end on a nice note, Aurelie popped in to see us all again, after the networking last night, and helps us write a very last minute press release...

We'd also heard from Dave Officer that he's got the BBC interested in NEOS... it's great to know that we've got that help - even care, from fellow participants... super helpful.

Thursday 16th (NEOS day 6)

Doing a little Creative Cultures Scotland work, I don't quite make it out the house at the same time as Gabi and Poppy, but when I get to the Wyness hall at 12.20 or so, it's jumping! seems like we've had about 15-20 visitors in the first 20 minutes (again).

The weather's a bit on the cold side, sun peeking through some steely...and quite positively wintry clouds... but it's not keeping the NEOS peeps away! More people fascinated by art ... real fans of creativity - it's a pleasure to talk about your work to people that are generally interested in your approach to making artwork, confessing they have not artistic bone in their body (I doubt it).

Just before 6pm, we've had 71 people through the door today. Rud, Morag and Gabi sold work today, so that's a bonus! We'd also had a massive giggle at some internetz tingz... and morag's fantastic "50's stylee product modelling" for the worlds worst toilet paper. I've not cried whilst laughing in a while!

Apres 6pm, we had the Creative Cultures Scotland networking night, where Saskia Gibon & Aurelie Bureau were talking about funding (Aberdeenshire / City crafts and visual arts awards, and the service that CCS provide to help people find funds for "big projects" (over £10k)), gabi and Morag talk about NEOS, and their work in context to networking and cross pollinating practices... interesting stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed tonight, and I think everyone that came, certainly did - everyone seemed to get stuck into in-depth conversations, and met some new people, and hopefully started to think about applying for the grants on offer!... and perhaps putting the wheels for those big ideas we all have, into motion... we'll see!

Thanks for everyone that came, especially Heather, my boss, who's not feeling too well, but came to help as ever.

Wednesday 15th (NEOS day 5)

I (Phil) looked after the Itchee Wasp show from 12 - 2 at the lemon tree today...................................................... so after that I ...oh, sorry, 2 people came in for a piss...... so after that I headed back to the bat-cave the wyness hall... Apparently, a bustling start to the day, poor Rud had to deal with 20 visitors all asking for tea and coffee, and wanting to buy stuff!... he he... Always dependable.

I got back at about 3pm, to a brisk trade! Several people in talking, pointing, eating, drawing... good signs. Suzanne, Rud, Morag, Gabi & Poppy and Elaine are all there. It's a lovely atmosphere, it's a pleasure to share a space with them all.

We've had some lovely comments again today, and gabi seemed to do pretty well sales wise today. At the end of the day, we had 70+ people through the doors. we're close to 500 so far... amazing. See you soon?

monday 13th (NEOS day 3)

We'd opened at 12 noon today, it's a dreich and drizzly day... nae fine. But wait! pretty much as soon as we open the doors, we've got a steady trickle of people coming in, some sales here and there too! (We've even sold oor tea & cakes for a £1.50 donation!).

I (Phil) am also working from the Wyness Hall for my Creative Cultures Scotland work... I love wireless internet access and the ability to work from anywhere.

John Rutherford has done particularly well today, meeting a professional photographer full of praise for his work, even recommending he approach the Royal Institute of Photographers... very complimentary!

Gabi sold well today too, she's sold one of her favourites, a wooden carving of a fox. It's 17.49 at the time of writing, and we've had 61 visitors today, I think the most we had at one time was 12 people. Pretty amazing... oh, and the sun is coming out!

NEOS first day at Wyness Hall

After last night's lovely opening night for our NEOS event 2010, we scurry in to the Wyness Hall bang on 10am.. oops! (we needed to get the massive tea urn on!)

Pretty much straight away, we've got a few visitors trickling in... we've got a steady stream of couples up until about 11am - then we're hit with a crowd, and with kids too! "Fire up the Craft table! We've got Incoming!" Several cats, butterflies and backpacks later we have a lull. (time for a coffee and a cup cake (£1.50 donation, if you please, thank you very much).

The afternoon had a steady stream of people too (at the end of the day we'd had about 80 visitors all in)... but at about 3pm or so, nearly all visitors stopped coming... works out that someone had a bad crash, and the roads to Inverurie were chokka... the police even turning people away from Inverurie, apparently... (hope it's all OK!)

Needless to say, I had a chat with some old friends, and some new ones... it's what NEOS is all about for me. If you make art, and want to see what "the public" think - join NEOS, it's a blast, and bloody good value, getting in a world class booklet / directory...