11am until 4pm, Saturday 18th December 2010 @ Colston Hall, Bristol
The Made in Bristol Gift Fair returns for its second festive instalment,
showcasing the regions best local designers and locally created art. This is your chance to rediscover the fun in Christmas shopping whilst uncovering the very best in regional crafts including ceramics, glass, textiles, jewellery and furniture.
Is it just me, or is the love of the game slightly obscured by the cash and the gossip these days? As befitting any Premiership football chasing team, Bristol City FC currently have their own big dollop of controversy that’s obscuring the beautiful game and, well, it’s a sorry state of affairs.
You are heavily involved with architecture. Maybe you don’t know it, but you are. Even if you don’t consciously think about it, you are interacting with it on a daily basis. Furthermore, you have an opinion on it! You love some areas and buildings, and others make you feel like they should be torn down. Maybe the new foyer on Colston Hall really floats your boat because it is daring and bold, maybe you think it is an abomination, all fake gold tacked on to a beautiful historic building. Even if you’re not too bothered, you’ll have noticed it if you’ve been past. Architecture is an art form, but it is different from other art forms in that it directly affects everyone all the time. Poorly thought out and executed architecture can have a very negative effect on people and communities, rows and rows of oppressive drab concrete houses can be a contributing factor to low morale and other negative communal feelings. The same is true at the other end of the spectrum, excellent planning and architecture can undoubtedly impact positively on the communities that surround them.
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Wednesday 1st until Friday 24th December 2010 @ The Showroom, The Art Box, Park Street, Bristol
Jamaica Street Artists will be providing an alternative treat for shoppers on Bristol’s busy Park Street this Christmas with the opening of their pop-up shop and gallery; The Art Box. Launching with a grand opening on the 1st December, the shop will then be open until Christmas (offering special late night shopping every Thursday). Pop-up shops and temporary galleries have become an international trend and Bristol City Council has joined the movement by offering empty shop units to arts and cultural organisations across Bristol. Jamaica Street Artists have secured a term in The Showroom, which has already been home to a zombie game, puppet show and exhibition.
Stokes Croft is rapidly becoming one of the most unique and interesting parts of Bristol. With the addition of many new independent cafés, restaurants, bars and clothing shops, its three well established artist studios and wonderful ever-changing street art boasting Europe’s largest outside gallery and the area’s cosmopolitan community, Stokes Croft has a tangible creative energy. The Leftbank Bar and Centre have evolved in this same spirit.
There are around 15million gardens in Britain and those in England cover an area larger than all nature reserves when put together and they often support more variety of life than the green belt around cities, which is often too intensively farmed. Gardens have long been vastly underrated and underemphasised in biodiversity action planning.
Like many Bristolians, I live on a hill. This means when I exit the pod with my beloved bike (almost always) I am immediately met with Sir Speed, a vigorous awakening when the temperature is low and you’re still slumber warm. Speed makes you feel like a hero and tests your alertness and confidence with his force. Sailing down the hill on my skinny wheeled machine, the chill rides with me and I high-five the whistling one. Unfortunately however, I still behold an element of committal fear. Thus, the fluidity of the affair is punctuated almost systematically by my life preserving paranoia, accompanied shortly after by a screech of my back brake: EEEK!! But at least for a few seconds, every morning, I am invincible. My cranked up, 70s boiler-warm face repels the spiky cold and my rested and warmth oiled limbs defiantly beat the jacket potato lethargy that bitter weather induces.
Friday 1st until Sunday 3rd and Thursday 7th until Sunday 10th October 2010 @ Bridewell Island, Bristol
And so as the last flaming tightrope is extinguished, the final remnants of thick make-up are removed, and the doorway to the crypts are closed and padlocked, Bristol finally waves goodbye to Carny-Ville, the Invisible Circus and Artspace Lifespace at Bridewell Island. It’s been a drawn-out and emotional farewell but now this is surely it. The arts initiative who tour the city inhabiting semi-derelict spaces, rejuvenating and managing them as active creation centres while throwing some of the best god damn parties Bristol has ever seen, even for them time is up.
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