Peter Davies (City lit principal) in the Guardian

In an interview give to the Guardian, the City Lit principal and chief executive Peter Davis expresses his concerns about the widening inequalities in access of adult education (AE)services the expected 40% governmental cut in funding will cause.   

As a person at the younger and no less under-represented part of the age spectrum, I have personally felt that adult education has provided me much more than just fanciful distractions from the daily grind. Although it need to be acknowledged that a certain percentage of AE patrons are not in desperate need of re-training in order to earn a living from the skilled gained at evening classes. If this is a problem then surely the solution is not to cut back service but to improve access to those in more urgent need, ie the under-/un-employed, isolated, and those who would benefit interactions within a social community etc. 

If governmental departments, elected councils and governing political parties are required to prove their positive impacts to their citizens in order to secure funding I wonder how many would still exist. 

Full article at: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/oct/12/adult-education-cuts

RCA Secret 2015

So I went along to the Secret postcards show at the Royal College of Art a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time for me as the RCA is not easy to get to in rush hour.

It was a little overwhelming to see around 3000 postcards perched on thin bits of wood mounted on the gallery walls. The most common format was hand painted, photographic (not popular with buyer I overheard), drawings and all types of prints. There were also plenty of unconventional formats such as sculpture, metal plates, 3D photo, embroidery, poured resin, tape and even a tiny camera obscura (my favourite). 

Although it was fun to speculate the potential famous artists responsible for some pieces, I really enjoyed seeing how diverse the artists' responses to a fairly simple and restrained format of the once ubiquitous but now almost extinct postcard. Good stuff.

If you want to find out who did what, click here. 

The National Gallery Bans Selfie-Sticks

Photo features AFUNTA Extendable Selfie Handheld Stick Monopod Pod sold by Amazon (also photo credit?), click to purchase. Lovely blue handle. 

Love it or loath it, the National gallery's recent change in it's photography policy has not gone unnoticed. Cameras and phones now roam the halls and corridors free, you should also give up any hope of ever seeing any famous artworks (eg Sunflowers) up close, even at closing time. 

But all is not lost, BBC has just reported the NT has decided to draw the line at selfie sticks, since they classify under the category of tripods. The logic is watertight since most of us would use two legs and an arm to operate it.

If you would like to have your say, I've put together a short survey (procrastination at its finest), click here to enter or:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JKF8KDJ

End of year 1, and thank you!

Colleagues and friends:

Year 1 at the CLFA is now officially over. We drew, we painted, we printed, we sculpted, we laughed, we cried and we wanted to thank Chris and Tony for all the extra effort and support they have given to the course and all of us, but how?

Answer: Mugs:

                          ^^This one says "Nicely Done!"

What do artists do all day, new series BBC4

...Is back on iplayer, episodes featuring Sir (ooohhhh) Antony Gormley,  Jack Vettriano and Frank Quitely/Vince Deighan.

PM listeners' sounds - Send your favourite sounds to the BBC

Sounds can be even more evocative than sight. Radio 4 is archiving their listener's favourite sounds. What is yours, a purring cat, bird song, waves crashing on the beach...check out the archives and nominate your own!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01q81ld

Try the egg cutter song!