Himptology: Reincarnation Infinity Loop

Himptology: Old Fashioned

A very small part of our Himptology exhibition at The Arches in Glasgow about belief and belonging. An explanation about what its all about is here and there is a short article about the show in the List, click here to go to their page to have a read.

Himptology: Columbo

Himptology: Gods play games

A song to sing

First place in the "Write a song about Hole in my Pocket" competition goes to J. Kap ft Alec Roeser with their above rather odd video; with things on fire, a man in a clown mask and a leprechaun with a watering can.

Second Place goes to Joy Lippard with her song about how God has cut holes in everyone's pockets to teach us all a lesson.

and

Third Place to the Buck and Billo show for their use of back projection and cowboy hats.

Think everyone did a really good job but you could prob have used a bit more personal info about us in the songs - just a suggestion for next time. The prizes are in the post.

Special mention to Pang Vongdharadon Jazz Piano for their jazz take on the idea in Bangkok.

Himptology: The List

Nice article about our new show in the List. Click here to go to their page to read.

Himptology: Sunday Service 1

Thanks to everyone that came along and took part in our first Sunday Service, it was such a good laugh. The "sermon" givers were all excellant, the host and music were superb and the vocal efforts as we all sang along to "Living on a Prayer" and "Take on Me" were brilliant. Hope you all return for our second extravaganza on 3 October when we will be joined by Gregor Wright and Sebastian Tombs.

"Hole in my Pocket invite you to join them for The Himp Sunday Service, an non-denominational alternative to Sunday School for creative types. Come along and hear a series of sermons from top artists, designers and performers about their chosen creative fields, find out what inspires them and celebrate the Church of Creativity in style with some group karaoke led by a local Choir, readings from Moby Dick and a ...nice cup of tea. Sundays 19 September and 3, 10 October 1 -2.30pm."

WEEK 1 - 19 September
Hosted by Gary McNair
and with music by Eilidh MacAskill and Brian O'Sullivan

Sermons by
Penny Anderson
Alan Cesarno
Kate Thompson
Morag MacDonald
Ice-cream Architecture

Readings
Frodo McDaniels

Himptology: The Holy Book of HIMP

To coincide with our exhibition Himptology: The Second Coming at The Arches we have produced a new book, which is available to buy at the bargin price of just £6 from our Etsy. It contains around 40 b+w drawings from our series of thoughts on belief and belonging which form part of the show.

Buy em while they're hot.



Himptology: Lesser known miricles

Himptology: Bones

Himptology: Things to know #5

From our Himptology exhibition at The Arches.

Himptology: Christmas Comparisons

Himptology extracts

Some extracts from our new show at the Arches.

Himptology: The Second Coming

Returning to the Arches for the first time since their successful, eponymous exhibition as part of the Glasgow International in 2005, which focused on moments of everyday life, "Hole in my Pocket" now turn their attention onto the slippery and dangerous topic of religion.

With the Pope coming to town next month, it seemed like a good time to open that divisive question of religion and see what could be found. Our current generation say they have no religion, in a 2006 Guardian poll 63% of people said they were not religious. Hole in my Pocket have therefore set out to steal all the best bits from other religions and form a new religion of their own - Himptology. It will be a democratic religion based around the ideas of creativity (not creation) and part of their new Arches exhibition will focus on audience interaction, asking where mainstream religion has been going wrong and calling for suggestions for what a new 21C belief system could entail.

HOLE IN MY POCKET: THE SECOND COMING

"Bringing their thoughts on faith, belief and belonging to The Arches, Hole in my Pocket form their own religion and ask you to become a true believer."

As well as the main exhibition Hole in my Pocket are also organising a series of three unusual social events which are shaping up to be great fun and rather unique and exciting experiences. The events, entitled "Hole in my Pocket: The Sunday Service", will use the framework of a traditional Church service to present new art work and performance. They will be an exploration of the creative industries in Glasgow and a celebration in creativity in general.

THE SUNDAY SERVICE

"Hole in my Pocket invite you to join them for The Himp Sunday Service, an non-denominational alternative to Sunday School for creative types. Come along and hear a series of sermons from top artists, designers and performers about their chosen creative fields, find out what inspires them and celebrate the Church of Creativity in style with some group karaoke led by a local Choir, readings from Moby Dick and a nice cup of tea. Sundays 19 September and 3, 10 October 1 -2.30pm."

Unmovable

Unmovable is the deadline for our fast approaching exhibition. Just two weeks tonight it opens. Lots to be done.

Atmosphere

Further to yesterday's post and image about space and our place in the universe is this little drawing showing the layers of atmosphere which act as a shield and make our Earth a Goldilocks planet on which life can thrive - not too hot and not too cold, its just right.

Though in the Goldilocks tales its at that point in the story that the bears turn up and everything goes a bit pear shaped so hopefully not a very accurate analogy.

The Planets

Work continues a pace on our new exhibition at the Arches.

Thinking about religion, the Gods, fate etc always makes me think about a series of lectures I went to at the Science Centre Planetarium in Glasgow. Five weeks of two levtures conducted under the amazing planetarium dome where all the stars of the universe were hanging above our heads. At the end of the lecture series the tutor got us all to close our eyes. Dutifully we did so only to reopen them to see - the exact same starry night we'd been looking at just a few seconds before?

After allowing us a couple of seconds of disapointment the lecturer said we didn't look very impressed. He then said that we just taken the biggest trip any of us would ever take. The planetarium projector had just been reconfigured, instead of showing us the nights sky as it looks from Earth it had switched to showing the universe from several hundred light years to one side. Using his laser indicator he pointed out the four stars of a consteallation he had previously explained to us 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . . and now 5.

This new fifth star which had joined the end of the consteallation was actually our own sun viewed from outside our solar system. All of human history, all our great works and all our failures, all the dreams, hopes, achievements, sorrow and joy of our race's existance was encompassed on just one tiny little dot of light on the domed roof. Makes you feel pretty small.

Hole in my Pocket @ The Arches 2010

We (Hole in my Pocket) have been asked to design a new exhibition for the Arches, opening night 10 September. We weren't sure what the theme of our show would be, but a couple of ideas we didn't develop the last time, coupled with the Pope's visit to Glasgow in September has given us a direction to set off in and our new show will now be exploring Religion. Its a dangerous and large subject to have fun with but we shall try our best to play with some ideas, invoke some humour and try very, very hard not to offend anyone. Fingers crossed.


HOLE IN MY POCKET: THE SECOND COMING 10 SEPTEMBER 2010
"Bringing their thoughts on faith, belief and belonging to the Arches, Hole in my Pocket form their own religion and ask you to become a true believer."

As part of the show we will also be holding an event called The Sunday Service every Sunday.

THE SUNDAY SERVICE
"Hole in my Pocket invite you to join them for the Himp Sunday Service, an alternative to Sunday School for creative types. Come along and hear a series of sermons from top artists, designers and performers about their chosen fields, find out what inspires them and celebrate the Church of Creativity in style with some group karaoke, readings from Moby Dick and a nice cup of tea. Sundays 19 September and 3, 10 October 1 -2.30pm."

WE NEED YOU
That's where we need the creative world of Glasgow to get involved. We have a few people already pencilled in to give a sermon (talk about their work) but we are looking for more. We are open to all ideas from any creative fields - artists, musicans, dancers, designers, sculptures, performers and would like a mix of people talking about their own work and the work of others who inspire them, or really on any other related topic. Talks will be with a slide show presentation of your images and will last around 5 mins. We'll keep things short and snappy in a kind of Pecha Kucha style so it will be a really fun, lighthearted and relaxed way to tell people about your work. There will be tea and scones served once its all done which will allow everyone to mingle and chat about all things creative.
As well as sermon givers are also looking for readers and suggestions for interesting passages from books, poems and other things that could make interesting readings and if anyone is in/ or knows a choir who would be interested in leading the singing through some pop hits then that would be ace.

If any of the above sounds interesting then please give us an email with your suggestions and a link to your work at info@holeinmypocket.com.

Affected - Trailer

Here's a short trailer I edited for London based theatre company Spid. The trailer is for a film they wrote and directed entitled 'Affected' and which is about:

"Natural resources are running out, and a mysterious man known as the Tempter is goading people to fight for the luxuries they want. Teenage documentary maker Jacob and his girlfriend Laura take their camera to the scene of his last crime on the violent Eden Estate. But as people start to turn ‘affected,’ possessed by greed and empty of empathy - how will our heroes ever survive?"

Folk Tales: Rapunzel

I never got this story.

After using Rapunzel's hair to climb up how does prince resuce her. The situation is still the same - unless the prince has brough a big pair of scissors there is no way for Rapunzel to climb down her own hair.

EDIT: Having done some research (Googled the name Rapunzel) - it would appear the Prince came up with the clever plan of sneaking up the tower everynight with a bit of silk which Rapunzel was to spin into a ladder. Why he didn't just bring a ladder is a bit of a mystery but there you are.

Cowboy Spacegun

This is the gun for Cowboy spaceman, from a series of paintings of robots and futuristic items.

Brassband

Little brassband inspired by the fantastic drawings on the previously mentioned http://colonelwindpipe.blogspot.com/. Well worth a look through.

To see the individual characters at higher res then click here.

Double

A nice coincidence word today, given that I'm in the middle of making a second edition (double) of my George and the Dragon russian dolls. The brass band set is now complete and the varnish is drying and images of them will be uploaded over the weekend.

Got Milk?

I like milk - its usually my drink of choice with meals and I prefer it to yoghurt on my breakfast cereal.

One thing that really annoys me about milk though is the campaign of billboard posters with various B list celebrities drinking milk and ending up with milk moustaches. The campaign has been going on for long time and is just accepted as normal but when you actually stop and think about it, its a really strange concept. How come none of these people learned to drink properly and why don't they wipe their faces.

I'm not sure why the milk board think that seeing someone with milk on their face will encourage us to buy their product but I think someone should point out its kinda disgusting. At best, getting milk on your face is an unfortunete and unwanted side affect of drinking milk. Its not its most desireable quality by a long way.

Imagine they used the same concept with other products, using their unwanted side effects as the hook for an advert. For example an advert for Campbell's tomato soup with a grinning child with big orange stains all over his face, or a bottle of red wine with a pretty woman smiling and showing off her wine blackened teeth or think what you could do with Heinz baked beans!!

I wonder how much the milk board pays for these people to be in their adverts? And I wonder what the stars say to their agents when they find out they've been booked for the gig - there are not many people who can manage to have milk on their face and still look good. I mean is anyone looking at these guys and going "hey, they've got milk on their face, I need to get me some of that."

In preperation of this post I did a google search for some of the UK adverts, only to discover that the milk moustache is not just a UK advertising strategy. Here the campaign is known by its slogan "the right stuff" but in the US by the slogan "Got milk". In both the concept is the same, a celebrity face covered in milk, the difference between the two is the calabre of the people advertising the milk - here while we currently have Gordon Ramsey and Pixie Lott, the americans have got Batman, Glen Close and Andre Agassi's mum. Check the link and see if you think anyone doesn't look like a plonker.

Other countries are tackling it in different ways, some more successful than others - Brazil, Canada, South Africa and Angola.

Weirdest advert I saw is this one from Singapore. When I first saw the image I thought we'd found an even odder way to advertise milk than the milkface concept but having done a bit of research its actually a photo company called milk and not drink that is being advertised. (Still pretty weird though.)

Anyway, the whole milkface thing has just annoyed me today as I saw another of the billboards as I was walking along the road. I haven't even really got a suggestion for an alternative, its just annoyed me. Not sure what I'd prefer, I quite enjoy the bonkers adverts with the cow, cyclist and pirate by Cravendale and their simple poster series, they are a heck of a weird set but quite good fun.

From my quick google search online it seems there is quite a depth of adverts from around the world to draw upon. Would make an interesting little article/ docu for someone.

Scottish Greetings Cards

My Scottish Post prints are now availible in handy gift card size for sending lots of nice greetings to friends and family or, if you prefer, you can keep them for yourself and use the envelopes for storing small items like paper clips, rubber bands or plastic moustaches.

Folksy / Etsy