The Kim Fielding Award is a legacy project for the late Cardiff-born artist, curator and director, Kim Alexander Fielding.

The call is for provocative and experimental projects demonstrating ambitious and challenging ideas. Anyone can apply to the award, however proposals must include an event element in Cardiff, Wales.

The Award includes a budget of up to £5,000 for artist fees and production of the project.

For further information and for application guidelines, please visit here.

Deadline: 13 March

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Find more opportunities in our weekly bulletin here.

B I T Art Collective started around July 2012 and consists of Bob Gelsthorpe, Ifan Lewis & Tom Winfield. B I T began to provide mutual support for each other, while working individually and also collaboratively. The process for acquiring our studios began with online enquiries, and after we saw the first property, we saw how much scope the building had, and so we pretty much decided there and then to take the property. This wasn’t without its downfalls, we were planning on opening a month or two earlier but had to delay it due to some legal troubles regarding the lease, it worked out for the better in the end, as now we have the building completely on our own terms. In the studios at the minute we offer eight studios spaces currently held by: Lucy Fisher, Hollie Jade Hopkins, Aleksander Kuczynski, Charlotte Gyseman, Rebecca Wyn Kelly, Mel Wotton, Jon Pountney and Sera Wyn Walker. There’s also space for the three of us to work as well, which is perfect for what we need.

With B I T Studios, we have a space for dialogue, growth and hopefully a flourishing new creative talent in Cardiff, alongside providing somewhere for recent graduates to continue with their practice and in a supportive environment as they make the transition from student to professional artist.

In the next few months we have a few things coming up to start with our programme of events. On 23 February, the three of us will be exhibiting work at PESKINACHT002, a gig put on by a great label called Peski Records, at Jacob’s Market, Cardiff. In March, on an unconfirmed date we have an Artist talk from Cardiff Before Cardiff photographer and collaborator, Keith S Robertson; 14 April we will be having a stall at Chapter for the Art Car Bootique 2013 so everyone can come say hello and find out a bit more about what were up to. The Friday after (19) we are hosting Wales’ first ‘Bring Your Own Beamer’ night which is an open exhibition for artists working with projectors or projecting mediums.

Find out more:
Website | Facebook | Twitter

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From time to time we feature galleries and spaces that showcase & encourage grassroots artists. Browse through more of our Featured Venues.
Contact us to talk about a feature on your venue.

Big Pony Collection ONE by a film by nic finch (also know as chameleonic), an artist from Cardiff.

Vimeo | Website | Blog | Cargo | Twitter

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Discover more work by creatives we’ve featured, here.
If you have a Flickr, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Behance or Cargo account connect with us.

The SHO was established in Sep 2010 by Emily (Jewellery maker) & Dan (Animator). Based in Roath, Cardiff, the venture was set up as a friendly boutique art gallery and shop. The SHO supports both local and international artists and designers with frequently changing exhibitions. A mix of traditional art forms alongside contemporary digital design and illustration brings the venue alive with a cocktail of stimulating and inspirational work.

On display we have a mix of Original artworks, limited edition art prints, inspirational literature & magazines, collectable vinyl toys, home-wares and wearable designs such as jewellery and apparel.

Our plan is to host many more diverse future mixed/solo shows alongside one off events such as customised toy auction charity fundraisers, of which we have a couple lined up this summer.

We welcome exhibition proposals from artists [see below for a current callout].

Upcoming Exhibition – Call for entries

We are welcoming artists’ submissions to be part of our upcoming exhibition. This will be based around the art of character creation either in the form of individual character design or compositions of them within scenes of their fictional worlds/landscapes.

Visual personalities with strong/interesting identities and atmospheric characterized settings created through imagination and brought to life through style & design.

For brief download form here and for submission form download here

Visit The SHO’s website.
Follow The SHO on Twitter.
Like The SHO on Facebook.

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From time to time we feature galleries and spaces that showcase & encourage grassroots artists. Brows through more of our Featured Venues. Contact us to talk about a feature on your venue.

What is Jelly?
Jelly is a casual working event. It’s taken place in over a hundred cities where people have come together (in a person’s home, a coffee shop, or an office) to work for the day. Provided at a Jelly are chairs, wireless internet, and interesting people to talk to, collaborate with, and bounce ideas off of.

You bring a laptop (or whatever you need to get your work done) and a friendly disposition.

Here’s a bit of a film to explain it:

Why do you do this?
Jelly started in NYC in February of 2006 when roommates Amit and Luke realized that they loved working from home, but they missed the creative brainstorming, sharing, and camaraderie of a traditional office. (Office politics, not so much.)

So they started inviting friends to come work from their home one day a week. They soon found that working in close proximity to new and interesting people every couple weeks resulted in new ideas and interesting conversations.

Emboldened by their early success, they made it a more regular thing. Jelly was born.

Who can come to Jelly?
Anyone!
Generally there are a lot of designers, developers, and internet types, but musicians, cooks, sound designers, tea sommeliers, product designers, photographers and writers have been known to go as well.

Some folk are entrepreneurs or freelancers. Others work in an office most of the time, but work at Jelly for fresh ideas and a change of pace.

No matter what you do or what you create, you’re welcome to come to Jelly and share your talent and learn from others.

Here’s a little list of some of the Jelly’s in the UK:
Manchester
Liverpool
Bristol
Have a look here for where a Jelly has been set up near you or, email here to start one of your own.

If you know about a Jelly or any other co-working event near you let us know in the comments below.

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

Noteworthiness of employment didn’t feature at all in my formative years. Sales assistant (although that did entail going to a party at one of Richard Branson’s recording studios / mansions with Johnny Rotten in attendance), hospital laundry worker (picking out the false teeth, wigs and surgical implements from the linen and playing hospital basketball with bundled surgical robes) and unforgettably McDonald’s toy tester for the 1996 Olympics (we got driven in a van to an empty warehouse where articulated lorries would back up and disgorge thousands of plastic toys for us to test). None of these count as my first five jobs. Nor does being a security guard at motor plants whilst having a beard of Elizabethan proportions, nor being a 6’4″ Peter Rabbit at an Easter book launch and scaring children or being a TV extra while my then girlfriend got strangled in an 80s club. (I married her later on).

The first five jobs I really count are these:

1)    Artist – after a poor academic start (failed to get into UCL to study Psychology, failed the maths test to train as a nurse in Great Ormond Street, failed to get anywhere near a post-school education) eventually I started drawing things as something to pass the time. I drew terribly but enjoyed it. Improved from terrible to mediocre and went from Foundation to Degree where they reinforced the fact that I was at best mediocre but most likely terrible. Moved into photography and video in order not to fail the course and found what I had been looking for. Films and art together. Since then I completed my Masters in Cardiff, showed my work around and about and won a couple of financially supportive awards.

2)    Outcasting Founder – in tandem with my artistic practice I set up a not-for-profit organisation for the online dissemination of experimental film and video. The site offers regular screenings of work both online and offline, nationally and internationally. Since the launch in 2006 the site has been awarded funding by the Arts Council of Wales to re-develop and expand in 2012 and is also in the process of partnering the development of a National Film Festival in Wales (O4W).

3)    g39 – an artist-led gallery formerly in a three storey Victorian shop in the heart of Cardiff. I exhibited work in the opening show in 1998, then volunteered as an invigilator / technician, had a solo show in 2000, got employed part-time to help run the professional development scheme to support artists, then became a technician and finally co-curator for the past couple of years. We are about to relocate into new premises in an undisclosed location.

4)    Care worker – working for a couple of years with adults with learning disabilities in a residential setting and then as a support worker in a drugs and alcohol short stay unit. I wanted to do something direct and immediate in the real world. Left to our own devices the job was a common sense one but made overcomplicated by company procedure. The tenants I worked with made lasting impressions, sometimes round my neck, but mostly in my heart.

5)    Editor / Writer / Handyman / Researcher / Decorator – a thread running through the lean times and the financially precarious times. These are the ones that offer / have offered respite. Financially, emotionally and mentally. I always thought it would be prudent to develop skills additional to the often non-paying or underpaid skills of being an artist. Things that you can pick up here and there, that you can do in your down time or even in busy times. Things that are work without feeling like work, things that allow you to switch off or switch focus at the right moment in time.

Image by Claire Cousin Photography

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We’ve asked professionals in creative industries what jobs they have had in the past to get their foot through the door (or at least pay the rent). For more in the “My First 5 Jobs” series look here.

The space is also home to the MadeinRoath arts festival headquarters. A community festival with interactive exhibits. Highlights from last year’s festival included the Open House art trail, artist Jennie Savage’s Guide to Getting Lost in Roath at Milkwood Gallery, SWN festival’s showcase at The Globe, a sound installation in Roath Park’s conservatory and Roath’s first pop up arthouse cinema at Milgi.

Milkwood’s firmly established alternative, eclectic space where visitors can enjoy art, craft and design in a welcoming, friendly environment. They have also hosted Gallery based workshops for local schools and groups as well as ‘make do and mend’ courses: the learning of traditional skills whilst also encouraging sustainability.

Current projects include In Hand by Heloise Godfrey. An experiment involving massaging people and recording the sound of the experience and stories that they tell.

Carboard House is also currently running and invites designers from any discipline to propose showing an object from their own ‘household’ collection juxtaposed with an original household object which they have designed and made out of cardboard.

visit the milkwood website.