Recent exhibitions round up.

SHOP has seen three exhibitons in the last month all with very different themes and styles.

The start of the month saw the University of Bristol Photographic Society showing their varied and exceptional end of year competition. Lots of people commented on the work and feedback from visitors was very positive for the group show.

The second exhibition brought 'Telephone Tin Cans' by Laura Taylor to the artspace. Briefly popping up from London to install it and then popping back to take it down was all we saw of the artist herself. Her work however lived with us for a week and again was well received by those venturing in. The balloons provided endless entertainment for a few aswell.

Finally, current exhibition 'Tales from an Urban Wonderland' by Bristol based artist Alex Rankin has already made plenty of sales and after a packed out private view has the promise of more visitors to coming through the door on the last day on Saturday.

The best news is we have lots more exhibitions over the coming months!

NEW HOMEWARES!

SHOP has been blessed with a gift from the vintage-Gods in the form of many new homewares! Including a very pretty and rather intriguing 50s kitchen cabinet which used to house a wringer...

Here's some picks of our new haul...

Various colourful goodies

Storage jars - in big AND small sizes!

Pretty blue cups

The instructions for the 'wringer'

Flip-top!

The innards

Brett spying on the cupboard... He wants it for hisself!

In all its glory...

70s glass lampshades and some 70s tumblers

Picnic basket! Mmmmm picnics...

Intriguing bamboo-look planter from 60s St Michael

The classic way to store eggs!

Super shiny Sona tea and coffee server

Ssssshhhh...

We can finally reveal the secret we had to keep under wraps for weeks...Internet perverts may be dissapointed but you shouldn't have such dirty minds.

Yesterday SHOP hosted the fourth day of the Mayfest event 'The Fortnight Project'. A little corner of our little SHOP was turned into a virtual pod for an operatic filmic world of fantasy. The offcial record of the event is available to view here...

http://www.fortnightproject.com/the-trail/day-four/

Thank you to Gillian for choosing us for a venue. We hope the very exciting project proves to be a great success!

We Robot!

Saturday just gone, SHOP teamed up with Tenderfoot to launch a new world! Oh yes, you read correctly. As part of For The Love of It's Pay it Forward Week of events, we created a WorkSHOP called 'We Robot'.

This consisted of turning an inanimate pile of cardboard into a new robot world complete with robots to populate it. It was kinda like a comment on community and social-inclusion, yah? But mostly it was just loads of fun.

Here's some pics of what we managed to create:

BEFORE

We started by creating a world for the new robots to live in. This is the robo-suspension bridge and a mercury river with mechanical fish.

Here's a city vista: robo-prison (for naughty robots!), tourist attractions like the Robo-Eye and aspirational city-living studio apartments for robo-yuppies.

The first robot we gave birth to was a pussikins, as we thought the first humanoid robot would be lonely until we managed to build another. Here is robo-kitty and her new owner Brettbot.

Following suprisingly conventional societal norms for a brand new world, we then made Brettbot a Girlbot and they immediately fell in love, probably in no small part due to the fact they were the only two people on the robo-planet (except robo-kitty, but let's not go down that route).

Brettbot then had to be furnished with employment and so we gave him a job at SHOP. Being a Community Interest Company includes members of the community who are robots as well as human. We're like that.


Brettbot then expressed a need to complain about his girlfirend and sit on the stoop with another bot, so we created Botandy for him to drink beer and scratch his nuts with (gedddit?! Nuts...)

After that, all was left was to create a belief system, as robo-kitt, girlbots 1 & 2 and Botandy all began to express existential angst. So we made a totem pole.

And here we are! The creators of the new world! All bow to our mightiness! From L- R robo-kitty, Botandy, girlbot and girlbot (in robo world women are interchangeable because to the male robots they are disposible commodities - strange how that happened again) and Brettbot.

May the SHOP force be with you this month!

SHOP is great - AFFIRMATIVE! The last event of April was an event with Tenderfoot called 'We Robot' - in a nutshell, making robots and robot accessories out of a shed-load of cardboard, pictured above. It was so much fun we larfed our shoppy-socks off check the blog shortly to see what we did with all that cardboard and have a little looky at this vid to whet your appetite in the meantime!

NEWS

SUNDAY GIRLS AND BOYS
SHOP is continuing unabashed with its 7 days a week opening! Our lovely volunteers Leila and Asa will soon be joined by three more equally lovely helpers. If you would like to sign up to be a SHOP volunteer then get in touch :)

SHOP will be open every Sunday from 12-4pm through May. Now that's a perfect tonic to the post Bank Holiday blues if ever we've heard one.

SSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH...
This is so top secret that this newsletter has been fitted with a self destruct device as assurance, even though we aren't allowed to mention the secret anyway. Just to let you know we have a big secret event happening at SHOP in May. Some of you might be involved but you don't even know it yet.

EVENTS

Christmas Steps Artisan Market
Saturday 7th May – 11am – 4pm
This monthly market runs every first Saturday of the month throughout the year. You can expect the wonderful teetering charm of the artisan stalls and the same high standard of beautiful crafts and wares as always, as well as the lovely shops and cafes surrounding the market.

To book a stall email:
christmasstepsartsquarter@yahoo.co.uk

FFI:
www.christmasstepsartisanmarket.blogspot.com

UBU Photography Society Exhibition
Tuesday May 3rd – Saturday May 7th
Members of the society group exhibition. Photographs displayed will include those voted best in the society annual competition and from the year of workshops and trips.

Telephone Tin Cans
Exhibiton by Laura Taylor
Monday 9th May – Saturday 14th May
Artist Laura Taylor takes over the artspace in the second week of May.

http://www.laura-taylor.co.uk

37th chamber film night
Saturday 14th May – 7.30pm onwards – £2
The regular 37th Chamber Film Night at SHOP - expect the usual grindhouse and kung-fu classics from these Arts Space regulars. Look out for their new Zine coming soon too!

FFI: Search ‘37th Chamber’ on Facebook

Tales From An Urban Wonderland
An exhibition of photographs by Bristol photographer Alex Rankin.
Monday 16th May – Saturday 21st May

The exhibition features work from an ongoing project that seeks to portray the urban landscape from an abstract perspective. The images aim to capture colours, textures and shapes that are encountered within urban environments while also exploring the mood and atmosphere that can be found within neglected or overlooked spaces.

For more info see:

http://urbanplaygrounds.viewbook.com

Record Club
Tuesday 24th May - 7:30pm – 10pm
The aim of the night is to play 2 or 3 long play records and to really appreciate the music. These records might be old classics, forgotten gems or brand spanking new. The records are usually nominated by the people in the club (via a comment on the blog or twitter account) and voted on
in the week before the night.

SHOP will be open at 7:30 and we’ll aim to start playing the first record at eight. Feel free to bring some nibbles and drinks along.

http://recordclub.posterous.com/

The return of Soft Cabaret!

Are you having fun? Well, are you?!

Ever considered what it would be like to be a love-sick goal post?

Happy smiley audience.

Crowds amass before the second half begins.

Escapology (No not the Robbie Williams album)

Action shot

"Are you sure they are tight enough? Don't mash his spuds!"

Never be Bard from the Steps

For those of you who have yet to experience the wonders of Soft Cabaret, you genuinely are missing out.

Returning to SHOP, the Bard of Windmill Hill and Fakir Darren again had us rolling in the aisles (ROFLing to younger readers) with their intelligent poetry and comedic performances, respectively.

The Bard opened the nights entertainment regaling uswith poetic tales on the theme of 'time', from love sick goalposts to naughty knobs. Darren followed up with feats of human escapology including passing himself through a metal coat hanger (!!) and releasing himself from an over sized straight jacket.

The second half of the performance saw the Bard take the stage once more. We were treated to more 'romantic' offerings, a running theme with the Bard, where the question of how we would make love if we were crocodiles, or say penguins, were offered. Darren's second half performance took a less energetic, yet no less enjoyable turn as he imparted his impressive historical knowledge and stories that induced modern tears (of laughter).

We really hope they they return again soon!

You can catch them very soon as Soft Cabaret take part in the Folk Festival at the Colston Hall over the May Bank Holiday!

April at SHOP - No Foolin!

APRIL

We have had to think really really hard about fluffy kittens on shelving to get over the trauma of our flood...YES, YOU HEARD RIGHT FLOOD! April showers poured in from the flat above and drowned our little SHOP in at least quite a bit of water. Luckily we had a lifebouy out the back and a dinghy to make our escape on and everything is now back to business as unusual.

NEWS

Sunday Girls
SHOP is going a hardcore 7 days a week, with Sunday opening starting in April and hopefully onwards! Pop by for a Sunday meander and say hello to our lovely volunteers Leila and Asa.

The Easter Bunny
SHOP's favourite fictional charater the Easter Bunny is hopping into town again this month. We take Easter very seriously down at SHOP and need at least a few days of to fully concentrate on the gluttonynous.

Easter opening hours are:
Good Friday - 12pm - 4pm
Easter Saturday - 11am - 7pm
Easter Sunday - CLOSED
Easter Monday - CLOSED

EVENTS

Christmas Steps Artisan Market
Saturday 2nd April – 11am – 4pm

This monthly market runs every first Saturday of the month throughout the year. You can expect the wonderful teetering charm of the artisan stalls and the same high standard of beautiful crafts and wares as always, as well as the lovely shops and cafes surrounding the market.

To book a stall email: christmasstepsartsquarter@yahoo.co.uk

FFI: www.christmasstepsartisanmarket.blogspot.com

Soft Cabaret
Friday 8th April – 8pm – £5 /£2
(or whatever you can afford)

Soft Cabaret is rolling into SHOP again in April, headed up by the Bard of Windmill Hill and Fakir Darren. We are once again looking forward to a quite ridiculously funny and touching mixture of sonnets, storytelling, stand-up and some dubious magic! Not to be missed!

37th Chamber
Saturday 10th April – 7.30pm onwards – £2

The regular 37^th Chamber Film Night at SHOP - expect the usual grindhouse and kung-fu classics from these Arts Space regulars. Look out for their new Zine coming soon too!

FFI: Search ‘37^th Chamber’ on Facebook

Record Club
Tuesday 19th April - 7:30pm – 10pm

The aim of the night is to play 2 or 3 long play records and to really appreciate the music. These records might be old classics, forgotten gems or brand spanking new. The records are usually nominated by the people in the club (via a comment on the blog or our twitter account) and voted on in the week before the night.

However! The third Record Club is slightly different. ‘How?’ We hear you cry! Well, to celebrate and support Independent Record Shop Day, we are asking people to buy a brand spanking new piece of vinyl and bring it along on the night (with proof of purchase!). All those who have bought a record will then make a short speech in support of the record before a vote on which two to listen to.

SHOP will be open at 7:30 and we’ll aim to start playing the first record at eight. Feel free to bring some nibbles and drinks along.

http://recordclub.posterous.com/

www.twitter.com/record_club

We Robot
Saturday 23rd April – 11am – 7pm

As part of The Love Of It’s programme of events for Pay It Forward Week, SHOP is getting together with good friends and community-colleagues Tenderfoot to create a Robot World in the arts space!

Come along and fashion your robot alter-ego out of all our bits and bobs and help make a robot utopia!

Easter Egg Hunt
Saturday 23rd April – 11am – 7pm

SHOP’s annual Easter Egg Hunt takes place in SHOP all day on Easter Saturday.

Come and hunt for the choccie eggs hidden around SHOP and scoff them immediately on discovery! Try to get a good amount smeared around your face for added comedy value.