Almost There Blog

The launch night took place on Friday night (20th February) - and it was a huge success.  I would like to thank everyone who came along, all musicians who played - Ric Neale, Jose Vanders and Matt Trinder and everyone involved in making it a really special night.  A serious amount of wine was consumed [...]

It’s promotion mania in the ‘Almost There’ camp (that’s me in my bedroom by the way).  I think I’ve settled on a design for the posters, check it out:

Also, a few nice people have mentioned the project on their blogs - check out lovely words and download a free track from the soundtrack, Matt Cameron [...]

I’m stressing out. After eating and drinking my way through the Christmas holidays and not doing much of anything else, I’ve put off a lot of work. Now I’m faced with preparing everything for the exhibition which will launch in about six weeks. There’s so many little jobs like designing the launch night invitations, posters, [...]

I’ve finished a couple of paintings I did as commissions for Standard Chartered Bank, they are fairly big (150 x 100cm each). They pick them up tomorrow, fingers crossed they like them. 
Chances are you will only see part of the paintings in this blog, click on them to see the whole thing.

So I finally found out the verdicts of the two decisions I’ve been waiting on - and by some great chance of luck - both are good results.  The Arts Council England have approved my application for funding for the ‘Almost There’ exhibitions, and P&O have green lit commissioning a new series of paintings by me.
Firstly, the Arts Council - [...]

Here is the first in a series of trailers to be released in the lead up to my exhibition.  I’m really pleased with it, the song featured is ‘Answers’ by Nizlopi.  If you like it, please feel free to post it to your blog/website/facebook etc.
 Almost There - Trailer #1 ‘Answers’ from Joe Simpson on Vimeo. [...]

The funding application is off… six weeks till I find out if I get it or not.  Obviously the exhibitions will happen regardless, but it will make it a lot easier with a bit of a budget.
I’m back into the studio to work on a couple of large commissions that need to be done by [...]

I’m a big fan of Muzi Quawson’s photography.  Sometimes it’s hard to pin-point what it is about an image that appeals to you, but - she just makes everything look so quiet and beautiful.  And … just plain cool.
You can find see more at http://www.documentography.com 

 
A quote from Tom Waits: “Most of us expect artists to do irresponsible things, to be out of control.  Somehow we believe that if you’re way down there, you’re going to bring something back up for us, and we won’t have to make the trip.  This is part of the tradition with artists; the problem [...]