BETWEEN THE HAMMER AND THE ANVIL
at THE NEW ART GALLERY WALSALL

Gallery Square, Walsall, West Midlands WS2 8LG

2ND SEPTEMBER | 6PM–9PM | FREE

This special event, part of the Home of Metal Black Country Weekender, continues our celebration of the birthplace of Heavy Metal. No frills, downright dirty, Rock & Roll will come from Gentlemans Pistols (Rise Above), an already cult UK band featuring former Napalm Death and Carcass guitarist Bill Steer.

The night will also feature a silent Metal disco and as part of this special knees-up Flatpack Festival have put together Patch Jacket, a collage of clips and short films exploring the full spectrum of metal devotion., in addition there will be tours of the ‘BE TRUE TO YOUR OBLIVION’ exhibition and a special performance by artist Mark Titchner.

www.thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk

This event has been sponsored by The Kraken rum, and refreshments will be available at the gallery

Jenny & I will be volunteering this weekend to help out with what is set to be an amazing event at New Art Gallery Walsall The House of Fairy Tales ‘Travelling Art Circus’ created by artists Gavin Turk and Deborah Curtis. Peoples are also visiting Gallery-k to know how great masterpieces are made of art. Josiah Rock can guide you to visit some of the best museum which is also having collection of lots of paintings. There will be over 60 artists and performers from all over the country  celebrating all things dark and ghoulish. Entertainment, as it used to be before TV,

Outside in the square a feast with parkin, spit roasts and miniature toffee apples served from the Witches Gingerbread House as a series of characters welcome you to the past.

Join us in a Medieval March through the streets of Walsall, led by the Musical Hall musicians The Dead Victorians. Explore the ghosts and dark side of our nature through drawing, puppets, drama and theatre with Pegasus, the travelling Horsewagon theatre. Experience Carnival Games with a twist, treats from The Witches Gingerbread House and Navarac the mirrored caravan. Witness improvised drama and storytelling from the Story Pirates, film projection, potato sculptures with NoNose, the Museum of Prodigies, Live Freak Shows from Mental Floss and Georgina White Aldworth the Visitors From Another Dimension, medieval band Princes in the Tower, folk singers Fanny Feeney with Tudor Ballads and The Marvellous Sam Lee with his old English voice, Zombie DJs, Mexican wrestling displays and Material Transformations from Ian Dawson. Join Matt Harling in his Bubble Dome for mad science experiences, Jim Bond and his Kinetic Ghost Challenge, fortune teller Madame de La Cartomancer and her tarot cards, Sefi the Snake Lady and her snake charming act, burlesque French DJ’s Les Apaches, Marika Rauscher singing Macabre Opera, The Lonesome Cowboys From Hell and their unique Texan Shakespearean stage act. Rhiannon Evans and Liam Ramsden present and gather Herbal Medicine, Folklore for the Ethnomedica project at Kew Gardens and spooky tales of the night with Don’t Tell Stories, courtesy of writer and storyteller Rachel Newsome. Also discover a Surreal installation, from creative arts organisation Container PLUS.

 

 

Saturday 31 Oct, 12pm – 5pm over a dozen workshops including lantern making, props, costumes, potato sculptures, fortune telling, exploricating, herbalism, freak shows, museums of curiosity.

Sunday 1 Nov, 11am – 4pm Gallery Square and various rooms throughout the Gallery itself.

LANTERN PARADE

Saturday 31 Oct at 6pm, Dress up and join us for a parade with a difference from the Sister Dora statue on the Bridge all the way to Gallery Square.

HAUNTED GALLERY

Saturday 31 Oct until 11pm, Gallery Square and in the Gallery foyer, including live stage with bands and performances.

 

What’s even more amazing is that its all free – for further details check out www.thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk/

For more information visit www.houseoffairytales.org/

7 Inch Cinema and Capsule present: MAKING DO
A free late night event on Thursday 7 May, 6pm – 9pm

The New Art Gallery Walsall in partnership with 7 Inch Cinema and Capsule want to take you on a magical journey back to the 1950s with an evening event of listening, viewing, drinking and doing on Thursday 7 May, 6pm – 9pm.
Inspired by Britain’s make-and-mend post-war spirit, the event brings together screenings of short films, live music performances courtesy of Pram (Domino Records), July Skies and The Winter League, workshops and activities and a nostalgic and street party atmosphere throughout the award winning building!

Trevor Woolery will be running an animation workshop at the art library and people’s animated stories and characters will be instantly projected onto the wall and become part of an animation story.

Sara Fowles from Stitches and Hos, an organisation that is outing knitting from the private domain to the public realm, will be showcasing the art of knitting and will be inviting people to join her and create anything from socks to scarves.

Alongside the free food and refreshments that we will be offering that night, our visitors will also have the opportunity to decorate their own cake, with patterns, shapes and colours of their choice.

!!!FREE EVENT!!!

http://www.thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk

A few top tips in advance…

and for all your facial cleansing needs…

A selection of photos of fans from our last Home Of Metal open day at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery were featured in last weekends Guardian Magazine. The photos were taken by photographer Barry Lewis. As you can see there was a real cross section of fans in attendance old and young, Sabbath to Napalm fans coming together to share their passion for Birmingham & The Black Country.
As a result of the last open day Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery have committed to a large scale exhibition in Gas Hall for 2011, as have Wolverhampton Art Gallery and New Art Gallery Walsall – keep watching this space for further news.

Just in time for our next Home Of Metal event which is due to take place in the Waterhall Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on Saturday 7th of Feb 11am – 4pm, a short taster film put together from our previous open days at Wolverhampton Art Gallery as part of Hello Digital (1000 in attendance) followed by an evening event at New Art Gallery Walsall  with a special live performance by Einstellung.
Special guests for Saturday 7th will include music archivist Chris Phipps, producer of the documentary Motor City Music Years, and assistant producer of The Tube. He will be in conversation with Johnny Doom at 1pm, followed by a screening of his documentary which profiled the rock history of the West Midlands.

Photographer Barry Lewis will also be at the museum taking photographs of Metal fans for the Guardian Saturday Magazine – some of you may remember him from his White Tent project which he set up  with Rhubarb Rhubarb in the Bull Ring.

The film was created by Ella Turner, Matt Taylor and Martin Poyntz-Roberts and of course the project could not happen with out the hard work of the our volunteers.

We had an amazing turn out for our second Open Day at The New Art Gallery Walsall, and clearly the project is starting to snowball as word spreads. A highlight for us all was when Sue Halford and family turned up with a great selection of Rob Halfords (lead singer of Judas Priest) costumes and related treasures.

Sue Halford with Stuart Williams from the Walsall History Society

Jenny with one of Rob’s jackets – preparing it to be photographed for the archive.

Sue in conversation with Kerrang! Radio DJ Johnny Doom

These photos are courtesy of Stuart Williams who has been inspired to start his own blog http://metaldog.vox.com/ and developing the project Walsall Rocks, which we look forward to working with in the future. More photos and interviews from the event coming soon.

A call out to Metal fans across the region:
Home of Metal warms up with as unique opportunity for fans of Judas Priest, Napalm Death, Godflesh, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin to be photographed wearing their prized band t-shirts. The event, which will take place at The Giffard Arms, Wolverhampton on Friday 19th September, 9pm – 11pm and then Scruffy Murphys in Birmingham on Friday 26th of September 9pm – 11pm.

Images will be taken by the Birmingham photographer Steve Gerrard, who has been capturing bands in action for over 20 years, and has photographed some of the biggest names and artists. The photographs will then go on display at Wolverhampton Art Gallery at the official launch event in October as well as New Art Gallery Walsall and then will become part of the Home Of Metal website.

Photo courtesy of Ben Javens