Richard Coyle

 Richard Coyle has been in the props making industry since 1979 where he and his company have produced props for numerous films such as Star Treks II, IV, V and VI, Reanimator, Ice Pirates, Creature, Trancers, and many, many more. He has also produced props for numerous television shows including Star Trek, The next Generation, Automan, Nightrider and The Fall Guy. Coyle Now owns and operates his own prop making shop in Arizona. 


Coyle's prop making career began when he went to see  Star Trek for the first time in 1977, and heard of the conventions that came along with it. After going to one, he wanted to do a little more. He found a dealers room where people sold all kinds of things, and with his background in electronics as a TV repair man, he was able to put lights and sound effects into the ray guns, fans instantly took a new shine to the updated models being sold.

This ray gun is possibly Coyle's most well known prop that he has made to date, which was made for the Star Trek movies. He explains having a career in making props is rather challenging, he doesn't get time off and works for a basic living wage right now, he was at his peek in the 1980's. I think this looks like a fantastically made gun, appealing to its sci-fi target audience very well with its futuristic look (When it was created in the 1980's), expressed through the metalic colours and high-tech features, Coyle made the perfect model that fit the film perfectly. 

Piero Gilardi

 Piero Gilardi was an influential figure in the Arte Povera movement, or 'poor art' as it is more commonly known as, throughout the 1960's, a movement that still influences artists today.  From the outset, he was concerned with creating social relations with his art, using interactive sculptures and his creative work with social and political movements.


Nature Carpets
These beautiful carpets are made of Bayer brand polyurethane foam, and soaked in synthetic pigment dissolved in epoxy resin. They are then calved, into natural objects, however they are manipulated to look very theatrical, and slightly over-the-top on their appearance. When being created, Gilardi explained that their softness suggested comfort, all he did was was add a latent longing for a certain idea of nature. The effect is that of an artificial nature whereby the wonders and mysteries of real nature stimulate the brain but manifest themselves elementally under one's foot. 

I like the effect that this carpet holds, it looks very theatrical with the corns being made almost 3 times as big as to a real corn. each one is shaped with exaggeration  the nobbled bits are cut deeper to show what the object is, perhaps from a distance or if it was to placed on the set of a stage, so it can be clearly seen.



















To choose a carpets subject matter, Gilardi looks into the collective subconscious and into his childhood visions and when it comes to the modelling process, by carving, he uses technology which he says is very varied and inventive  in order to avoid the mechanism of representation at all times in favour of visual stimuli. 
Gilardi came up with the idea of creating these carpets one afternoon when he was chatting with a friend about the landscape that will surround the man in the future. He thought this landscape would be different to the image that we are presented with today in science-fiction; somewhat excited, he imagined  a naturalistic environment that was artificially made from synthetic materials for reasons of hygiene and comfort. From that moment on, he was curious to try and experiment with different materials and having identified a soft, but non-deformable material, he built four square metres of rocky torrent bed, basing on a survey he made in a real torrent. He achieved an extraordinary realistic result that he was continuously surprised by after walking for a long time over the material.

Sue Bulmer

Sue Bulmer is a Nottinghamshire based artist, originally from the North East, and it was back there when she was a young girl that her inspiration for her prints and illustrations began. Sue's first career started when she graduated from Nottingham University in 1993, where she went on to become a pharmacist, however she always knew that she wanted more, and so she left the sciences to fulfill her real passion of becoming an illustrator and print maker and so she took a foundation course in Art and Design, which she believed was enough to get her into the new career she had always wanted, and from then on she has been self taught.




Although she has lived in Nottingham for 23 years, her love for art began when she was growing up in the North East. Sue lived on a farm with her parents and would often draw or make little sketches of the chickens there, which is when her passion for the natural world began, her motivation was the changing colours and the texture of the seasons. 
    A lot of the pieces that she creates have a lot to do with with her upbringing, her recent ink illustrations express a lot of love which she explains is to do with her being extremely close to her 3 sisters. Also, having lived in a 200 year old cottage filled with vintage finds, she found wealth of material to spark her creativity within her own home.  She felt the comfort of being at home gave her the ability to express the sentimentality in her work, she describes her work as 'down to earth' and the whole reason as to why she draws what she does? Because she loves it! 

As well as doing her beautifully designed illustrations on paper / card, she also transfers them on to textiles, and sometimes uses other media in her work such as watercolor, stitch or different inks. Her mood and current interests dictate her work quite often which makes her pieces quite subjective and fluid. Sue always looks for new idea where ever she goes, may it be to the shops, a quick walk or something rather exciting! She will never be with out a sketchbook in hand to keep up with these heart warming, sweet illustrations.

Gillian Lee Smith

  Mixed media artist Gillian Lee Smith is based in Nottingham (originally from Edinburgh), who's career path took a massive change at the age of 27. In her early 20's she did nursing for a few years, knowing that this wasn't her true passion she decided to go to Edinburgh College of Art, and graduated 8 years ago now. Knowing that this new career would take her on the move to different places, she tried to get her work recognized by showing it in different galleries, she eventually settled down in Nottingham and has been there for 7 years now.

    

Drawings & Paintings

 In the beginning of her new artistic career, Gillian studied costume design, she used a variety of media to create these beautifully painted a drawn pieces, from pastels to paints, pencils, acrylics, oils and much more. Trying to express her experimental work, she would use a lot of anything she could find. Soon enough, Gillian had bigger ideas that she wanted to perceive, and turned these fantastic art pieces into little sculptures of dolls, and just like the paintings and drawings, they each shared a story behind them, which is what inspired Gillian to create all these wonderfully dark and spectacular pieces in the first place...

Her Inspiration

When Gillian was creating all of her art pieces, the drawings, paintings and the dolls, she had a story for each of them. The designs were all created from her imagination, however there was a story that inspired her ideas and she knew exactly how to express them through her art pieces. Gillian has to work part time so she can sustain her art career at the moment, she works in care homes looking after the elderly. Some of the people that she works with suffer with dementia, she uses objects and story telling to try and stimulate their memories throughout their lives, some have happy stories to tell her, however some unfortunately have more darker stories to tell, but all of what she hears inspires her to create her fantastic pieces. 

Dolls
With Gillian's head full of imagination after working as a nurse, and then with dementia sufferers, she wanted to go beyond paintings and drawings, she wanted to bring the characters in these stories to life, and went on to pursue this by creating wonderful little dolls. Each doll is different, they take hours and hours to create and have such amazing detail painted on to their fabric based bodies. Gillian explained that ''The dolls represent memories and story telling, they are very personal. They show things we try to hide, secrets and fears''. The dolls have had such a positive response, growing in demand, she managed to sell more than what she thought. Although they took off really well, Gillian has gone back to focusing on her experimental 2D paintings - not because she didn't want to keep creating her wonderful dolls, but, she explained that ''It's easier to sell art than dolls. People seem to connect more with paintings than they do with sculptures''. Although she managed to sell many of the dolls, they came at a smaller price compared to her paintings, and she already sacrifices a lot of time  and luxuries, which she would like to gain back at this current time.

Stefanos Lazaridis

Stefanos Lazaridis (28 July 1942 – 8 May 2010) was a stage designer, best known for his work in opera. Originally intended for a business career, he studied stage design in London, and was quickly in demand in theaters and opera houses, working with other directors. Originally his style was lavish and naturalistic, but he changed to a less traditional style, after working in the ENO and elsewhere. He occasionally directed operas, and was for a short time director of the Greek National Opera.

The Mikado

This is the stage that Lazaridis designed for Gilbert and Sullivan’s most popular operetta, The Mikado. Everything is set at a white scale which shows how simple one colour can be, yet so elegant and appealing at the same time. Perhaps the focus is more so towards the characters and the costume designs, rather than the stage and scenery, however, it being white like a canvas lets the music and drama display the colours on the stage for you. The quality of a set designed like this is that it is very well lit up and expresses a clear positivity. This production was first performed in 1885, so when trying to relate to something that occurred in the past, a common technique to portray this is the absence of colour. Using black, white and grey shades symbolize something to be aged in the past, as that's how television and photographs were first viewed. I think this is a really effective set because the white scale lets your imagination get to work and visualize your own colours for the stage, the audience make their  own interpretation of the scenery and can allow them to change with each scene or mood change.

Working at the English National 

Opera

Lazaridis's early designs were naturalistic and lavish, but when he started working at the ENO, his design style moved away from naturalism, and embraced a non-naturalistic approach which David Pountney introduced to him as they worked together a great deal of time. With his amazing understanding of scale, colour and imaginative scenery, Stefanos Lizaridis eventually designed more than 30 outstanding productions for the ENO.