I have to hold my hands up and say before I start that I absolutely adore Germaine Greer and, when she told the audience at The Sage that she had a ‘nutters and stalkers’ pile in her office into which she sorts her post, I wondered if I had ever graced it. It was after she published her book The Whole Woman in 1999 that I realised the extent of my admiration. The book blew me so far away that I wrote Professor Greer a letter, a letter of abject adoration. This woman seriously rocks my world (and she wrote back *swoon*).

April’s lecture at The Sage dealt with the furore over Samantha (and yes Professor Greer, I will forever say that name with an Australian accent and think of your cat) Brick’s dressing down at the hands of the media (Hadley Freeman, Guardian journalist – another hero – excepted), the site of a gaggle of plucked pheasants (women in fascinators) at The Grand National and why it would be a great thing for women to stop despising each other quite so much (it saps our energy and gives yet more power to our oppressors).

She talked about David Beckham’s tattoos, about the beauty of Etonian students and about her dodgy knee (and about Pamela Stephenson’s perfect kneecaps)

And she made such sense. Such clear and perfect sense.

Education, motherhood, what to wear if you aren’t what the High Street deems to be a womanly shape (where woman means without hips, bust or – heaven forbid – stomach).

She was thought provoking, hilarious, passionate and warm.

Greer puts into words the feelings I get when things don’t quite seem fair, when my emotions cloud what I want to say – and she encourages saying what you want to say – a lot.

Where are the women’s voices in the pub? Where are the women’s voices on TV (as Kira Cochrane discovered recently they are pretty hard to find)?

Professor Greer has a voice. And it’s a very good one – and it was brilliant and hugely encouraging to hear it in real life.

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is a copywriter who helps UK companies to get their message across in writing. From websites to sales letters, brochures to leaflets – if you want copy that makes your customers want to use you then get in touch with Katherine today at words@copywriternewcastle.co.uk, on Twitter @copywriterne or call her on 07816 763 393.

If you know Newcastle you already know the work of Cath Campbell.

‘Escapology’ crowns the Northern Stage building, ‘Detour at Four Lane Ends’ animates the façade of the multi-storey car park and, in collaboration with Miles Thurlow, she asks us to question the world around us with the work ‘No No No No No’ that graces five archways of the railway viaduct next to the Tyne Bridge.

Yes. That’s Cath Campbell – and her first solo exhibition ‘Ideal Mexico’ opened at The Workplace Gallery in Gateshead last month. On the opening night Campbell explained why the creation of the delicate collages ‘Hotel Series’ was the springboard for the exhibition:

“I was looking through travel guides of hotels in cities all across the world and I noticed that the same colour schemes had been used in the interior design of every one. It struck me as interesting – and slightly odd. That’s where it started…”

At first glance the collages looked like tiny constellations of stars but their meaning lay deep beneath their shapes. Each dot of colour was placed on white paper in exactly the same layout as the original photograph and in each collage only one blue, one yellow, two browns, and a black circle were selected. The titles of the works, ‘The Skylofts, MGM, Las Vegas, 2012’, ‘Superior Room, Melrose Arch Hotel, Johannesburg, 2012’, ‘Suite 105, Art Hotel Corona D’oro, Bologna,, 2012’ hinted at cities filled with exoticism and glamour and yet ‘Hotel Series’ revealed locations within these cities that are as uniform the world over as a fast food restaurant.

In stark contrast to these delicate collages Campbell created a series of dramatically enlarged found images which were UV printed onto powder coated aluminium, titled ‘For I have known them all already, known them all # 1-6.’

The images, which hung in the first room of the gallery, drew the eye like a series of giant Polaroid pictures, their crisp white borders like the edges of some giant glossy magazine clarified and highlighted by the removal of the majority of each of the images.

“Cutting away the photograph like that made the work more architectural. I know what was there – but someone seeing it now doesn’t know – although they might feel that the space is ‘familiar’. The size means that the pixels of the original image have been blurred and made more abstract. The light seems watery… and I was interested in that – in the painterly margin that was left behind.”

Campbell’s exhibition worked on many levels: it played with our understanding and our interpretation of the world we live in. It was thought provoking and that is always a good thing.

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is a copywriter who helps UK companies to get their message across in writing. From websites to sales letters, brochures to leaflets – if you want copy that makes your customers want to use you then get in touch with Katherine today at words@copywriternewcastle.co.uk, on Twitter @copywriterne or call her on 07816 763 393.

Last month the documentary film, ‘Happy’, by Oscar nominated director Roko Belic, was brought to the North East for one day only at a pop-up cinema in town. The merry band of businesses behind the film’s screening included Tynemouth based Jan Etoile of Etoile Enterprises. The film was screened on World Happiness Day, February 11th at The Centre for Life.

On the same day the film was enjoyed in communities across the globe, from Sao Paulo to Singapore, as people celebrated what it means to be happy, who is happiest and how we can contribute to the happiness of others.

The film ‘Happy’ combines cutting-edge science from the new field of positive psychology with real-life stories of people from around the world whose lives illustrate these findings. In it we see the story of a beautiful woman named Melissa Moody, a mother of three who had a “perfect life” until the day she was run over by a truck. Disabled for nine years and disfigured for life, amazingly she is happier now than before her accident. Manoj Singh, a rickshaw puller from the slums of Kolkata, India lives in a hut made of plastic bags with his family but in the film he is found to be as happy as the average American.

Despite the credentials of the director, the film did not have a distribution deal through cinemas and could only be seen at special screenings like the one at The Centre for Life. It was hoped that the film would inspire viewers to join the organisers in a new movement to promote happiness in our region.

The film brings to life the findings of the most recent research into happiness and wellbeing. These findings show that good family, relationships, social bonds and a strong sense of community, rather than wealth and status, are what really make us happy. Director Roko Belic learned a lot about the nature of happiness and what is important in life while making the film. In an interview for the American newspaper, The Huffington Post, he said: “I learned something simple but completely illuminating. Research showed that just about all happy people have strong relationships. They are healthier and have happier children. They are more likely to find a creative solution to a problem and to help a stranger in need. Happy people have fewer conflicts and are less likely to commit crimes, pollute the environment or go to war. In other words, just about everything I cared about, everything I wished I could change in the world, was improved with being happy.”

For more information go to: www.thehappymovie.com or www.worldhappyday.com.

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is a copywriter who helps UK companies to get their message across in writing. From websites to sales letters, brochures to leaflets – if you want copy that makes your customers want to use you then get in touch with Katherine today at words@copywriternewcastle.co.uk, on Twitter @copywriterne or call her on 07816 763 393.

One of my earliest memories is sitting on a train (I think it was heading towards Leeds) and listening to my mum reading ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ out loud to me. The carriage was full, the night was drawing in and at one point in the story (I suspect it was when the naughty tiger had “drunk all Daddy’s beer”) I looked up to see that we had been surrounded by all the other children in the carriage. They listened as I did, their eyes wide at the story of the naughty tiger who had popped in for tea.

After the post-Christmas influx of toys and games and books this year I decided to have a proper sort out of my children’s bedrooms and as I did so I found myself being transported back nearly forty years. Tidying and sorting out may have taken longer (make that a good few hours longer) – but was made far more enjoyable as I pulled out the stories of ‘Milly Molly Mandy’ and ‘My Naughty Little Sister’ that I loved as a child. Do you remember Billy Boy Blunt and Little Friend Susan? And Bad Harry with bunny eared slippers in the snow? How about Burglar Bill and his dramatic romance with Burglar Betty?

The drawings in my copy of ‘Bread and Jam for Frances’ seemed as real to me as I sat, surrounded by bin bags and boxes, as they did when I was five years old. I could even remember the rhyme that Frances, a young badger who has decided that all she really wants to eat is bread and jam, sings as she skips … “Jam on biscuits, jam on toast, jam is the thing that I like most.”

These books with their battered covers and occasional food stains are to my generation (I’m nearly forty) what ‘The Gruffalo’ and ‘The Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ will be to children today. They are vivid and bright and have helped to inform our view of the world so that we understood it that little bit more. New experiences like friendships, familial relationships, new foods and the great outdoors were handled with gentle humour and wit. Although I’m still not quite sure what I’d do if a tiger ever knocked at my door for tea – would you?

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is a copywriter who helps UK companies to get their message across in writing. From websites to sales letters, brochures to leaflets – if you want copy that makes your customers want to use you then get in touch with Katherine today at words@copywriternewcastle.co.uk, on Twitter @copywriterne or call her on 07816 763 393.

On the opening night of the Turner Prize 2011, BALTIC reached capacity at around 7pm. From then on it was strictly a one-in-one-out policy as art fans snaked all the way back to the Millennium bridge to see what has been dubbed ‘Arguably the world’s most prestigious and best known award for contemporary art.’

This is the first year that the Turner Prize hasn’t been hosted by a Tate venue. As the queues both outside the building and down the stairwell leading to the exhibition showed no sign of dying down, the opening time on the third floor was extended for an hour. Strangers chatted in the glass elevators that rise and fall on the face of the building, people in the second floor discussion cafe swapped pencils to write down their thoughts on the nominees and there was a buzz that extended far beyond the DJ’s in the booth at the Preview Party.

The Nominees

Karla Black

Karla Black’s sculptures and installations climb all over the room she has filled on the third floor. Crumbled bath bombs, chalks, shampoo and shaving foam explode from sheets of cellophane and paper. “A painting is an escape, it’s supposed to take us elsewhere. Sculpture is the opposite. It’s absolutely here and rooted … It’s its physicality that really matters.”

Martin Boyce

Martin Boyce has created an interactive landscape that includes a library table, fallen leaves and a patterned ventilation grid. Most of his work since 2005 has been influenced by an image of four concrete trees by the artists Jan and Joel Martel.“If the trees were made of concrete what were the leaves made of – and what happening in the autumn? Did fragments of concrete fall from the trees?”

Hilary Lloyd

Hilary Lloyd says that she isn’t a filmmaker. She just uses film and video “like you’d use pencil or a pair of scissors.” What makes her work unique is that what is filmed is what you see. There is no editing process; rather a collaged effect is created with various images shown simultaneously.

“There’s an idea with art that you should ‘get it’ and I don’t think that’s it at all.”

George Shaw

George Shaw’s exhibition, The Sly and Unseen Day, was on show at BALTIC earlier this year. Shaw says his ambition was “to make a painting that my professor of fine art could talk about with my mum – nether of them condescending to each other.”

Shaw seems to want to bypass that special language that seems to be needed to understand contemporary art and to focus instead on communication.

The Turner Prize

The winner of the Turner Prize will be announced at BALTIC on Monday 5 December 2011.

For more information go to www.tate.org.uk.

You can join the Turner Prize debate on Twitter by using the hashtag #TP2011.

by Katherine Wildman © 2011

Katherine Wildman is a freelance creative copywriter based in Cullercoats and holds an MA in Creative Writing (with Distinction).

If you need the words for your new website, a new company brochure or a regular SEO blog to increase your online presence please get in touch with her on 07186 763393 or at katherine@wildmanwrites.co.uk.