Exhibition : MERCH

Please come along to a special viewing on Thursday 24th of March (6pm-8pm)

Apologies to those of you not on Twitter (we are, follow us @pzprints), for this rather late announcement regarding our biggest show to date. You may not have yet heard that we have filled 2 walls beneath the main hall in the Portsmouth Guildhall (by the cloakroom)…

There is plenty of time to pop along and see it still (it’s on till May 14th), but aside from a little line in the previous post, you may not have been aware that there will be a special (boozy) viewing this Thursday (the 24th) which can accommodate a very large number of you all and will give you the opportunity to learn a little more about how The Zoo ticks, as well as daft stories from the past 8 years and other subjects of possible interest thought up by you or other question firers…

Portsmouth is a wonderful, unique and spirited city, and Spencer, (the Zookeeper) is expecting some Mick-taking and heckles if not just the odd tricky question, so hopefully that’ll be fun to behold – well that or the red-faced squirming he’ll perform if particularly stumped.

A small section of the larger wall display. The show consists entirely of limited edition concert memorabilia that has been printed by hand, some works are still available for sale and recent ones are still very close to their original price at the show (unframed).

A huge thank you must be extended to Julia, Ollie and especially Clive who, as operatives of the fantastic Aspex Gallery, have assured us that our posters would be a welcome exhibit in their space since we met them at Makers’ Fairs back in 2011 and ’14…
…although the show had to be put together and hung very quickly indeed, it has been an absolute pleasure to work with the team and get everything set.

Thanks also to the ever helpful staff at the Guildhall, the receptionists, Stuart the concierge and Nick who pretty much runs the venue now it seems (previously a stage director back when Spencer was lugging lights and amp stacks with the local crew each gig)… It is hard to convey what a nice “return” this has been – after a tough time that was endured, prior to finding and engaging this vital, inky passion, that is…

…anyhow, we’ll hopefully see you there to chink your glass!   Cheers!

to see the aspex listing go here : http://aspex.org.uk/whats-on/

And why not? here’s a shot from the Aspex Gallery’s 2014 Makers’ Fair.

 

Misc : New Website & Shop!

Oh my… it’s finally underway. The long awaited website / gallery / e-shop is under construction on a private server belonging to the boffins at Port 57

Trainer-squeaking, hi-caff sinking, keyboard tippety tappers : Port57

…so expect a genuinely swish and user friendly site arriving soon, one that will work on your phones, goggles, dongles and doowops …we’ll still be posting here for a while so don’t adjust your devices or uncrease your dog-ears – easypz.co.uk will remain our domain.

Thanks for reading – can’t wait to have you all swiping your fingers all over our wares!

Misc : March 2016 – Goings on

Getting ready to get stuck in?

So there has been a LOT going on – The Zoo’s momentum is still going well from last year (which was grand!) and, as is often the case / nearly always the case, we haven’t had much time to blog about it. But that ought to change this weekend, expect a few electronic bleeps and pixels to go with but for now we’ll begin by pointing out that we have secured another Open Studio event at North Star : http://www.northstarstudio.wordpress.com and will be showing and selling our work alongside other printmakers from our studio collective.

Our open studio listing with all the info you need + the Brighton Illustration Fair listing …The Zoo may be in both!

You’ll be able to pop by every weekend day in May between 11am and 6pm. Come and have a gander and perhaps see if you fancy trying out a workshop or indeed signing up to be a member!

Another thing to tell is that we have a show on at The Portsmouth Guildhall in association with Aspex Gallery … its called “MERCH” and we are super proud to announce that there will be a special viewing on Weds 24th between 6 and 8 with Spencer the ZooKeeper answering questions and generally blabbing on with red cheeks and shaky knees (hope there is wine! there will be wine… we’ll bring some).

YOU ARE INVITED READER – the space is huge.

Expect a blogpost dedicated to this over the coming weekend… exciting.

what else? what else?

Oh we just did a poster for LSD & The Search For God who played The Albert alongside openers Clever Things (I think that was their name, they are a very promising new act) and The Vacant Lots …a very fun night and rewarding too (we got vinyl treasures)

…and last but by no means least, we’re completing a poster shortly after we log off – another one for the wonderful talents of Kurt Vile & The Violators – wooohooo

Oh and we are legitimately a We again… yes!

 

 

 

 

Artfairs December (Mailing list redirect)

Please check out the blog post we published just prior to this one :

https://easypz.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/artfairs-december2015/

there was a daft error made here (we updated a spelling error in our slug/address and may have misdirected folk with the mailing list and twitter – btw our twitter is @pzprints)

hopefully this little post will help readers get back on track

PS …here is another print we never got round to blogging last year, another commission for the very excellent Fujiya & Miyagi (we were in the middle of Stick Up preparations and pretty dramatic domestic upheavals at the time)

Euro Tour Poster, Fujiya & Miyagi, Various Venues – Screenprint, 3colours, A2 – Limited edition

Artfair(s) at the close of the year

Wow look we sneaked in an extra post, to make it 5 for 2015!

This is just a very quick note to let you know about artfairs we will be attending this month (all in Brighton strangely – no Portsmouth invites *sob*).

We’re also going to post in a couple of images that haven’t been aired on here previously – due to slackness / whirlwind schedule (equally applicable).

Gig Poster, The Walkmen, Bestival (Screenadelica) – Screenprint, 3colours, A2 – Edition of 100

…tomorrow (Saturday the 5th) we will be at the North Laine Pub for the Dead Wax Society Pop-Up Record Shop / Fair …huge thanks to Penny and Jude at the North Laine for their greenlight and assistance… should be a belter of a day if the TruThoughts fair held there previously is any indicator of potential

Gig Poster, Johnny Marr, Bestival (Sceenadelica) – Screenprint, 4colours (incl a blend), A2 – Edition of 100

Next up will be the New England House Fair which begins on Thursday the 10th and ends Saturday the 12th… we will be with friends MagicTorch in the South Wing of Floor 5 …thanks Sam for the invitation to participate.

Gig Poster, Fujiya & Miyagi, The Haunt, Brighton – Screenprint, 2colours, A2 – Limited edition

and lastly we will be attending the GO! Craft fair that new friend Libby runs -that’s Saturday 19th December at The Hope & Ruin, Queens Street in Brighton – its only open between 12pm-3.30pm so please set a reminder on your walkie-talkie if that’s the only day you can make it along to catch us. Do let the Zookeeper know if you follow the blog, he might be inclined to do you a discount if you see a couple of things you like.

Gig Poster, Cheatahs, Primavera, Barcelona – Screenprint, 2colours, A2 – Limited Edition

Misc : October & November

This is getting daft isn’t it? I mean the gaps between blogs – the yawning inactivity of this site …well it’s not the same that can be said for THE REAL WORLD!!

Petting Zoo has been a super industrious pumping house these past couple of months – siphoning opportunities, pushing our luck and overflowing with, um… gushes of creativity? (that was a bit rubbish – apologies)

Let’s, for now,just hit you with some pics and a super brief line or two (we may or may not go into more detail at a later date with some dedicated posts)…

First up was the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg for Flatstock – and Colored Gigs in Liepzig and then Dresden …much fun, lots of new friends made, sales were strong (thank you everyone!) and the Schwartzbier was a delight… oh we got some of our prints archived in a fancy Museum of art and trade – cool!

The Pie & Vinyl Show came down during that 15 day trip, as did the Dum-Dum Stratagem show (yep neither have been satisfactorily documented – apologies) and upon landing back in England, the priority job was a new tour poster for the mighty Jon Spencer Blues Explosion…

UK Tour Poster, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Screenprint, 3colours (incl a blend), A2 – Edition of 100

Next up was a print for Kurt Vile for his appearance at the Concorde2 in Brighton…

Gig Poster, Kurt Vile – Screenprint, 3colours, A2 – Edition of 50

Then we nipped over to Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, and stayed with good friend Joris Diks. That was great, it’s such a neat city to visit (but beware the lack of supermakets and offies – making you feel quite unsophisticated when you ask for the directions to one – it’s as though they are as rare and outmoded as old school phoneboxes). Anyhow we made two posters hurriedly for bands we didn’t exactly get clearance from – Faust who are cool with it and enthusing & Swervedriver who were/are very enigmatic and elusive …talks proceed (slowly) – but we designed these with the whole point being we could trim off the bottom if the band objected to their sale – that didn’t occur, but still, lets wait and see – we aren’t bootleggers.

Gig poster, Faust, Le Guess Who? Festival, Utrecht – Screenprint, 2colours (incl 2 blends) – A2, from an edition of 50

Gig Poster, Swervedriver, Le Guess Who? Festival, Utrecht – Screenprint, 3colours (incl 1 blend) – A2, from an edition of 50

finally we near where we are at today! in Utrecht the ZooKeeper bumped into the guys from Metz and arranged a limited edition print to commemorate their appearance at the upcoming Mutations Festival here in Brighton…

Gigposter, Metz, Mutations Festival, Brighton – Screenprint, 1 colour – A2, from an edition of 50

…and last but definitely not least, we are super chuffed to announce that we are printing this next print for the wonderful Neko Case! So excited to finally see her live and very proud to be producing this edition for sale on her merch stall not only at Mutations Festival but at The Lexington and Union Chapel too! so so cool!

Gig Poster, Neko Case, multiple venues – Screenprint, 3colours (incl a blend) – A2, from an edition of 100

Neko’s shows are promoting the launch of her “Truckdriver, Gladiator, Mule” vinyl box-set …a very nice package of work spanning her illustrious career which is available at her online store – go check it out

These and many more prints will be available to purchase on our stall at the All Saints Church in Hove this coming Saturday (part of the Mutations Festival) …and eventually elsewhere – sign up for news on that by filling out the ZOOPOO mailbox thing in the top right corner of this page.

Thanks for reading – sorry for the delay in posting

(there’s actually more to come – such as the Gatefold LP design we did for Cheatahs which has been chosen by Design Week as one of the top 50 LP covers of the year! wow! go vote for it if you really think it better than Bjorks’ !!!)

 

Exhibition : Dum-Dum Stratagem (Corridor Gallery, Brighton)

OK we’re writing this when we ought to be heading off on a train to go to the not so private view of this show… we’ve not had any lunch yet either and there are still a bonkers number of things we’ve got to do!

H to the E to the C & TIC!

Essentially we’re hoping that an earlier blogged flyer got you curious to go visit, because what with an upcoming trip around Germany, The P&V show and that 6colour Victorious fest print, we’ve really been spread too thin to give this little show the promo we’d have liked to…

A banner advertising the show on Twitter – yes the Zoo has been tweeting for a while now : @pzprints

The Corridor Gallery is a brand new not for profit co-operative venture run by an extremely dedicated team of lovely crafty friends – we could sit and sing their praises for ages but they’d possibly be a little vexed that we were stationed here at the machine right now instead of speeding toward the show! Just let us assure you that they are a wonderful bunch and have spoiled The Zoo rotten (We leapt in to put on the first show as soon as they got keys to the premises and gave it a lick of paint – apparently our grabbing of the spotlight is counts as a favour to them! wonderful!)

So yes – if you around and fancy a nose around the now complete show (we revealed prints every day in the first week, replacing big question marks designed to raise a little intrigue and provide a touch of tactical stalling time) do come along around 8… I think the little space will be heaving – but it should be a right laugh.

Signed mini prints screenprinted for the Dum-Dum Stratagem show.

 

The first print we revealed was one of the last we designed and can be seen in the photo below – we could tell you all about it but we really really need to get our skates on.

Special Reserve – Screenprint, 3colours – A2 from an edition of just 20

Gigposter : Victorious Festival 2015

A quick post just to thank the team at Victorious Fest, Jay and team at A A Design & Print (who ran the merch) and to Strong Island who are helping out with some last minute support.

Victorious was an absolute blast and boasted the mightiest of line-ups, it really did Portsmouth proud. It was great to catch up with a lot of old friends as well as meet some new ones – (one slightly sad revelation to report is that yes, Silent Disco is a dreadful as I always suspected it was – It’ll take more than a case of beer and old friends *shoutout* Mel and Leslie to persuade me to do that again – shudder)

So… Super Flaming Johnny Scream and the Magic Darkness! amazing!

and for the hoodlums there was a ripping set from Mvula Jaxx and Tiny Texas

most impressive – we’re so proud that we were given the chance to screen the official merchandise poster. Hopefully next year we’ll have the whole situation smoothed out and we’ll be able to give this some proper promotion in the lead up to the event – but hey its all worked out in the end – Strong Island have very kindly agreed to sell this poster at their Highland Road store (and we’re not getting stung by terrible commission rates so we can keep it real close to the original price – so just £22 for a 6colour print – that IS a bargain for handprinted merch, ask anyone).

Victorious Festival, Southsea Common & Castle Fields – Screenprint, 6colours incl 1blend – A2 from an edition of 100

I sincerely hope you’ll excuse the manic pace at which this is being typed out – there is so much going on at the moment that there’s barely time for spell checking… there’s another 2 blogs to get written and loads of emailing and phone calls in between (a tour of Germany with the Petting Zoo posters is being arranged currently)

…I did want to wax lyrical about how this print was designed to appeal to both the young kids of Portsmouth, the mums and dads AND the flaming lips weirdos – but that little line is going to have to do… at some stage I’ll put up some production shots too as its rare that our studio does more than 4 colours on a print …plus the little yellow to green fade on the reflected firework came out really really sweet.

anyhow – sorry – gotta dash x

Exhibition : The Pie & Vinyl Poster Show (Party)

Dear Reader,

the cold silences that you endure must surely make days like this rather joyous – days when this little blog gently beeps its little electronic apology, assures you that everything is well in the world of Petting Zoo Prints & Collectables, then finally treats you with warm and colourful pixels arranged with great care – a glimpse of recent projects – or perhaps an exciting preview of what is to come.

Today is one such day my friend, we shall be bamboozling you with 2 …maybe even 3 posts!  – I know – WOW!

So compose yourself, you poor neglected creature, steady yourself against a telegraph pole perhaps (if you are reading this on one of those clever portable devices) and let us warm up with the first announcement – Tonight is the night of the Re-View party of the Pie & Vinyl Poster Show at the Guildhall in Portsmouth.

THE PIE & VINYL POSTER SHOW Re-View – Thurs 17th September – Ports Guildhall

This is a free entry event, and the doors are open from 5.30pm so that people get a chance to pop in straight after they leave their offices – why? because the Portsmouth Cultural Trust want anyone who hasn’t yet seen the show to pop along and do so AND they’re offering a 30% discount on the remaining unsold framed posters from the show!

The night properly kicks off when JALOU play their soft and lilting slightlydelic sound at 7 and then Christopher George Whitear from Sink Or Soar takes to the stage at 8. There will be drinks and nibbles of course and hopefully lots of hobnobbing opportunities, people of opposing sexes etc.

So pretend I’ve given you loads of notice, shelve your date and other less exciting plans and come down. We’re really proud to have had the opportunity to select the work for this and very chuffed with the framing that we picked out for our buddy Chris Williams to put together – that was an extremely fun part of the project and something we hope The Zoo can repeat sometime soon down then line.

Will update with photos later… onward to our next blog now *squeal*

Exhibition : DUM-DUM STRATAGEM

No time to blog

! so so busy!

have a look at this flyer for now and we’ll follow up with a more in depth piece soon *promise!

DUM-DUM STRATAGEM Exhibition – The Corridor Gallery, Brighton – September 2015