If you can manage to get an hour or two away from the office next week I recommend you make your way down to Old Billingsgate market where the Square Meal ‘Venues and Events’ show is once again taking place. As well as the all-important silhouette artist stand (stand no M7 this year) you can find all manner of creative and useful ideas to help you organise anything from a small dinner party to a 3-day conference for a thousand delegates.
On our stand this year we will be showcasing our new silhouette badge machine. A new variation on an old art: your guests can have their profile cut freehand with scissors and instantly encapsulated in a badge. The badge can include details of your event if you wish. The machine is versatile and can turn our silhouettes not just into badges but fridge magnets and mirrors as well. The badges may be fun at many occasions, although we see them primarily working at conferences and other promotional events
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A line up of silhouette badges cut from life. Can you spot which is me?
These will include the Venues and Events #hash tag at the event next week.
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It’s hard to believe that a year has passed by since we last exhibited at Square Meal. This time last year we had just launched the first of two crowd-funding campaigns to raise funds for my film ‘Silhouette Secrets’. Since then we managed to put together a budget (albeit a meagre one), arrange a filming schedule and have travelled all over the UK and America shooting over 50 hours of footage - enough to make a full-length feature film should we be so inclined! We are now midway though the seemingly endless task of sifting the footage, deciding what should stay and what must go, then stitching it all together with a voice-over narrative.
Our travels began in London in the archives of the National Portrait Gallery, took us to the Regency Town House in Brighton and then on to a freezing cold dawn on Llandudno Pier, tracking down the lives of past silhouettists. We have shot footage in cars, on trains, in public streets and parks, even from a motorcycle sidecar! In America we went to new York, Boston, Philadelphia and - most notably - Houston, where I challenged the world record for speed-cutting silhouettes.
This week I’ll be back at Square Meal, together with my colleague Michael Herbert, offering our silhouettes to event organisers from all over the country. You’ll find us on the bridge, hope to see you there!
