Saturday 15 December 2012

Morse Code Mitts

Well, It’s the coldest time of the year, time to break out the knitwear! I love knitwear but I can’t knit or sew, so I have nothing but admiration for those that possess the skill. This is the very same reason why I love Miriam McDonald’s work, a regular reader will recall my mentioning her ankle-less socks at this year’s Waltz on the Wye. So imagine my delight when I received an early Christmas present from her today… a pair of Morse Code Mitts! I love these! On the left-hand you find (dot-dash-dot-dot) for 'L' and on the right-hand (dot-dash-dot) for 'R'. As Mim put it, “geeks will appreciate the joke and most other people will simply see a nice pair of mitts.” It can get a little chilly in the studio and my hands and fingers are the first to feel the cold, gloves can at times restrict movement, but not with these! My fingers can move freely in them so they are a welcome edition, and I thank her dearly for her kindness!
Check out her blog for more details about them and a free knitting pattern!

 © Arfon Jones 2012. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

Wednesday 12 December 2012

A Franktastic Christmas reminder

I understand that a fair few of these can be seen up and down Oldham St. in Manchester. Never the less I shall readdress it! All proceeds raised at the Franktastic Christmas party event will go towards erecting a statue of the late Frank Sidebottom in his hometown of Timperley. The event held at the Night and Day Cafe, Manchester on Saturday 15th of December promises to be an evening of music and celebration Frank Sidebottom style! Featuring music by The Stags, The Freshies (with Harry Sievey) and Hank Sidebottom and the Hellrazors’ (Rockerday Johnny & Bale and Frank Sidebottom’s long lost elder brother). Please check out the link and buy tickets and help get the statue up in the New Year! Thank you! Thanks to Gaz for providing the photo.


© Arfon Jones 2012. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

Sunday 9 December 2012

Sir Patrick Moore CBE HonFRS FRAS (1923 – 2012) : The loss of an inspiration and friend

This is a very difficult post to write as I lost an inspiration and friend today, Sir Patrick Moore, CBE, FRS, FRAS passed away peacefully at his home in Selsey at the age of 89. This blog post will undoubtedly be lost amongst millions of other tributes being left for him as his influence carried across the entire globe. Tributes left by eminent Astronomers and scientists, men who have walked the moon and observed it in their back gardens will be mourning his loss. Sir Patrick had been on our screens since 1957 so he was a reoccurring, enduring figure on our screens as I grew up. During the 80’s and 90’s it seemed that he was either telling me about the Universe on ‘The Sky at Night’ or telling me how to cheat at video games with ‘Games Master’. Between these shows I would read his books trying to make sense of the night sky.  When I was at college and working through the night on a project I would often catch ‘The Sky at Night’ and treat it as a well-earned break I would then go outside to take a look and marvel at it all. In my 20’s I finally wrote to him and received a reply the following day. Several other letters were exchanged before being invited down to his home in Sussex, this visit became one of many there after. All the times I saw him he never let me down a true down to earth gentleman that lived up to my expectations and I feel truly honoured to have met him and call him a friend. Always supportive of my work I was fortunate to be able to work with him once, illustrating one of his books and our last endeavour was arranging my surprise marriage proposal to Beth in his garden last year. Looking up at the night sky has become all the more poignant now as I think of his legacy. Thank you Patrick for your inspiration, guidance, wit, generosity and friendship, I will miss you.

EDIT: 12/03/2018 I found this clip on my phone of Patrick speaking at the Autographica 12 event at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, London on the 25th of October 2008



© Arfon Jones 2012. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

“what’s in a name?”

William Shakespeare once wrote, “what’s in a name?” well if your name is also your website address, it’s very important, If someone misspells my name they will not be able to find my site! Arfon, (yes it is Welsh it means "Across from Anglesey" which is a coincidence really because I do just that) is not a name that people from outside Wales find easy to pronounce. Throughout my life I have had people drop the ‘r’ and call me “Afon” and after thirty something years of it I have learnt to live with it. But as the world continues to grow smaller my name continues to baffle people, so much so that I thought of addressing this with a recently abandoned business card in which a pronunciation guide could be located on the back of the card, Arfon Jones* Artist /Illustrator *pronounced “Arr-von”. But it’s not so much the pronunciation that’s the problem here it the fact that some people write my name as they would (try to) say it, either missing the above mentioned ‘r’ or bizarrely calling me “Afron” why this happens I have no idea… But either way it’s not ideal when it’s a website address. But what can I do? It’s my name, it’s located at the bottom of my work. I have no middle name, and Jones is the reverse of Arfon, in that it’s a very common Welsh name! Because Arfon is an uncommon name (if you are also called Arfon be sure to say hello at the bottom of this post!) I wasn’t given a nickname I could use instead of my real name (well one that I would wish to use on my work anyway!) I am known simply as Arfon... So how to combat this website address problem? Register the variations people use and redirect them to arfon.net? No, that would be costly! I know I shall write a blog entry about my name, writing it seven times, highlighting it each time and point out that it can also be found on my logo in the hopes that people will pick it up…

© Arfon Jones 2012. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

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