Christmas Posting Dates

The last posting dates for some countries are coming upon us pretty quickly. For Australia and New Zealand  it is Wednesday! Please see the list below for our advised last orders. As ever, we would ask you to place your orders as soon as possible to ensure your parcel arrives in time (and that we don't sell out of anything!) and to advise you that these dates are just a guide. We cannot be held responsible for orders arriving late due to the postal service.

Please try to get your orders in by the following dates and times:

UK
Standard delivery - Wednesday 19th December 4pm
Express delivery by UPS (heavy/bulky items) - Thursday 20th December 4pm
Express delivery by Royal Mail Special Delivery* - Friday 21st December 4pm
(* Particularly heavy/bulky items may not be able to be sent by Special Delivery - please contact us if you require any advice or assistance)

Western Europe
Airmail - Tuesday 11th December 4pm
UPS for heavy bulky items - contact us for availability and price

Eastern Europe, Canada & USA
Airmail - Sunday 9th December 4pm

Africa, Caribbean, Central America, Middle East & South America
Airmail - Thursday 6th December 4pm

Asia, Australia, Far East (including Japan), New Zealand
Airmail - Tuesday 4th December 4pm

Please use these dates as a guide only and please feel free to contact us with any questions or queries about sending your orders. Please note that the time stated is UK time!

You can read the Royal Mail recommended dates here. Please don't forget that we need time to process and pack your orders!

Image above is Polar Bear Christmas card by Lisa Jones and can be found on our site here.

Hate Mail by Mr Bingo Book Signing 17th Nov

Next Saturday 17th November between 2-4pm, Mr Bingo will be in Soma for the Bristol signing of his new book, 'Hate Mail'. Come along during this time to meet the genius illustrator and get your books signed. 



In his own words, "Last year I sent a postcard to a stranger called Jonathan Hopkins. It said on it "F*ck you Jonathan, f*ck you and f*ck your sh*t legs". People seemed to be into it so I opened a service on my website, inviting strangers to pay me in return for an offensive postcard addressed to them (or whoever they ordered it for).

"I persevered with the project and now with over 400 'Hate Mails' under my belt, I am pleased to announce that Hate Mail (the book) is out now and available to buy."

It has been rumoured that there could be bottles of 'Hate Ale' at the signing, brewed specially for his London book launch in a brewery.

Books will be available to purchase in Soma from the 17th.







You can read Creative Review's review of the book here.



The signing will be held on Saturday 17th November, 2-4pm, 1st Floor Gallery Space, Soma, 4 Boyces Avenue, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 4AA.

Crispin Finn's 2013 Year Planner

The incredibly popular Crispin Finn handmade Year Planner is into its 5th year!

As ever they have tried to improve on last years and have made a few practical adjustments.
The size of the grid has been adjusted and separated out from each month to allow for additional annotation that spans across many dates. They have also alternated the colour of months to allow for easy tracking. Weekends are clearly defined and easily spotted as a block with a thick border. Public holidays are highlighted with a small sun icon, and as always they've kept the design practical, functional but also aesthetically pleasing and in their trademark red, white and blue.

Embossed 2 colour screenprint on 120gsm 100% recycled, biodegradable white paper, measuring 997 x 700mm. Open edition.

Each planner comes hand folded and sealed in a screenprinted brown kraft bag.



Working predominantly in red, white and blue, a restriction they initially set themselves in order to hand produce simple and affordable designs, the colour scheme has become part of the Crispin Finn identity.

As well as commisioned projects and freelance work, they also produce limited runs of ephemera.

You can view all work by Crispin Finn here.

And you can view the planner on our website here.

Christmas Exhibition at Soma

Beautiful New Prints by Rob Ryan

We have some new screen prints by Rob Ryan in the gallery and online.

Rob Ryan was born in 1962 in Akrotiri, Cyprus. He studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic and at the Royal College of Art, London where he specialised in Printmaking.

Since 2002 he has been working principally within the paper cutting medium. Although he views himself first and always as a fine artist, his intricate papercut work adapts itself readily to screenprinting which have then transferred to ceramics, fabrics, lasercutting and other surfaces.He has collaborated with Paul Smith, Liberty of London, Fortnum and Mason and Vogue along with many other established companies.

His work, often consisting of whimsical figures paired with sentimental, grave, honest and occasionally humourous pieces of writing he readily admits are autobiographical.

"We all really share only the same one story, my work only tells that story over and over."

He lives and works in London UK






You can view all Rob Ryan's prints on our website here.

We have ceramics and other items by Rob in the gallery and online. You can view everything by Rob Ryan on our site here.

Konichiwa, Japan - Photos from the show

Here are a selection of photos from 'Konichiwa, Japan' by Felt Mistress and Jonathan Edwards. You can view more on our Flickr page here.









At the opening, visitors were able to get their very own monster portraits drawn by Jonathan! See a couple below:





You can view all the work on our website here.

Konichiwa, Japan! An exhibition by Felt Mistress and Jonathan Edwards

Konichiwa, Japan!
Exhibition by Felt Mistress and Jonathan Edwards at Soma Gallery
Opening Saturday 21st July, runs til mid September

Sat 21st East meets West style afternoon tea 11am – 5:30pm

During the summer of 2011 Felt Mistress (AKA Louise Evans) and Jonathan Edwards spent 5 weeks in Japan as part of a gallery residency at Headspace in Nara and also headlined the Headspace arts & music festival in Osaka. This show collects some of the work created during their time there and also new pieces influenced by their experiences in Japan and created exclusively for this exhibition. The show will be a collection of 3D pieces, prints and original artwork featuring the character design that they've become known for. Both Louise and Jonathan will be present in the gallery on the opening Saturday and visitors will also have the opportunity to have their portraits drawn in the style of a Felt Mistress character.



Felt Mistress

Felt Mistress AKA Louise Evans is a UK based stitcher and prolific tea drinker who creates a range of one-off bespoke creatures with her partner, illustrator Jonathan Edwards. Originally trained in fashion design and millinery, Louise has brought many of the skills learnt through years of work as a couture dress maker to the world of character design. As well as original Felt Mistress characters Louise has also collaborated with a variety of other artists including Jon Burgerman, Jon Knox (Hello, Brute)and Pete Fowler. Her work has been exhibited in the UK and internationally and in 2010 was given her own window on Oxford Street as part of Selfridges' Christmas display.

 She states her main interests as sewing, Japan, buttons, creatures, cake and Mr Edwards. When not sewing she likes to dream she'll live to see the day when you can download French Fancies "off of the Internet".


Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan's work first appeared in 1993 in Deadline and Tank Girl Magazine with strips such as Dandy Dilemma, Simon Creem, The Squabbling Dandies (with Richard Holland) and one pagers about, amongst others, Scott Walker, Sly Stone, Nancy Sinatra, Kraftwerk and The Beach Boys. Since then he's worked for the Guardian, Mojo, Q, Mad, The Black Eyed Peas, A Skillz & Krafty Kuts, The Jungle Brothers, The Glastonbury Festival, etc. His comics include Aunt Connie & The Plague of Beards, A Bag Of Anteaters (with Ian Carney) and Two Coats McWhinnie (also with Carney). He's also been a regular contributor to the Guardian since 1999 and illustrated the Hard Sell weekly column in the Guide from 2002 - 2011.

Jonathan's  design work includes collaborations with his  partner, Louise (AKA Felt Mistress), and a vinyl toy, Inspector Cumulus available from Crazylabel toys.

Pick Me Up 2012

 

We are very pleased to announce that we will be exhibiting at Pick Me Up at Somerset House this year with Andy Smith, Crispin Finn, Tom Frost, Gemma Correll and Peskimo.

The show runs from 22nd March until 1st April and is open from 11am - 8pm daily with late nights on Thursdays until 10pm.

We will post more info in the coming weeks. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook to find out more news.

Rob Ryan Valentines 2012 Silkscreen Print

Every year Rob Ryan produces a special Valentines print for the romantics out there! This year he has created this beautiful silkscreen print depicting a man and woman on a bridge. It is printed in two colours (burgundy brown and soft vanilla) and is signed and numbered in an edition of 400. Print size is approximately 28.5 x 35cm, paper size is 34.5 x 42.8 cm and is £120.

The print is available on our website here and in our gallery later on in the week.

We are able to frame these prints for customers coming into our Bristol gallery. Unfortunately we are not able to post framed pictures.

2011: in Review

Well, what a busy year 2011 was! I feel like my Christmas rest could perhaps have done with being a little longer. 2011 was probably our biggest year at Soma in terms of events, exhibitions and projects. Some of the ideas that were in our heads were actually realised this year and we had our first ever events in our gallery space.

Going backwards a little bit... In August 2010 we moved to our new building, which really kick started things with actual storage space (instead of none!) and a lovely big light filled gallery space. Following this in November came our new, easy to operate website to replace the one I had designed and built (poorly by current standards) way back in 2005 and was on its last legs as well as being a pain to keep updated. So we had a good platform to kick 2011 off from.

Some of the great things we've done this year are highlighted below.


Amelia's Compendium of Fashion Illustration at Soma

We started in May with our first event, the Bristol leg of Amelia's Compendium of Fashion Illustration book tour. Amelia gave a talk and signed copies of the book whilst Lahloo Tea, Juiceology and Harts Bakery provided the refreshments.



You can read about it on our blog here
And again after the event on the blog here
Or see photos on Flickr here
And view the book online here 


Lesley Barnes Tote for Soma

Also in May, we comissioned Lesley Barnes (who we worked with a few times in 2011 - more to come!) to design an exclusive promotional Soma tote bag. She came up with this fabulous dancing bear design. Lesley designed loads of other little characters for us which we have on badges for online orders.



You can buy the tote on our website for £5 here.


Andy Smith's Sunny Side Up Exhibition

The next event was Andy Smith's fantastic 'Sunny Side Up' solo exhibition. This show featured brand new silkscreen prints on both paper and wood plus hand painted pieces from Andy. This was the first time a solo artist had shown in the first floor space and fortunately Andy is quite prolific as there was a lot of space to fill!



This show ran from 24th June and was due to end on 20th August but by popular demand was extended!



Most pieces from the show are now sold out or are just about to sell out. You can view Andy's page on our website here.

You can read about it on the blog here
And a review of the show and private view on the blog here
And see the photoset of the show on Flickr here


Gemma Correll Exclusive Tote Design

In August we comissioned Gemma Correll to design a tote for us. She came up with this great cat on a scooter design 'Au Revoir'.



You can buy this tote for £10 here


Crispin Finn's Pack Rat Exhibition

The next exhibition was 'Pack Rat' from the fantastic Crispin Finn which opened at the end of September.



You can read about the show on the blog here
And more on the blog here
And see the Flickr photos here


Soma for Not Another Bill

We put together the October Mailout for Not Another Bill which was released at the start of the month.



Bristol based Peskimo and Tom Frost created exclusive prints and badges for this and Lesley Barnes designed an exclusive tote bag.

You can read a bit more on the blog here
And see photos on Flickr here


Tatty Devine Workshop and Book Signing

Then in November Tatty Devine came to Soma to host a workshop and book signing for their new book 'How to Make Jewellery with Tatty Devine'. They taught people how to make a tape measure rosette, one of the projects in the book. Lahloo Tea also were there to provide delicious refreshments once again.



Read about this on the blog here
And here
And see the photos here


Lesley Barnes Wrapping Paper Design

Also in November we launched this beautiful wrapping paper by (yes, her again!) Lesley Barnes. We sell this wrap in sheets and use it for gift wrapping online orders.



You can view this wrapping paper online here.


Christmas Exhibition

And finally at the end of November we had our annual Christmas Exhibition which went down really well, with original pieces from Andy Smith and Gemma Correll selling out as soon as they went on sale!

January Sale 2012

Our January Sale is now on!

We have loads of items reduced including Donna Wilson cushions, Rob Ryan ceramics, mugs, trays, stationery, magazines and more! Quite a few are down to the last items and most are almost sold out so don't wait too long to buy if you're coveting something! Available to view on our website here. 

We've highlighted a few great items below.



Clockwise from top left:
Florence the Fox tray by Darling Clementine was £29 now £22.40
Donna Wilson Small tree was £35 now £29.75, large tree was £43.50 now £36.98
Pablo cushion by Lisa Jones was £36 now £25.20
Welcome to the Circus notebook by Gemma Correll and Noodoll was £11.50 now £8.05 




Clockwise from top left
Idiot Stories by Matthew the Horse was £3.50 now £2.80
Blossom & Bill mug by Isak, available in 4 colours was £10 now £7.50
A5 notebook by Rob Ryan was £11.95 now £8
Memory of Falmouth salt & pepper shakers by Takae Mizutani was £39 now £24.96

Please note sale items are available online only and prices in our Bristol shop may differ.