Last weekend found me at the Fortean Times Unconvention 2011, thanks to a last-minute invite from Ian Simmons. Sadly, I wasn’t feeling up to much – getting up early enough to be in London at 10ish in the morning really takes it out of me – but I enjoyed the talks I did see.

I expected the crowd to be all fat men with beards, but there were a lot of really normal people there. When I attend a conference I usually spend a lot of time drawing rows of people from sitting level, and I think I’m getting pretty good at doing the back of people’s heads now. In fact, I think I’m going to have to break out a bit, and get beyond the back of people’s heads. Sadly, it is the only thing that keeps my attention span on the talk – otherwise I would have missed the wonderful talk by Ted Harrison (top) about various prophecies about the apocalypse. His best line was when he opened to questions from the floor, saying “… and before anybody asks, I don’t know the date!”

I like going to conferences both for intellectual stimulation, and to spend time drawing people. I’ve recently been spending a lot of time staring at my own face in the mirror, so I’m getting pretty good at drawing beards – but I’d be the first to admit I have no skill at drawing women. If only they would grow facial hair, I’d be on more solid ground.

What I can notice, looking back at my drawings from early this year, is that I’m tackling bigger crowd scenes. I had to split before the final session of the day (what looked to be an excellent film by Nina Conti on ventriloquist’s puppets) as I was already worn out.

Finally, a big thanks to Ian for getting me into the conference as his “plus one”. I missed his talk about extreme taxidermy (yes, it was that kind of conference) but it was great to see him again.

This is great news, because it’s IN NEWCASTLE. Where we at the Unnamed Laboratory are based! So what is a Maker faire? Well, according to their website it’s a family-friendly event that celebrates the
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. Over the past few years, Make magazine has been documenting the rise of this DIY mindset, and this festival will be a great thing to have on the doorstep.

If there is any one person who I’ve met from Newcastle that really embodies that DIY mindset, it’s got to be Derek, aka Bo the Clown. Currently, Derek is working towards presenting a massive multi-user bike installation as part of the Glow Festival, but he’s also an educator, philosopher, and storyteller. Hopefully, he’ll have the chance – and the time – to get involved with what the Maker Faire gets up to.