CALIFORNIA

Apologies! The chaos in the run up to my trip to California partnered with the fact that I haven't been able to access the Internet in the mountains of San Diego have made me extraordinarily crap at posting!

I am now in Los Angeles and on the hunt for a venue to have a trunk show at, so if you know of somewhere, please let me know!

And for those of you who are experiencing crappy weather / Americana withdrawal please feel free to follow my flickr account HERE as I will be updating it as frequently as possible!

Taxidermy Guild Conference UK

Two days before I left for California, I made the trek up North to the UK Guild of Taxidermists' Annual Conference.

This year we had an excellent Roe Shoulder Mount demonstration courtesy of Maurice Bouten who traveled from the Netherlands to teach us a thing or two.

Here are a couple of my favorite works brought in by guild members:






for a few more images check out my flickr account.

L_A_N Magazine Launch

My friends Veronica and Simon (of the amazing band TEETH) launched L_A_N Magazine's second issue the other week.

The launch was held at one of my favorite London spaces: The Wapping Project (I posted about it before HERE).

Check out their fab invite/video:



Buy your copy of LAN Magazine HERE!

Nabil

My friend Nabil came over on Saturday for a chat and to snap a few photos around the studio.

I love the way he captured my work. He has an excellent eye for details and textures...














All images © Nabil Azadi

RP/Encore Selfridges Window

For those of you who don't follow me on twitter, here are some sweet ass photos of my RP/Encore Selfridges / Bright Young Things Window from January:







All images ©Andrew Meredith

Big thanks to Devise London for the amazing retro video wall!

London Fashion Week AW/2011

This London Fashion Week has been a special one.

On Saturday a whole bunch of my mates from Central Saint Martins took to the catwalk to showcase their hard work from the Fashion MA course earning L'Oreal Awards and a whole heap of well deserved press. I'm going to their static show next week, so I'll be sure to post photos later on.

In the meantime: Here are some crappy iPhone photos (they SO don't do this collection justice!) I took at my friend Tessa's show (Tessa Edwards). I love her super cool scifi luxury wear or as i-D tweeted "idiosyncratic, brilliant collection of post-apocalyptic glamour":









My favorite looks are the last one and the transparent suit with the amazing greeny blue scarab wing encrusted (or so it looked) piece underneath. And look at those amazing shoes!! How lethal is Tessa? Gorgeous AND Talented... eeek! God help us!

SEX

I posted about Isabella Rossellini's "Green Porno" a while back (HERE) but I was recently alerted via the guardian and Tom Houser that a selection of these works in addition to some excellent taxidermy mounts are being shown at the Natural History Museum until the 2nd of October as part of their "Sexual Nature" exhibit.

Check it out if you're in London:

Fancy a Crow?

For those of you that are London based:

Fancy a nice large plastic crow?

I have a few left over from the Selfridges window display, and you're welcome to pop round the studio and pick them up if you're interested. I've got a mix of "standing" and "flying" models to choose from.

Here's a crappy iPhone photo (sorry!) of the flying ones:



First come first serve, so get in touch via e-mail (info@rpencore.com) if you're interested!

Toadstool Lollipop Cakes v Southend-on-Sea

This weekend my dear friend Tom flew over from Belgium to celebrate his birthday with us in London.

We celebrated it in true style with a massive party boasting drinks galore (courtesy of Absolut Vodka), tons of amazing little frosted toadstools made of cake and presented like lollipops, popcorn a plenty and retro candy mania!

We even had La Roux do a DJ set!

Oh all right: so AnOther Magazine happened to be celebrating it's 10th birthday on the same night, and we maybe/kinda/sorta just went to that. But we did achieve the main goal of the night which was to ensure Tom's alcohol and sugar consumption reached diabetes inducing heights.

The following morning, Christopher decided we should take the train down to Southend-on-Sea.

A.M.A.Z.I.N.G

I've been meaning to visit some of the UK's seedy seaside cities for a while now, and Southend on a pissy rainy day did not disappoint!

Here are some photos:







There was even an amazing junk shop that sold these:

Pets

image: ©Jean-Francois Carly

Right now, if anybody out there has been unfortunate enough to loose an animal companion. Please do get in touch. Any animal! I wont discriminate.

---snakes are most welcome..

Helena

A reader sent me a link to this yesterday:



Apparently Grazia Magaizine believes my taxidermy (well, the crow headdress specifically) would suit Helena Bonham Carter's outfit for the Oscars.

Well chosen Grazia... I look forward to hearing from her stylists! wink wink

RP/Encore now sold at Kabiri!

Exciting News!

RP/Encore is now stocked with high end jewellery retailer Kabiri!

In the next week or so you'll be able to visit, try on and purchase almost the entire RP/Encore collection of cast item jewellery at the following premises:

Kabiri Marylebone
37 Marylebone High Street
London
W1U 4QE


Kabiri At Selfridges
Ground Floor
400 Oxford Street
London
W1A 1AB

Kabiri Covent Garden
18 The Market, The Piazza
Covent Garden, London
WC2E 8RB

RP/E Selfridges Window / Bright Young Things

This year has kicked off to a really great start. This month I was selected by one of the UK's most prestigious department stores: Selfridges as one of 20 "Bright Young Things" they thought were "the most creative and exciting new names from the worlds of fashion and art".




For those of you not familiar with Selfridges: this is a really big deal, and a stupendous honour!

We installed the RP/Encore window last week, and if you find yourself in London, why not stop by and take a peek? Mine is on Oxford Street, four windows down from Duke Street!

Here are some behind the scenes photos from that eversohandsomeandtallented Mr. Houser:







More photos to be shown soon!

Big big thanks to Jack and Josh from Devise London who loaned me the video wall, re-edited the video content specifically for the display, installed everything and made the RP/E logo! You guys are the best! Also big thanks to Flick for staying with us for what ended up being a 13hour over night install shift, and Tom for helping out in spite of having come straight from working a full 8.5 hour workday!

2011

So, this new year has been pretty fucking mental really. I was just about to list all of the shit that went down for me/RP/Encore in 2010, when I realized what a bragging douche-like move that would be.

Suffice to say, I have been extremely lucky this past year, and have been really fucking blessed to have such an amazing network of friends and helpers in my life! Thanks dudes! You know who you are!

Now looking ahead: here are some goals I hope to achieve this year:

- Get a USA stockist for my jewellery collection

- Expand my artistic practice

- More art, less e-mails

- More sleep, less all nighters

- Exercise (walking 2 min from home to studio doesn't count, neither does skinning a large mammal! time to get some regular cardio kicks in there before I die of bad posture and high blood pressure at the age of 24!)

- Clarify the difference between "Reid Peppard" and "RP/Encore" (Reid Peppard = artist, RP/Encore = jewellery / products designed from the offcuts of the artistic practice)--- this still often confuses me!

Right... wish me luck!