Last night marked the private view of our exhibition at The Drum. We had a great night – to see the portraits up and enjoyed by all our guests was fantastic!
We drank cava, looked at the images, wandered round spotting our sitters – faces so familar to us from the choosing of the images – wandering round looking at themselves on the walls.
We had a lively Q&A with one of our artists, Matt Murtagh – who talked more about working with sitters, his inspirations and how the portraits were taken.
We had a great turnout – a huge thank you to everyone who came along to The Drum on a cold, wet Wednesday – we really enjoyed your company. Thank you also to everyone who helped out in some way – Jane for being a super PR lady par-excellence, Ian for taking some amazing photos (these are two of them – we’ll be putting more up in due course!) and for everyone who made a donation on the night, or this morning via our Paypal button.
The show is up throughout December and January – do pop along to see it – and let us know what you think!
This young woman had a cheeky and lively air to her. Obviously fashion
Throughout the weekend we had family groups who wanted their picture taken, the Arnotts were the most fun.
Esther Boyd is a retired architect but is very active in the civil life of Birmingham and is emblematic of the countless number of people who work tirelessly in the city to improve it for their fellow citizens.
You probably know 
Jane was the first portrait sitter of the weekend. She had volunteered to help over the weekend and directed many of the video interviews that accompany some of these portraits.
Geoff Stevens is one of Britain’s most published poets. He’s from West Bromwich and is one of the few local poets to use the Black Country Dialect in his work.
In planning Birmingham’s People I wanted to create a convincing portrait of all aspects of Birmingham’s culture and its social history.
Afribeanne (on the right in the portrait) is a resident of Brixton and was visiting Birmingham during the Artsfest weekend.
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