We Buy Your Kids designers Sonny Day and Biddy Maroney in their Newtown Studio. Photo by Phil Blatch

Sydney artists are uniting to support a radio station that supports the arts in so many ways.

More than 30 Sydney artists are donating work to FBi Radio to go under the hammer at the Still Life art auction.

The Art Gallery of NSW is hosting the auction on Friday October 8, with all funds going to FBi.

A number of Inner West artists will have their work in the mix, which includes everything from visual arts, photography and design.

Newtown designers We Buy Your Kids, Sonny Day and Biddy Maroney, said they were more than happy to get on board.

“FBi has been very good to us over the last couple of years and we were asked to be a part of the auction last year when they were having all those major (financial) problems,” Day said.

“It’s a reciprocal thing, they support the arts, local music and they have really supported us.”

The designers, who do everything from illustrations to band posters and web design, are yet to decide which piece to donate.

Day said it was intense at last year’s auction where people were battling it out for pieces, some going for up to $20,000.

Dulwich Hill artist and inventor Simon Yates said he’ll be putting his piece Magic Ladders up for auction, which are toys made out of planks that are connected by ribbons.

“Making a work for auction is a chance for me to make something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” he said.

“I listen to FBi a lot and wanted to do something to help out the station. I feel like they’re one of the few stations that supports artists and interesting creative projects happening around Sydney.”

Newtington artist Wade Marynowsky is entering his piece Robots Everywhere which is about how people want to find faces in everything.

“I think FBi is a awesome community arts station. I think it brings a lot of people together,” he said.

With his studio in St Peters, Greg Hodge is another artist who felt compelled to get involved.

He’s entering an untitiled piece which came from a group of abstract paintings that are emotive and ambiguous.

“FBi have set up a pretty supportive network for all types of arts around Sydney and I think it’s a nice opportunity to be involved,” he said.

There will also be a range of artwork available for under $200 done by Sydney art students known as the Class of 2010.

If you would like to go to Still Life you can RSVP to rsvp@fbiradio.com by October 6.

For more information on Still Life go to fbiradio.com. For more information on We Buy Your Kids go to webuyyourkids.com, Simon Yates mechanickinetica.tripod.com, Wade Marynowsky marynowsky.net. Greg Hodge does not have a website but is part of an exhibition Positive Negative at the Artereal Gallery, Rozelle, from tomorrow.

Source: Inner West Courier

Fbi

(L to R: Jason Allen (SYN TV Executive Producer), Jack Post, Alex Ford and Adrian McMahon (SYN FM Programming Manager and former Producer of the Jack & Fordy Show)

Radio is undergoing a seismic shift, similar to that of the late 1970’s.   Then, change was precipitated by youth disenchantment with the dominant Rock-FM format and the emergence of Punk music.  There was an explosion of independent new stations, including 3RRR in Melbourne, 2JJ (which became JJJ) in Sydney and 4ZZZ in Brisbane.   Together with 3D (Adelaide), 2SER (Sydney) and 6RTRFM (Perth), these strong stations have evolved from wild child to icon, in their 20+ years of existence.

The cycle is repeating now, driven partly by the worldwide dance music phenomenon, and partly by the desire of younger audiences to take charge of the airwaves one again.  To create original content and to write the playlist.

Community radio is the ideal home for young, would-be-broadcasters.  Like the internet – another young medium – community radio encourages personal access, independence and communities of interest.  Unlike the internet, these new stations have powerful FM transmitters offering broadcast coverage of the entire metropolitan area.  In the case of Sydney’s Fbi, the signal is clearly heard from the Blue Mountains to Wollongong.

While relatively new, these stations are by no means rough.  Professional production standards, excellent programming, fully interactive websites, talkback/chat, outside broadcasts and events are all vital ways in which the stations interact with audiences and the broader community.

Hobart’s newcomer Edge Radio took out Radio Station Of The Year award at the Community Broadcasting Association’s national conference in December 2003.

In Melbourne, Jack Post and Alex Ford (Jack and Fordy) are the famously young hosts of the Friday show for SYN TV.  The pair recently won Community TVs Antenna Award for best male presenters. SYN TV’s innovative show is broadcast 4-5pm daily in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, and simulcast on SYN FM in Melbourne.  The cross-platform broadcast on TV and Radio is the only one of its kind in Australia and Jack Post and Alex Ford (Jack and Fordy) seem certain to follow Channel 31s most famous son – Rove McManus, to success.

The talent and innovation coming from the new wave of community youth broadcasters will be a major influence on the radio industry in the next few years.