Here's how it all went....
THE BRICK LANE ART CAR BOOT THING – 14th June, East London - Knee deep in art and selling still wet paintings at the Brick Lane Art Car Boot sale, the car park was packed, art and bodies and people and sunshine and music and drink, didn’t get much chance to explore (or drink, I was dehydrating there just out of reach of that bar!). Selling Organart was the task for the day, fund raising for Resonance FM (Resonance is an arts based radio station here in London, probably the only art radio station in the world, all run by us volunteers and reliant on your donations and money raised at events like this). The place is alive with names to drop – Sir Peter Blake is over there selling one off prints at a boot fair style bargainatious thirty quid, Vivian Westwood is said to be somewhere selling off-cuts made in to badges for s fiver, her “old crap” made in to badges that read “I love crap”, Gavin Turk with some tyre prints and taking the car boot idea literally with car parts as art, Ian Monroe’s wood and marble veneered Vauxhall hatchback look good – several cars have been customised, Pam Hogg is selling, William Tempest.... Bob and Roberta Smith were just over from our spot with some good looking slices of currency, apparently any denomination of Bob and Roberta notes will set you back £50.00, investment indeed if finding a bargain that almost certainly is going to set you back a lot lot more in a more formal gallery... There’s good looking art stimulation everywhere - Hick 454 is painting a big piece of graffiti landscape with monochrome spray paint (dare we say it looks a little Roger Dean?), Like what Miss Led has done to that new car... No time to really explore though, the object was a guerrilla raid and a bag of acrylic, Montana Gold (that’s cans of spray paint to you), brushes and a pile of board recovered from a skip outside a local photography studio last week.... Set up on the edge of the Resonance boot stall/VW camper/studio where they have a DJ set up and a small booth where people are paying five pounds a time to record a jingle for the station and Bob And Roberta Resonance FM fridge magnets are being sold (e.mail us if you’d like to buy one, they’re really good!).
Big old ghetto blaster radios graffiti style over the leaf paintings and a whole load of things organically growing over other things is the order of the day, the already finished ones (up all night, no sleep ‘till Brick Lane) sell just as soon as they’re pulled out of the big post office sacks that have been wrestled via the fractured Sunday morning tube system - just time to paint “Listen to Resonance 104.4FM” on them before they’re gone – encouraging start, this is fun.... This is fun! Could have been really stuck-up and well, you know... art galleries can be such inviting I’m cooler than you don’t talk to me places, especially over in East London, art-rage could have struck... This is relaxed fun though, people are coming up and talking as I sit there on the floor painting and spraying - one of the really pleasing things is the complete mix of people coming up and asking about the paintings and talking about what else they’ve seen, buying, questioning, asking about what I’m doing, about Resonance, telling tales of where they listen to their particular show – ‘ordinary’ people – yes I know there’s no such thing, but you get what I’m saying, I was expecting elite fashionista, this is far from it ... This is great fun, there’s live bands, dance troops, burlesque strippers and DJs on the main stage, they help give a carnival atmosphere to the proceedings - all kinds of interesting people - fashion, imagination, creativity, everything relaxed, people getting really in to the reality of buying one off pieces of art to enjoy... No idea how many times I was photographed or filmed while painting, everybody pointing cameras at everyone else, the whole event has become a piece of art... art and fun and a creative buzz and sunburnt goodness and dogs investigating wet paint in a very very colourful relaxed positive happy car park in East London – no art-rage here... Only wish I had had more time to explore and indeed to buy, must paint more... “I want that one when you finish it”. Thanks to everyone who bought a painting, or looked at one, or asked about one, all the money made went to funding the further activities Resonance FM...
And then it was off with almost empty sacks and just a couple of unfinished paintings and some almost empty cans of spray paint and over to London Bridge and the Resonance studio for the Sunday night Organ show. This really is a non-stop operation – a creative positive Sunday indeed.... Art is fun when it happens like this.... (S)
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www.artcarbootfair.com
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