Really positive response...

Really positive response to the collective ideas, Affordable Art Fair and gallery space... Really don't like looking at art on line, must be done though and there;s some genuinely exciting connections being made, some artists I'm really excited about sharing space with. Really looking forward to exhibiting and sharing some of the work I've seen during late night web surfing sessions in the last few days

The first Organ currated Affordable Art Fair will happen at Patrick's Harvist cafe and gallery space here in London NW10 (Kensal Rise) in the second week of June. Looks like an opening view on Thursday 10th June, and then the fair runs through to the 13th with bands, music and good people upstairs in the cafe area, and... Exciting!

First artist invites have gone out, people are booking spaces, coming back to me with ideas and really getting the spirit of what I'm trying to do. True, it probably is Organgrinding again, with artists rather than bands and records and those awful creatures called booking agents that you have to deal with when you're putting gigs on though... Proper DIY and creative people pulling together...

So I put the word out about collectives, people started replying... lots of people... so I typed out some words, far too many words... and sent them to everyone, I'll put that reply here, so everyone can read it...

Here it is.....

Hello,

First let me apologise for this general (lengthy) generic e.mail, don’t really want to be this impersonal or indeed this long-winded, needs must though, there’s suddenly a lot of art-shaped enquires and gallery e.mail flying my way. This is in response to your e.mail about either the new gallery space or the idea about an arts collective that I recently threw out there on to the web...

The information here is for you to use and respond to. I’m open to all ideas, all suggestions and whatever you wish to throw back at me, come get involved please, start a dialogue...

I’m Sean Worrall (although some of you may know me as Sean O in indeed Sean Organ),

A BIT OF BACKGROUND... Organart was a small group of painters, sculptors, film-makers and animators with a shared love of underground alternative music and the culture that evolved around that music. The collective started in the late 80’s, started by a small group of then art students. It included an alternative music magazine called Organ that gained quite reputation during the 90’s and the early part of this century. I won’t bore you with all the history now, but Organ and indeed Organart has evolved and carried on in one successful form or another right through to today. The approach has always been DIY, a alternative punk ethos, a roll up your sleeves and get it done attitude, a creative outlook all fuelled by the contradictions of a fine art background and a whole lot of street art, punk, Factory aesthetics, (both Warhol and Manchester versions) an occasional bit of healthy high art pretentiousness and... well...

Along the way (as Organart) we’ve made A series of TV shows, radio shows (we’ve had a weekly show radio on London arts station Resonance FM for a few years now). We ran a rather successful alternative record label, we’ve put on art shows as well as something like a thousand alternative rock gigs featuring various shades of bands in venues both big and small, all over London... Not really wanting to turn this in to a life history, just filling you in with some background so you get a vague idea as to who I am and where I’m coming from here...

Over the last couple of years I’ve scaled back pretty much all my musical activity, we’ve closed the record label, stopped putting on live gigs, scaled down the Organ magazine and I’ve gone back to my real passion - throwing paint at canvas, at cardboard, at the occasional wall. Organart still exists but scaled right back to a core of two of us originals, myself and Animator and fellow Resonance radio DJ Marina Anthony, along with one or two contributors, collaborators and such...

I’ve been painting quite frantically over the last two years, exhibiting in East London galleries, the occasional West London space, street events, art fairs, experiencing the same frustrations as everyone else in terms of galleries, the rules and such... Last week I threw up some on-line postings revolving around the idea of pulling together a loose coalition of artists - a new collective of motivated creative people to share ideas, share potential gallery space, to throw thoughts around, to combine and exchange information, experiences and resources...

Since I originally posted about the collective idea there’s been quite a few developments. Last week I went to check out some new gallery space over here in Kensal Rise, London NW10. I went in there with the idea of maybe just hiring the place and putting on my own show or maybe a group show for a potential collective or just a few like-minded art-makers... Came out with the (unpaid) job of gallery manager with freedom to run the space full time and to (within reason and with respect paid to the cafe upstairs..) do whatever I want in terms of putting on shows and inviting people it....

Not really sure if I wanted to be pulled in so far in terms of actually running a gallery, kind of got excited about the possibilities now though... And we do have lots of experience, we kind of know a little about what we’re doing in terms of PR, promotion and running events. (I’ve been rather shocked to see how artists are treated by galleries, agent and such here in London, I thought the music industry was bad but...)

THE GALLERY SPACE is underneath a really friendly cafe and venue called Patrick’s Harvist here in Kensal Rise, NW10 - 45 Chamberlayne Road if you curious, go have a look if you want, space is there now, coffee is good in the cafe, basement space is open although I will point out the the lighting in gallery needs some work right now and the way the current work is hung (and not really publicised) has nothing to do with us, we don't start doing things our way until until June).

I want to hit the ground running and get things rolling while the people who’ve offered the space and chance are still excited. I like to have lots of good energy and excitement running around these things – apathy is an enemy, we like to get things done here... So we’re going to start with something simple, something that will hopefully excite the owners, the public and the art community around here...


AFFORDABLE ART FAIR

We’re planing a three day “Affordable Art Fair” straight away. Date is second weekend of June, (before the football World cup distracts everyone). Three days of events, music, art fair in the gallery space downstairs (in terms of music, for those who know me and have listened to my radio shows, no it won’t be hard-boiled experimental punk rock noise, think more alt.folk acousticness, jazz...).

Space at the fair is available right now for people who want to get involved and maybe want to sell a piece of work or two.... this is very much a fine art thing, not so much a craft thing, there is a regular craft/vintage fair event being planed (indeed the first one happened last Saturday), so people who want to know about that ask me and I’ll give you the details of the people who are running that...

Right now, right away I want people who want to come be involved in having work in the Affordable art fair.

Dates: private view Thursday evening, 10^th June (art in the gallery space, events, wine, beer and such upstairs), open all day until around 10pm on Friday, with things happening upstairs on the Friday evening. Fair all day until late night on Saturday with outside daytime events in the garden space and things happening outside on the street (the gallery and cafe is on the main Kensal Rise high street – 45 Chamberlayne Road, at the top of Portobello, just over from Queens Park - interesting area, lacking in art right and ready for something like this. Latest James Bond was in the cafe yesterday, the area has become rather fashionable in the last couple of years, I suspect there may just be a few people who’d like to buy original pieces of exciting art around here.


So we kick off with the AFFORDABLE ART FAIR, and if that works and everybody is happy, we do more. Wheels are already in motion in terms of a follow up in the form of a two week group show for later in June, so talk to me about that as well, and then... more shows, more fairs, more.... I want to get people excited about the space, then we can do more and more, group shows, solo shows, 3d, photography, sculpture...

First things first, who wants to know more about the fair? Who fancies some space? We have 14 space available... get back for more details


THE COLLECTIVE IDEA? Still figuring that one out, kind of got overtaken by the gallery space this week... Feel free to come back to me with your ideas about the collective, I’m going to put a blog page up where people can post and bounce ideas about, post their thoughts and such... For now, I’ve put some thoughts on my “No Organgrinding Here” personal blog, feel free to go add comments and make yourself know to others if you wish


Right, time to pull together the Affordable Art Fair, who wants more details? I know you're now wondering about the cost, I'll be right up front, yes there will be a small (and I hope reasonable) fee for each artist involved, to cover the rent, the posters, the flyers, the PR, the time spent looking after the show and such... I'm looking at no more that 25.00 per artist... come back if you want to know more...

Sean Worrall