I had a good day yesterday, spent most of a very blue sky filled Sunday at the gallery, most of the time painting outside the front door while people came in to see the current Something Blue show we have on. Even the news that the gallery rent is to go up 'significantly', because "you're clearly doing well here and the Olympics is coming and the council is putting up the tax to pay for the Olympics, everything is going up to cover the cost of the Olympics but you'll be OK, you'll make loads of money out of people coming to the Olympics won't you, Vyner Street is really coming to life again, it is going to cost you more money to stay here, it such a good space you have, the rent will have to go up blahblahblah..." We never said we saw it as anything more than a six month experiment anyway.... Landlord needs to remember who it is putting a big slice of that life back in to the street and that the space was empty for months before we took on the challenge...
Anyway, yesterday was good, not even the idiot dishing out the abuse because we won't give him the gallery for three weeks for nothing so he can... nah enough of him. The biggest downside of this gallery experiment so far is the small handful of artists who think they're something big but don't actually seem to have any kind of body of work, who think they're doing you a favour by allowing you the honour of showing their work... Maybe he should go talk about the rent increase with the landlord and explain to Mr Landlord that there should be no rent because said artist deserves everything for nothing because he's an 'important artist" ... We're only just keeping this all alive as it is. Amazing how some people think just by calling themselves an artist they become more important than the rest of humanity and the world owes them a living... Tough thing keeping a gallery open and the walls exciting on a budget of nothing, tried explaining the maths but no, rich boy "art terrorist" thinks he had the right to our walls to do what the hell he wants with no consideration for others ans when we say no it doesn't quite work like that, he can post a load of rubbish about how... nah, enough. Most of the artists involved in the space so far, have been excellent, committed realists who love what they're doing and understand the harsh realities, the spirit and how we're trying to do it just a little differently...
Anyway, yesterday was a good day, not everyday you get to play one of your all time favourite records on the radio with one of the makers of said record sitting opposite you... It was a pleasure to have Gaye Black (AKA Gaye Advert) on the radio show talking is such an excited way about the art show she has curated and well as her musical enthusiasm and current love of black metal. The show, Punk and Beyond is on at the Signal Gallery in East London, loads of people from bands you love with their art, people from Crass, Devo, Subhumans, Husker Du, MC5 and loads more. We'll have a podcast of the interview/radio show up on line later, lots of interesting bits about how the exhibition at Signal came together and such
I met Gaye when she dropped by Cultivate a couple of weeks ago for Free Art Thursday, (with her friend Tina, from a rather good band of times past that we covered in Organ, a band called Suicide Milkshake). Must secretly say I was delighted when Gaye picked up one of the pieces I'd left out for Free Art Thursday. I probably shouldn't say it, don't want to embarrass anyone, but hey, I'm a fan, I loved The Adverts and especially the glories piece of musical energy that is One Chord Wonders (Gary Gilmore's Eyes always hit a spot as well, looking through someone else's cornea and all that, that song ran around my head lots in the eye hospital, sitting there waiting for someone to fall off their motorbike so I could have a piece of their eye they didn't need any more) .
So we got talking about the Punk and Beyond exhibition she was/is curating and what Punk and Beyond was all about (well we talked more about black metal bands...), so we invited her to come talk on our radio show on Resonance FM...
So yesterday was a good day, radio days are always good, and days down at the gallery when so many positive people come in to look and chat and ask and share are good. Great chat with Gaye both on and off air, the excitement of pulling together an art show, the difficulty of herding the artists, of having to trust the Royal Mail, of hanging the show in the right way and how draining it all is... and how exciting it all is... what a buzz showing other people's art is... well when the art and the people making it are worth the effort... sometimes it is just thankless stress..
So yesterday was a good day. Gallery doesn't open on Mondays, today is mostly about sorting out the next shows, doing the book keeping, the publicity, catching up with emails from artists, people interested in the artists, arguing with landlord about penalising the hard work we've put in to making Cultivate work by throwing the rent up over 30% and blaming it all on the Olympics and the fact that Vyner Street has a buzz again... and hopefully finding time to paint
Yesterday was a good day...
I wonder what I’ll paint for you tonight
Something heavy or something light
Something to set your soul alight
I wonder how I’ll answer when you say
‘We don’t like you – go away
Come back when you’ve learnt to....
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