Getting Revved Up for Speakers Corner

Today I finished nineteen 7 x 5 inch oil on canvas paintings that were all half finished last night. Here's a video of them:

I’ll online auction one of today’s in a few weeks when they’re dry. If it does well, I’ll start making auctions a weekly thing. For now though, I’m in no rush to upload more listings until I figure out what’s causing some of my parcels to be refused at US customs. A few are on their way to America now, and the enquiry my courier company is doing into the refused ones is on-going. I don’t have a great deal of confidence in it, as they emailed me yesterday to say they’ve closed my enquiry as their records show the parcel was delivered. Yes, it was delivered…back to me. I’ve asked them to re-open it.

It was only slightly raining so I took the bus down to Camden this evening to get some cardboard. I go just after the shops have closed and cut up the big boxes they put out for the bin men. I use it for packaging and as a cheap and sturdier alternative to stretched canvas. Cardboard’s so expensive online, I’d probably make more money closing the art shop and just selling the raw cardboard. I must be scavenging over £100’s worth of cardboard every time.

Sat on the 134 bus from Muswell Hill down to Camden Town, I started writing a speech I’ll be delivering at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. The speech is very slightly a joke, but not really. If my speech was a joke it would be a passive aggressive bad one with a chip on its shoulder. It’s better to do it 100% serious, which I will. It’s no joke, but with me reading it and, if I can convince her, Emma filming, and the placards I’m making for it, I’m sure people will think it’s some prank like most people do, our band. The idea for giving this speech was inspired the other day by a friend posting the following instruction on Instagram “...in future don’t support people who want to create barriers for political gain.” I’m sure it was meant as a light-hearted throw away comment, but….consider it done! I’ll no longer be supporting the people who want to create barriers for a side-project Billy Childish and I have been collaborating on for the last thirteen years called Heckel’s Horse, regardless of any political gain the backenders might have at stake. So far, draft one of the speech is looking pretty impressive.

Hiding the full catalogue of Heckel's Horse paintings from the world is 100% the anti-art the STUCKIST MANIFESTO lambasted at great length, and that Billy co-wrote with another of my friends Charles. Billy and I have been frustrated by the lack of movement Heckel’s Horse has been allowed, and Billy’s been trying to move things along I’m sure, more than I know. But so far, to little avail. Never fear HECKEL’S HORSE JR’s here.

My grand-father worked in education and used to say “There’s more politics in education than there is in politics.” Wouldn’t surprise me if the same’s true of art, as I’ve had a glimpse of how the Commercial Art people involved with Heckel’s Horse operate. Not much, but enough to put me off being represented by anyone involved. FREE ART FREES ART’s the way. No being told what you can and can’t do all the time. You can’t exhibit this painting, but have you got another of that one? Maybe in a green and slightly smaller? We need some options for the space above our client's mantlepiece. Sound like a total nightmare? Never fear, FREE ART FREES ART’s here!

I’ll write more about the speech in future posts, but it’s bedtime now. I’m painting at Billy’s studio tomorrow so have to be up early. The Speakers Corner speech will be delivered and video recorded online, hopefully before I leave for Thailand later this year. It considers any kind of suppression or misrepresentation of the truth as a “barrier”, and the Commercial Art world as “politics”. People playing career chess with our art, at the cost of the artistic principles clearly laid out by Billy and Charles in the STUCKIST MANIFESTO, are considered people creating barriers for political gain. There’ll be a section on misattribution, and more than a couple of paragraphs on Ted Kessler’s book. All these things are barriers created where political gains are made in ways that I think need addressing. My friend was right to tell me not to support them in future. Those days are now over.