505: BUY, ART, BUY

I wish I had the money to collect art; it's long been an ambition of mine. Occasionally I manage to get the odd piece here and there: I have a print by Gareth Hacking (a.k.a Cardboard Kid), given to me as a gift, for which I owe him a piece in return. The print by Gareth is of a skeleton in silhouette; its skull inverted and swapped positions with its pelvis. I also have a unique and original Cardboard Kid stored in a shoe box alongside myriad postcards and business cards. I have many artists' post/business cards which could be considered limited edition print runs. In my "collection" there are drawings by my niece and the children of other friends and relatives, art books, old prints (some original, others reproductions), etcetera, etc, &c.

The above paragraph was just preamble to this:

Want to own a piece of "art", in the form of a lovely postcard featuring my signature "Octus" octopus drawing? Well now you can by clicking the link on the right of the page; what lucky boys and girls you are! In our house there are octopuses everywhere, most notably the one tattooed on my arm, but also the prints and paintings on the walls, and the cuddly toys all over the shop. I get at least one octopus thing every Christmas. The original drawing (as reproduced on the postcard and my twitter profile) is in a sketchbook I bound myself using found paper; damn I'm such a fucking hipster.

I've already sold one!  Huzzah!  Thanks to Michael Thorp, the Manchester based illustrator and designer; yes, that's him, the fellow who made the banner for this blog.  He's a good lad that Michael Thorp.  Go and have a look at his website now.

In final art buying news:

Get down to BLANKSPACE this Saturday and buy a bit of art.  It's to raise money for independent artists, what with the government not bothering with it anymore.  I'll be there, and it's the day after pay day.

Saturday 28 January 2012, 3pm - 10pm

BLANKSPACE, 43 Hulme Street, Manchester, M15 6AW

We’re opening the doors to BLANKSPACE this New-Year for Blank Media Collective’s January Sale!

The January Sale is your chance to walk away with an original work of art and support further artistic development in Manchester and the UK. Each artwork has been kindly donated by artists and practitioners from Manchester, the North West and across the UK. All funds will go towards supporting Blank Media Collective’s 2012 exhibitions programme.

Come down to BLANKSPACE on Saturday 28 January to peruse the collection of original artwork available for auction or purchase artist books, prints and postcards from our January Sale Shop.

With live music from the Manchester’s very own foot-stomping lyrical genius Black Jack Barnett throughout the evening, this is a great chance to kick back, relax and buy some contemporary art.

Our live auction will take place at BLANKSPACE onSaturday 28 January from 7pm and is open to all. Visitors can bid for original contemporary artwork whilst investing in the future of arts in Manchester.

If you are unable to attend the live auction, silent bids can be made from 3pm the same day.
The January Sale is the place to go for original artwork ranging from paintings, sculpture, prints, books, photography, illustration from both established and emerging practitioners from Manchester and beyond. Start or continue your growing collection of contemporary artworks with Blank Media Collective.

344: Pulpo, postcards and Powers

On the hunt for tourist tat of a certain satisfied quality – an intangible enjoyment in the crap yet strangely appropriate ; postcards and fridge magnets are my too main joys. From a nearby extremely Englishified seafrontah I obtained a choice selection of this and that, tit and tat : postcards ; an image of sardines skewered on spikes and barbequing in white ashes, an uncalledfor caption reads Torremolinos transforming a beautiful picture into pure tat ; two dramatic black and white postcards, one showing the extreme Spanish masculinity of a bullfighting matador cooly sweeping aside a goring bull, the second is of Spanish femininity, a flamenco dancer with arms held high and dress spinning widely ; a third in black and white is an 'ilarious image of a painted wall indictating the directions to male and female servicios, while in the foreground a dog marks his servicios by pissing on a wall ; in the 1800's three hatted ladies in sepia tip-toe out of the sea while holding up their long dresses to knee-level , but in the 2000's three topless touchy-feely thong-wedgied women gaze toward the horizon ; in Costa del Sol a shivering man on a sunny beach shits in a fridge ; and evolution becomes mainly about the importat developments of tits, long hair, and high heels.

In other places, whose names have temporarily escaped me, along the Costa del Sol I have aquired a Spanish style fan which partially fell apart after less than one hour, some Gibraltar postcards and a fridge magnet (more about that later), a bottle opener/sardine barbeque fridge magnet, a fantastic white sun hat with a black band, and two new octopuses for my collection (both cuddly, three euro each from Carrefour, one is named Pulpo Paul and has the look of Zig and Zag about it). Aside from all that crap I have one bottle of Powers, bought in Gibraltar, as my duty-free allowance.

Imagine you were in Spain, perhaps visiting the country for the first time – maybe even it is your first visit abroad. You are looking for that one idea souvenier of your brave voyage - hurled hundreds of miles through the air in a gigantic steel bird, immersed in a strangly familiar, yet disturbingly different culture – what single item could you take home to best remember your times abroad? You trawl the countless souvenire shops stocked largely with the same stuff – postcards, paper-weights, snow globes, plaques, bells, Haribo, international newspapers, t-shirts...

You stop at the t-shirts... What a great idea ; with a t-shirt you could both remember your travels and advertise to strangers that you have been somewhere. Maybe the strangers haven't been there, and they might experience jealousy. You look through the racks of Spanish bull t-shirts, someone went to Spain and all I got was this lousy t-shirt t-shirts, beach babes, place names, local symbols, sun, sea and sand – all emblazoned on t-shirts. And then you come across one grander than them all – what better way to remember those blissfull few days spent in the sun of Southern Spain than a t-shirt baring the image of a squidgy alien smoking a joint next to a pot leaf. Yes, this must be the ideal souvenir – unless you buy this you will entirely forget every enjoyable moment abroad. I didn't buy it.

338: Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor

My parents returned from their London / Northern Spain adventures with the customary books, postcards, ephemera, and fridge magnet collectables – all the stuff to decorate my white goods, and to store in my shoeboxes. A year or so ago they went to Peru and brought me amazing masks and a traditional (or possibly "tourist-traditional") decorative rug. But as amazing as Peru and Machu Picchu sounds, they can and will never be as amazing as Poo. Poo is a quaint little town somewhere in Spain ; and it's called Poo. I'm sure it's lovely.

Forget about their travels to places I've never been and would love to visit – forget about the food they ate and the things they saw. Let's focus on one thing they brought back. It came from either Bath or London, I can't remember, and it's called Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor by Mervyn Peake. I'm amazed I've never heard of this book before – the artwork is so weird and so strong, but the story is pure odd.

A pirate captain and his crew discover a strange yellow man-thing on an island whom they take on board. The captain becomes infatuated with the yellow man-creature, whose only words ar "yo-ho!" During his infatuation he leads his entire crew to their death (which is not shown and completely glossed over), then he returns to the island and lives happily ever after with his little yellow fellow. It seems to be a very strange love story ; but may easily be much more or much less.

The little yellow fellow seems innocent, but I suspect he-it somehow engineered the death of the crew, and had a selfish or sinister reason to bring the captain back to his island. Is it a love story or a terrible tale of obsessive control? It looks wonderful, but leaves a disgusting suspicious feeling in the hole of one's soul.

The story ends on the back cover with a jittery hand-written legend "the end of the story". The captain sits at a table holding a caught fish in one hand and a beer in the other. His face is a demented empty-headed grin ; a lobotomised rictus. The little yellow fellow stands naked and hairy, leaning against the table. In one hand he casually rests a longbow. He peers at the dumb face of the captain, with a triumphant expression ; possessive and victorious. Seriously sinister.

Mervyn Peake is completely new to me ; although I have heard of Gormanghast I have never read it, seen it, heard it, or whatever it. I have no idea what it is or what it's about. I thought it was some crappy BBC costume drama. Now I am heavily inclined to suspect it is more than that, or completely something different ; something worth investigating.

313: BLACKPOOL - Wish you were here?

Blackpool today, and I got through ten handy-packs of Kleenex and had to resort to stealing loo roll.  (Compulsory retort to obvious masturbatory-themed joke, “Yes, it was that exciting”.)  Crippled by a summer cold/severe hayfever, but the jolly uplifting fun of Blackpool still allows me to say C’est la vie and live and let live to the cold virus and the plant pollen.  Aside: no it doesn’t; despite the fun of Blackpool I still cry death to common colds and all anemophilous plant species.  But, erm?  Oh, yes... Blackpool!

Things I saw in Blackpool

• As we were arriving the car in front had a Blackpool FC scarf which boasted We Are Premier!  No you’re not mate.  Get with the now granddad.

• Moments after parking the car we saw our first hen do.  The oldies walked with their sashes reading mother of the bride, mother of the groom, and the like.  The youngies trailed behind with their bride to be and bridesmaid sashes.  All wore blue denim skirts, black tops, and pink deely-boppers.  We turned the corner and outside the first B&B we passed, sat a stag-do drinking blue WKD with their breakfast.  Welcome to Blackpool!

• Of course everywhere we looked there were stag and hen parties, all dressed to match one another, and all having a huge time in the North West’s capital of the pre-nuptial celebration.  One group of young women were dressed from head to toe in black robes; sort of like a shapeless colourless sheet, that even covered their heads and faces leaving only a small slit for the eyes.  They weren’t wearing sashes so I couldn’t tell which one was getting married.

• You now have to pass through security scanners and undergo a bag search to get into Blackpool Pleasure Beach; bit weird.  They confiscated my spanner which I had cruelly calculated to throw into the works.  As it turns out I didn’t need to, as the heat was doing its best to shut down all the rides.

• In the queue for the Big One a large dark-haired woman in a black flowered summer dress had an entire ‘knitted’ sleeve of self-harmed scar tissue, unbroken from shoulder to wrist.  And she wasn’t even close to being the weirdest looking person there.  No offence Blackpool, but your gene pool is dangerously shallow.  There are a lot of sand-scraping knuckles, Neanderthal brow-ridges and overly hairy faces... and that’s just the women... the orange women...

• A spectacularly good collection of seaside postcards.

• Hot dogs, fish and chips, ice cream, chips and gravy, candy floss, seagull, cockles, muscles, whelks and oiks.  Snotty tissues.