Spring has finally arrived. The first of the tulips are out in the garden, the ones I planted three years ago, a bag of bulbs a that were a gift from a friend that keeps on giving. They’re a bright almost fluorescent red, like a flare. The signal that Winter is finally over. This year they’re dovetailing with a new edition, huge bulbs sunk into the ground in November ‘Dinnerplate’ Narcissus. The soft buttery yellow tones of these fancy Daffs are delicious. The Daffs you see in the park are nice, but they’re more like the colour of Anchor Spreadable, a slightly sickly yellow. These guys are like that churned butter you get at a fancy restaurant, topped with a bit of sea salt, ready to get spread over some sourdough and be devoured.
It’s still grey as fuck out there though. Heavy cloud every day has meant a muggy, sweaty start to Spring. The tree blossom in London is one urban life’s great natural events, you could have David Attenborough narrate it its that good. But its very short, and some years it falls in a fortnight of cloud. This is one of those years. Its Spring in the streets, but not in full HD. Which feels appropriate after this long, damp, depressing Winter. You can’t come up too soon from those depths into the light, you’d get the bends. Nature knows best.
Thankfully, one of the big joys of having a garden is that I know that this is just the start. When the vanguard of signal flare tulips sadly fall there are whole regiments waiting to take up the banner. I’ve got my first attempt at a tulip lasagne thats been slow cooking since December to look forward to. It’s made up of bulbs exclusively from the ‘Rembrandt’s Strokes’ collection of tulips from Farmer Gracy. It still needs a few more weeks in the oven to crisp up but the signs are good.
I’ve been especially excited for this Spring not just because that was perhaps the worst Winter I can remember for me mentally but also because this is the first Spring I can observe through my big new vista. The fruit of last year’s whole ground floor renovation of my house is about to be enjoyed. A German made floor to ceiling glass and aluminium sliding door, powder coated in a powder blue, that I spent ten grand of my dead Dad’s money sticking on the back of my house is now the view I get to enjoy Spring from.
This is an astronomical upgrade on the old view out into Spring. For four years I saw it through a tired old PVC window and door. It had a frame that the previous owners had bizarrely decided to paint with gloss white emulsion which had turned a dirty grey colour. Next, a metre away from this rank old PVC there was a floor to ceiling security gate, a huge cage locking you in and away from entering the garden. I really hated that thing. I spent a week in the early days of the first lockdown scraping off the flaking black paint and redecorating it white to take the edge off. I grew plants up it as well. But it was always just a massive cage, it made you feel imprisoned and totally separate from the delights of the garden.
Now we’re free though. Now we can see clearly and enter the garden with ease. The shackles are off, and the house to shed connection has improved immeasurably. So what should I do with this new found freedom? Look, and look properly. The best way to really look at something it to try and draw it.
This Thursday morning, when the sun briefly burst through the clouds I slid open the glass door with a sketchbook and my coffee in my hands to sit on pebbles and try to draw these Dinnerplate Daffs. It wasn’t the best drawing I’ve ever done but it was a start. And it made me look, understand and appreciate the structure of these buttery flowers in a way that an iphone snap never would have done.
Back in the depths of Winter between Christmas and New Years when I was thinking about what my plan for 2024 would be I could only come up with one idea I felt set on: a ‘shedidency’ in Spring. I’ve never worked out of the shed. The inside wasn’t finished until the end of Summer 2022, and last year I was out of house from April to August while the renovations were happening. Winter is no go in there. And thanks to all the people who’ve ordered a print from me in March, April is looking like for the first time in a long time I can financially support myself to play around for a few weeks. Its finally my time to take up as an artist in residence in my own shed. The shedidency is on.
Life as a professional artist who makes most of his living from selling prints is similar to being a professional gambler. I laid out close to three grand at the bookies for that new Fail We May Sail We Must edition, emptying my current account and paying for all the gold leaf on a credit card. The form book was good, that edition has sold out four years in a row, but I don’t know my horse is going to come in until it actually does. There’s a lot of pressure and anxiety wrapped up in that. Not great for the creative process. Now, with the money in bank from a good day at the races its time to lay down some more bets. The wheels are in motion to bring back one of my other classic print editions: the Test Card F. That’s another big but relatively safe bet. Its important to also lay down some of my winnings on a few long shots.
Exhibitions are long shots. For an independent artist like me they can easily cost you a few grand that you don’t make back. Recent experience has taught me its much better to not look at them as too much of a commercial enterprise. If things sell then great, but really you want them to be free and explorative spaces to execute big exciting ideas that are going to help you grow creatively. If you can’t afford that gamble, don’t place the bet. You just end up stressed and make work that is compromised creatively under that pressure. That’s effectively what happened to me with my last show in November. By the end of it I was broke and burnt out, I don’t want to repeat those mistakes this year.
I’ve got my first exhibition for 2024 coming up in May at Velorose Gallery near the Barbican. Its a gallery with a deeply shed-like quality to it. Birch plywood panelled walls line a space that is only a couple of metres wide. It has a tiny and unassuming front, towered over by its Brutalist neighbour. Its the perfect place to display the results of this planned shedidency.
I don’t think the final exhibition should be just of drawings like the one I did this week. The aforementioned dead Dad visited me in a dream recently and told me in dramatic fashion to make a film. That’s what pushed me to stop being awkward and make the lecture film I created for launch of the new ‘Fail We May Sail We Must’ which I really enjoyed doing. So I’m thinking another film piece is in order and this dinky little gallery is ideal for projection. I could make my own two bit rip off of the David Hockney Bigger & Closer show in Kings Cross: ‘The Frankenshed 3D’ - an immersive experience. I’m only half joking. For now though, as Hockney would surely approve, we must begin by looking and drawing.
Because this show is going to be part of Clerkenwell Design Week I needed to give it a title very early for all the press application forms you need to fill out to be part of a festival like that. This isn’t ideal, really you want to spend some time exploring some broad ideas before nailing yourself to a title. I needed something that’s vague enough to not box me in too soon, but still intriguing and eye catching. So I went with: ‘Windows Into Spring: a Shedidency’ which I think gives me a good degree of flexibility.
I’ve got a new range of affordable print editions dropping next Thursday the 28th of March. Lovely little initials from my Alphabet of Art project. So keep your eye out for the next email launching them. And know that any print you buy from me helps me to breathe and explore and expand creatively. You get something beautiful to hang on your walls or give to a friend and I get to spend the morning sitting on cold pebbles drawing big Daffodils, isn’t that nice?
Dice rolls and spring bulbs. Thoroughly enjoyed this x