K~nesis launch party!
The launch party was MADE OF AWESOME. Here are just a few of the things that made it one of the most exciting nights of my life EVER:
- My girl! Was beautiful! And everyone who met her for the first time commented on how her gorgeousness lived up to expectation! Which it totally does.
- My boy! Was pure hotness in a pinstriped suit, even if he was wearing a terrifyingly East End pork pie hat (FOR PIMPING). Anyway. He was so hot that people were interrupting their conversations to come over the room and tell him how hot he was. And I got to take him home afterwards. WIN.
- I went up to the bar and asked for a Smirnoff Ice, which I'd switched to drinking after my senses were overwhelmed by the farmiest perry in the world (I swear, it tasted like it came out of a cow. And no, not in the dairy sense). The barman looked at me blankly. "A what?"
"A Smirnoff Ice, please?" I gestured helpfully at my empty bottle.
"You want one of them?" His expression and tone of voice suggested that I might as well be asking for something that had come out of a cow.
"Um. Yes."
He exhaled, and I could sense him mentally re-ordering what he was about to say so that the stupid person would understand. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have a vodka, lime and soda, which is cheaper, nicer, and has more alcohol in it?"
I blinked. "Yes! Thankyou! Yes, you're right, that's exactly what I want."
"Would you like a lot of lime juice?"
"Yes, I would, very much. Thankyou."
He gave me an amused glance over his shoulder, shook his head minutely, and charged me the princely sum of two pounds for my drink. I wholeheartedly approve of barstaff who know their trade and aren't afraid to tell you when you're being stupid. Taking down consumer brands from the inside, y0.
- There was a journalist there! Like, an actual art reviewer type journalist asking questions and taking notes! In actual fact she was there TWICE, since Denny had already invited her after meeting her for drinks the other week (I hadn't met the girl before last night) - but then yesterday afternoon I replied to a job ad for a webdesigner to spruce up a new arts review site in London. The job was unpaid but they were offering artworks as trade, so I said I'd happily do a design in exchange for an artist profile page and a review of K~nesis. The webmistress emailled me back to say this sounded awesome and she'd call up her reviewer and ask her to go along. At which point, we discovered that the reviewer for the arts site was the same girl as the one Denny had invited. It's a very, very, tiny world. But I didn't mind ending up with one reviewer rather than two, because she was friendly and nice and excessively cute. Many thanks to painted_bird for turning up and seeming to like our art :)
- romauld turned up unexpectedly! Which was the best of both worlds, because it meant I got all the goodness of seeing him without any of the inevitable fretting and waiting for him to arrive if he'd warned me in advance. It was very very nice to see him.
- whatifoundthere WAS THERE OMG YOU GUYS EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. There was much joyous squealing accompanying our embrace. She is like TOTALLY ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS EVER and I haven't seen her for like a YEAR and OH MY GOD SHE IS IN ENGLAND. Words cannot express my yay.
- The guestlist was a HILARIOUS MIXTURE of friends old and new, lovers, exes, random livejournal people and relatives. WHICH IS ALWAYS FUN. My paternal uncle was there! Which was hilarious and also kind of sad, because he really, really didn't expect it to be somewhere as bohemian and graffiti-ridden as the Foundry and was expecting a posh, minimalist art gallery or something, and I tried very hard to make conversation with him but actually I don't have that much in common with him, really, at all. But it was lovely of him to make the effort to come, and I was genuinely touched. I just wished I could have helped him, you know, enjoy himself in the process. On the other hand my maternal aunt was there, whom my parents lost touch with years ago but whom I've recently re-befriended at my brother's wedding, and it was utterly lovely to see her, and she had an amazing time and was very talky and excitable and bought lots of art. So that's okay.
- The music was fantastic: kilinrax did an amazing job despite wonky decks and a DJ booth that made it impossible to gauge sound levels with any degree of accuracy. He changed his mind loads in advance about what he was going to play, and I'm not entirely sure how much the eventual playlist corresponded to any of the Grand Plans, but it was an awesome mix of funky tunes, so I was happy. At one point, someone commented that the party was "sort of like the Foundry, only with much better art and music than normal". I can testify that this was certainly true of the music.
- We sold stuff! Like, LOTS of stuff! An astonishing and unexpected amount of stuff! We sold:
The Enchanted Forest
Dragonflower (you see the bottom half of it in these photos; there's also a WIP shot from a few weeks ago here.)
Bird of Paradise (the orange and blue painting, which has a red and green hummingbird in the bottom left, although you can't see it that clearly. There's a pre-hummingbird WIP photo here.)
Polarity
Reflection (the red graffiti-style painting in the middle; also here)
Seahorse (the blue/purple painting on the left)
Seadragon (which spent the evening cunningly evading photocapture, but is the green and yellow painting lurking at the edges of these three pictures)
Solaris (the gold head in the foreground)
Arctura (a silver cybergoff head of which we have no photos yet, but which Kristen was very sad to see go)
Cruella (the black and white head with the tall feather)
... Which is 7 out of 11 paintings for sale (the two Planet Angel paintings aren't for sale) and three out of ten heads - almost half the whole exhibition given that the only other thing on show was the Inner Space sculpture. Overwhelmed is an understatement. I'm currently trying to convince myself that my friends aren't just doing this for the sole reason of being nice to me, but I guess that even if they are, that's still rather a fantastic compliment :) And the total sales so far runs to £1210 including a couple of discounts for friends who provided valuable assistance helping set up the exhibition. Which is really rather staggering, even minus expenses and divided between the two of us. SO! Everything sold will stay on show until Sunday 2nd, at which point we can start sorting out collection and suchlike. There are seven heads, four paintings and one life-size sculpture still going (the heads are a piffling £20 each), but to be perfectly honest I'll be quite happy if none of the other paintings sell, because I wants to keep them for my shiny new house. The rest of you can have prints or something. (Sorry, Kristen. Me and Squid are going to steal them.)
The two most popular paintings by far were Dragonflower and Bird of Paradise, and I'll almost certainly be doing a limited edition print run of those two paintings for all the people who missed their chance to own the originals. Denny reckons I should do some more bright, sharp, tropical flowers in oils along similar lines, but unless I'm working to a specific commission I'm bad at that kind of thing. I'd feel like I was ripping myself off. They'd feel derivative and second-rate, and if they didn't sell the whole experience would just be depressing. On the other hand, if anyone wants to specifically commission another tropical flower painting, that would be fine :) I'm also going to be doing a print run of Winged (the green/yellow painting on the right) and Floating since we've had at least one request for each so far, and we'll see how much demand there is for the others. And I'm very tempted to do some more paintings along the lines of Reflection simply because they're so much fun to do.
The exhibition is open until Sunday 2nd - if you're in or near London I'd be thrilled if you could find the time to go and see it one evening. The Foundry is an awesome venue - it's co-founded by Bill Drummond of the KLF, it has the most vibrant graffiti in Shoreditch and entire bank vaults downstairs filled with exciting art, and it serves locally-brewed organic beers which are highly recommended (although the perry comes with a health warning). We're going to be doing print runs of any painting people want prints of, so let me know if you want to put an order in. And if you can't make it, spread the word! :)
I spent most of the evening running around in an ecstatic daze, which increased to near-hysterical happiness when people started buying things. I drank lots of booze. I felt like I neglected everyone while trying to run around doing the host thing: I needed several clones, so one of them could spend the evening bouncing up and down and locking lips with my beautiful artistgirl, one could look after Denny, one could catch up with whatifoundthere, one could hug romauld all evening, and one could run around answering questions and taking payments for artworks and print orders and small-talking with all the lovely people who showed up and whom I wanted to spend time talking to. But there was only one of me, so instead I got drunk, squeed a lot, and ran around talking too fast and not knowing which way was up. Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!
MOAR PHOTOS:
a handy shelf near the ceiling on which we displayed heads! (the rest of them went on the windowsill around the sofa corner). Which was amazingly cool and convenient, apart from the hideous yellow colour.
Featuring: Heads! On Shelf! Polarity! The Dryad's Dream! Reflection! Friends! Strange mutant hanging doll things which are part of the Foundry and totally not actually our art!
The outer reaches of (inner) space.
kilinrax working his magic.
The light switch in the Ladies loos has "Click for end of world" written above it instead :)
Kristen's portrait of me! (I did the breasts.)
denari and glowfairy_199 looking unbelievably beautiful.
Full photoset by synthclarion is on Flickr here (and Facebook here).
Thankyou so much to:
- cuteevilpixie, for being the prettiest and shiniest artistlovergirl I could ever wish for, opening new doors in my art and self that open onto increasingly exciting adventures, and for consistently cheering me up when I'm stressed;
- dennyd, for limitless quantities of emotional, technical and financial support (including huge amounts of assistance with creating websites and printing and delivering flyers); for helping me, encouraging me, and generally being an absolute star whom I love more than I can say;
- romauld, for being there on the day it all started, and believing in us from the outset;
- flippit, for the snuggly Sundays, the lifts, the help with carrying, the art supplies, the chats and the sprawls (and the champagne!);
- squiddity, for the company, the generosity, the endless hours of hugging and talking bollocks, the platonic baths, the beautiful weekends, and for being interested in everything we paint;
- arachne for being a fiend with powertools and looking amazingly hot while wielding an electric hammerdrill;
- cokephreak, glamwhorebunni and strongtrousers, for letting us make a thorough mess of their flats on a regular basis;
- everyone who bought our art! Eeee!
- all our friends who have put up with us over the last few weeks, especially the ones who were there on Wednesday looking like they were enjoying themselves. You are awesome. <3