Following the Gateshead Open Studios 2018 pilot, I was feeling good. I’d pulled off what I felt was a decent public arts event, on a shoe-string budget, but with a lot of hard work to make it happen! As a learning experience, it was great, but also I knew to ensure it could feasibly continue for another year and beyond, I’d need some more help with funding as well as planning.

One of my venue contacts put me in-touch with an opportunity to pitch what I’d done to Ballinger Charitable Trust, who were holding an event in St Chad’s church. I prepped some slides, and walked in, feeling confident. It was quite a quick pitch, the guys seemed to already be aware of what I’d done, and before I’d even left, I had secured a small pot of funding to help for the next event… Amazing!

To finish the year out, we held a small Christmas social with everyone from Brighton Road Studios. Bobzilla, one of our resident artists, had also just started a new venture taking over a local cafe in Gateshead called Arch 16. We booked this for our venue, it was a small intimate size, and they organised food and drinks for us all. It was also at this moment that Christoph, another resident architect of Brighton Road, also announced his plans to move back to his home country of Germany in 2019, having been offered a great job opportunity, but also feeling concerns for the instability that was Brexit! As one of the longest-serving tenants and actual architect who designed our studios, (converting a former church to modern artist spaces) it was a sad moment to reflect on. Christoph was a really warm, welcoming character and knowing he was off, meant the original heart and soul of Brighton Road Studios was leaving us.

Starting off 2019, I had already spoken to my friend Helen, who had plenty of project-management experience with arts events, so I asked her to help me plan the next Open Studios. Together she helped me form a schedule of activities, that I don’t think I would have considered by myself. This year was all about seeking more help. Last year I’d thrown myself into it single-handedly, possibly foolishly, but to some degree pulled it off - but I incurred some costs, and it was hard work. I realised I needed to designate more.

Helen was one such person, who was clearly more experienced at arts & event planning - quickly formulating logical timelines. She crucially had a pretty decent idea about budgeting and estimating costs too. We quickly came to the conclusion that there wasn’t enough money to really cover all the ideal activities that would be needed to properly market this event. We discussed it, and decided to give crowd-funding a try. We had heard of an online platform called Spacehive - and so went about setting up our web page. As part of this I began creating a promotional video - using the photography from 2018, but also getting kind permission from local musical act Talk Like Tigers to use some of their music. I also sourced some clips of free film footage from Pexels, as well as footage of the Brighton Road artists waving from our studio staircase at the end. Anyway the finished video I made is below:

Helen began to get market research feedback from local and national arts contacts. This really helped with clarifying our event’s marketing messaging around the local arts & historical venues combo, whether people might be willing to invest in such an event and their views on the video I’d made also.

In between preparation for the next Open Studios, I was still making some new art too. I was really feeling influenced by more of an ‘abstract’ style - this included some small & large pieces of quick bright mark-making, leading to the creation of some artwork for the first single by Talk Like Tigers (link opens in Spotify) called Fruit - which in turn was the music I’d go onto use in the Gateshead Open Studios promo video.

I started to create some new works which had more abstract marks combined with more traditional-style drawings. This included more skeleton-related works such as a skeleton tattoo artist - working on the arm of a young man, screaming in pain - the tattoo being inked onto the main figure was an Instagram story of himself screaming whilst getting a tattoo. There was also a diptych of a woman I found from a 1950s Coca-cola advert, but instead of Coke her substitute drink was going to be red wine, and to contrast I did a skeleton version - almost like an x-ray view. I also just did some quick drawings from my sketchbook straight onto a wooden canvas. I was just taking more random ideas from sketchbook into larger pieces - I’m not totally sure where these ideas come from - I think if you look back, they’re all influenced in a way by either modern fiction, current events or just references to everyday modern life.

Skeleton tattoo artist, sketchbook drawings no.1 and Red Wine Diptych — *Skeleton tattoo artist*, *sketchbook drawings no.1* and *Red Wine Diptych*

Another piece that emerged in late spring was The Gateshead Grey - based on a random alien sighting video I discovered on Youtube via a friend. The strange thing was how it was based on events in Bensham itself, with a gentleman being interviewed about his experiences of seeing mysterious creatures in the 1940s. The story was very far-fetched, but enough to inspire me to create an artwork dedicated to this bizarre story.

Early moodboards made to help develop the Gateshead Grey painting

Back on Open Studios prep - I was invited to go onto BBC Newcastle Radio which was exciting - I’d never been interviewed on radio before, so was fun to just have a chat about what I’d been up to with Gateshead Open Studios, and the hope was it might be good further promotion too. I also got some events coverage in local North-East arts and culture magazines Narc & Crack too.

Over the summer, I noticed a call-out on Instagram for local artists to join a month-long summer exhibition run by Hoast Arts. Anyway I got in-touch, and was selected to include a few pieces in a new arts/cafe in Tynemouth called Bistro Du Parc. The owner Viviane and her events coordinator Beth J Ross (another local artist) were very kind, and both were trying to give local artists a platform. It also gave the cafe a regular monthly exhibition. In June their first multi-artist summer exhibit took place, and it was a really busy turn-out at the private view. I ended up selling one of my works by the end of the month - which was a framed Skeletons at the Club limited edition print.

Bistro Du Parc, Tynemouth, Summer Exhibition, June 2019

In my artwork, there’s certain specifics that just seem to be a constant influence, maybe from childhood or watching too many scary films when I was young, but there’s always been a nostalgic element to most works. During University in early noughties, I discovered David Lynch’s films - and not until 2019, I began to read his biography. It was through this that I realised what a prolific artist he was, including his love for painting - and it really resonated with me - the fact that he had a successful career as a film director & writer, but actually if he could, would probably just be a painter, and he loved doing it every single day. I purchased one of his artist books, and I this in turn inspired me to do a quick abstract dark painting. It was a ghostly trees picture, but with quick abstract markings on the tree tops - almost giving the trees a slap of make-up.

David Lynch autobiography, artist book and a painting inspired by his work. — *David Lynch* autobiography, artist book and a painting inspired by his work.

I also had more help this year from other artists in Brighton Road with social media postings, as well as some contact from a couple of new venues. A new wood workshop business based in Dunston got in-touch and I thought it would be great to include them. The other change this year was that St Cuthbert’s Church couldn’t open on Sunday, due to regular church services, however my contact from there called Jayne had taken on a new community project at 18 Brinkburn Avenue in Gateshead - a former florists called Lily Starbrights, but was now being rebranded as Made in Bensham. This would be opening on the Sunday to host some craft-making activities.

The Gateshead Open Studios venues - including two new additions, plus the flyer/map produced for visitors — The *Gateshead Open Studios* venues - including two new additions, plus the flyer/map produced for visitors

Complications of planning a full weekend event was that not all venues from 2018 could open on both the Saturday & Sunday - which in hindsight made the planning and marketing tricky. This is something I now look back on and would insist if doing it again, that everyone who takes part can be open on both days of the event, as otherwise it’s too complicated for the public to follow which venue is open/closed each day.

Gateshead Open Studios took place on October 26-27th. It went ok, but I’d be lying if I say I was a little disappointed at the turn-out, after all the hard work, extra organising, marketing etc. The visitor numbers were not as high as the 2018 pilot, but steady across both days, poor weather had an effect for sure. I spoke to the other artists afterwards… I think despite lower numbers, everyone still enjoyed it, and it’s something that we have to persevere with… events such as Ouseburn Open Studios took many many years to organically grow - it’s now been going for 25 years! We still have a long way to go!

Music artwork created for Talk Like Tigers — Music artwork created for *Talk Like Tigers*

More Talk Like Tigers music single artwork followed in October for their second single Move, with another single quickly following in November for a song called Diamonds. There was them starting to emerge now using abstract paint but referring movement or shapes within the music.

Bistro Du Parc decided to put on a Winter Exhibition, which again I got involved in. Again the late November (2019) event was a really nice celebration of local artists in the community and the private view was another busy one.

Bistro Du Parc, Tynemouth, Winter Exhibition, November 2019 and early development of a large painting of trainspotters — *Bistro Du Parc*, Tynemouth, Winter Exhibition, November 2019 and early development of a large painting of trainspotters

As the year was drawing to a close, influenced by current events, this lead me to create some work based on rainforest fires - but I went for the juxtaposition of using a famous black & white milkman photo from the blitz you’ll surely recognise if you saw it, but having him walk through a rainforest instead. I also began a large-scale piece, from a photograph of trainspotters I’d taken years ago, whilst waiting at the platform of Peterborough railway station. This soon morphed into a train of skeletons passing by the guys on the platform. It was a strange and demonic painting looking back, not really sure what the meaning was behind it. But that was it, seeing out 2019, a pretty good year arts-wise. Hoast Arts also asked if I’d like to have a solo exhibition next year at Bistro Du Parc, which got me thinking over Christmas what work I might include. There was lots of crazy and scary things, happening in the world, so I was sure I could probably pick up on some of those themes perhaps. I wonder what would be in store in 2020…

Chapter 12: Abstract art and exhibitions