At Last - The Private View!

March 2015.
This came round pretty damned quick. I had spent several hours (days) contacting people I knew and people I didn't, inviting them to the PV. I felt hugely embarrassed  sitting in my living room, flinching, thinking, 'Jeez, can I really contact so and so?' Then I soon realised no one really cares so I chucked my nervousness in the bin and became rather gleeful, emailing whoever I thought might be interested. It was rather freeing actually. The act of writing the email was all that mattered. If someone wanted to come they could, it was up to them. And boy, did people come. The room that night was packed. One of the gallery staff said very excitedly that she'd not seen it so busy in ages (I think she actually said years but I may have mis-heard, being somewhat intoxicated by the evening myself). It was dad's first show in 14 years.

Anyway, I got a taxi to the opening as I thought today of all days I don't want to use the bloody tube. I had palpitations all the way from South East London to town. On arrival I dived into the disabled loo and emerged radiant and calm, a bit like a Marvel superhero. Not quite Wonder Woman but you get my drift. I went back upstairs looking rather fabulous actually, my Chie Mihara shoes helping enormously. The first people I saw were The Collector with Barry Phipps. The Collector owns many of my dad's works and is especially keen on the Sequence, a series of 197 works, acrylic on paper, done throughout the entirety of dad's career (more of which later). I had had a lengthy phone conversation about what I wanted to do with the estate prior to the show. We had similar plans so decided to work together - it was great to meet him! And he was a nice bloke, which always helps. Barry was great, a (young) Fellow at Cambridge who's done just so many interesting things it's on the verge of bewildering.

The show looked fantastic.I was thrilled. The place was packed. Result. We had Allen Jones talking to Ian Keen from Australia - they went to art college together with dad, various poets and psychotherapists, musicians, translators, art historians and, of course, fellow artists. Dad would have loved it.