Stories & Hot Cocoa.

As you might be able to tell from time to time, running a very full-time illustration business is hard work and occupies the majority of my hours.

However, there is and always has been a constant urge to do things which fall slightly outside the description of ‘illustration’ - making things, putting on club nights, doing radio, giving talks, designing and hosting shows and events. These things come under the banner of Factoryroad. Doing these things is extra hard work of course and occupies the rest of whatever hours we might have free for things like telly and reading…but when they happen, they are magical and worth every sleepless night.

With my partner Leigh we hosted a Buddy Wakefield show a couple of years ago (which you can read about here) which was received with glowing - nay throbbing - feedback; warmth, tears, surprise and emotion (as one of the artists participating, below is my piece made in response to one of his poems, ‘Battle Magnet’.). We are happy to say we’re having Buddy back on December 1st for a special gig at The Silver Arcade in Leicester – one of only two original four-storey Victorian arcades in the country – as he stops off in Leicester on his ‘Riled Up And Wasted On Light’ tour.

In this beautiful setting Buddy will be performing his distinctive and very universal brand of poetry live with two support acts from the local area, and on the night freshly made hot cocoa will be supplied to every guest – dairy or non-dairy – courtesy of Silver Arcade resident and manufacturer of very fine chocolates Cocoa Amore. After you’ve watched the gig, you can mooch around the Arcade’s shops looking for ways to spend the £5 voucher that’s also included in the ticket price, in the Arcade’s very Christmassy surroundings. All for the disctinctly un-princely sum of £10.

Nice eh?

If you never came to our first Buddy Wakefield show and want to know more about him, well, we find these words taken from his biography are a good place to start:

“Buddy Wakefield, who is unconcerned with what poetry is or is not, delivers raw, rounded, disarming performances of humor and heart.”
A quick YouTube search for his name will yield an abundance of his live performances – sometimes moving, sometimes heart-rending, almost always funny – to give you an idea of what to expect.

You’ll be able to buy his books, recordings, T-shirts and other goodies at the event, which starts at 7pm.

This is the first ever event we’ve put on as Factoryroad where we have had to charge entry, in order to cover the associated costs, so please do support us and the local scene by coming along!

Book tickets here
https://factoryroad.net/shop/products/buddy-wakefield-ticket/

The Silver Arcade
Silver Street
Leicester
LE1 5FA

buddywakefield.com
thesilverarcade.com
cocoa-amore.co.uk

GLOW IN THE DARK!

Not only have we got an event coming up and the new Christmas cards, we’ve just added nine new colours to our 45rpm adapter range AND launched these new ones which GLOW IN THE DARK!

That’s right, GLOW IN THE DARK.

Only existing as a rumour before now, these innocent-looking natural coloured adapters turn a proper lumo green when plunged into the dark of your club, bedroom or other murky musical space.

They’re here if you want to see them/buy some for the 7” nutter in YOUR family.

(Now do you see why there’s no Inkymole Christmas Shop this year?)

Into Battle.

I've not talked about this for a bit as we were very busy behind the scenes post-event. You might already know that as well as doing illustration I have a gallery which shares the same floor as the studio here.
And we have a review of the Gentleman Practice show, of creative responses to Buddy Wakefield's show, on our Factoryroad Gallery website at last.

I'm not going to add much as both Buddy and ourselves have written just about all there is to write about the experience of the creating, curating, hosting, mounting and debriefing of the show. It was one of the most exhausting and emotional things we're ever undertaken - perhaps it comes close to the Write Off The World shows - well, actually, as I begin to recall that, maybe close, but not the same - but It feels correct, however, to write about the piece that was my contribution to the collection.

I am a guilty person. I feel guilt. Most of the time; from all angles, guilt comes at me in assorted guises. It is usually my fault. Even when it's most obvious to other people that it isn't. I'm not Catholic, so can't blame that stereotype. I've never had pressuring or pushy parents. I've never done anything terrible to anyone. I always pay my bills on time. I've never exploited or bullied anyone. I give money to charity, I make cakes for people and I look after my sisters. I make coconut flapjacks for my boyfriend and sometimes he doesn't even need to ask me for them. And yet, my head tells me I'm never good enough, clever enough, kind enough, hardworking enough, friendly enough, relaxed enough...you get the picture. It's boring. It even bores me. But it's there, and actually, I feel a bit guilty right now, for even writing this and not doing my 'work'.

So when I read Buddy's poem 'Healing Herman Hesse' - one I've listened to a lot but never actually read - the following lines cuffed me around the back of the head:

‘Spends his time falling from the weight.
Got a lead brain.
It’s a battle magnet.
He carries it round by the guilt straps.
Don’t laugh.’

My own Battle Magnet was created by night, alone, from pure driven desperation to make manifest this source of negativity and mental collision. It was made from canvas, calico, a safety helmet, insulating fabric, tapes and straps, paper, ink, Sugru, ear defenders, a glue gun and some sewing. It had just two tiny pencil sketches beforehand, and whoosh, eleven hours later, it was there. Right in front of me. My own brain. Staring back at me in the mirror atop my own head (I made it to fit of course - the theatrical props maker of old Mole will look for any reason to force herself through any available gap). When on my head, the piece obscures my vision, makes it impossible to hear anyone properly, and adds real weight to my shoulders. Funny that.

So there she was. I didn't know whether to embrace her and soothe her, or set fire to her. The final part of the project came in the dead of night again - I simply had to pose wearing the beast, my own pale and worried body supporting the literal and metaphorical weight (it's very heavy, and not very stable when on). It has been thought that this photo shows the Battle Magnet atop a 'white mannequin', which I found funny, as I had clearly disguised myself sufficiently for people not to realise it is my skinny arms and chest underneath.

The Battle Magnet is still in the room and I don't know what to do with her. She is part of me, even though she's externalised now. But where will she live? Well the answer is easy, actually. Where I can keep a goddamned eye on her, and her destructive tendencies.

A Book About Death

My friend Anthony Saint James and I have contributed a piece to this exhibition opening in New York on Thursday 10th September.

Though I enjoyed quoting the author of my favourite book in the universe, this image is really ALL about Anthony's photograph. (There is more of this to come - but more on that over the coming weeks). On the back is a quote by another one of my favourite writers, Buddy Wakefield, whose line was chosen for its interesting parallel with Emily Bronte's quote and the world she inhabited - every day lived overlooking a graveyard and watching her sisters, brother and half the village succumb to consumption in their twenties.

Death though was virtually an additional family member in Haworth during the 1800s. Looking constantly over the shoulders of the villagers, down whose only street ran the toxic effluent of a pre-drainage era, Emily must have looked rather less fearfully into the grave than we would, as of course, she was off to meet her sister Anne and two older siblings before her. Perhaps death is the great big lie-down after the graft of a long life well lived - as opposed to a constant threat or thing to be feared.

And the notion that the earth would actually quite like to hang on to us a bit longer is charming, if not another good reason to be buried in the earth coffinless and un-embalmed with a sapling and a microchip over us (my plan; yours might be different).

So 'let go', as Buddy says. Because I don't know about you, but 'I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of not living'. (Exodus 77).

The show is on till 22nd September, and you can read more about it here.

(Oh come on, after the pretty fruits and records, you were expecting some darkness, surely?)