Too many Camden days have been rained off this year, so I went out this morning even though a downpour was forecast. Saturday’s are usually the busiest for The Camden Market Free Art Man and the plan for 2026 is to become part of the Camden Market furniture, like Alan the town crier and Zombie the punk. Alan told me last week that I’ve become established there already, but I don’t feel it yet. I’ve been skipping too many days, and it’s all been because of the weather. Last year, the weather in London was so much better. Even in late March, when our plane landed from Thailand, Aon and I were walking our luggage home at 9pm in shorts and T-shirt. It hardly rained that spring, which helped as @ronthroop visited and we did a FREE ART FREES ART day in Camden. Ron’s success that afternoon, especially relative to mine, led to a complete revamp of my display and change in location. Ron’s Camden display was the most consequential art event of 2025 for me, and for the FREE ART FREES ART movement.
In an effort to find a rain covered location at Camden, I did a trial run yesterday of setting up under Camden Lock bridge. It’s too leaky, too many people crowd under it when the rain starts, the ground gets wet and seeps into the artwork, there’s not enough room to show my bigger paintings, the work still gets wet on the journey to and from the bus stop and there’s little visibility of my display because the pavement’s so narrow. Apart from that, it’s perfect. Didn’t need it today though, as the forecast was wrong again, and it stayed dry but windy all day. Here are some photos:

Above: the full Camden Market Free Art Man display.

Above: My shadow overlooking a potential customer.

Above: I like the look of the signage as you walk down from Camden Town tube station, with the Camden Lock painted bridge in the background.

Above: How can anyone walk past such an offer?

Above: Anarchy for Art and Heckel’s Horse Jr paintings.