This morning was spent photographing and uploading Jonron paintings to my website. Jonron is a painting collaboration between @ronthroop Ron Throop and myself. Living in different countries means we don’t make as many as we’d like. Ron lives in the US, I live in the UK. There are some other Jonron’s in the house somewhere. Possibly buried underneath a load of plaster that recently collapsed from the ceiling in my storage room.
I’ve also been tinkering with both my website and The Black Ivory Podcast one. There’s a new page for Mooney Ra Ra’s art, but so far just has her bus window condensation drawings on.
Flight prices out to Thailand have shot up now, and Aon says there’s loads of farang about in Pattaya. I’m also feeling a seasonal change, re-doing my website so that it’s more focussed on my collaborative work than my solo. The fuller my online shops get the better they represent my solo work, so I might as well make my website, primarily, about the work I do with others. Especially Black Ivory. But I also found an old page dedicated to the FREE HECKEL’S HORSE FROM THE CLUTCHES OF THE ART ESTABLISHMENT that I’ll be using material from for my forthcoming speech at Speaker’s Corner.
The collaboration drawings I made with bar girls working in Pattaya’s red light district are also now linked to my site’s front page. It was then that I met Aon, who did some drawings with me and then started getting other local bar girls she knew to come up to my hotel room to make more drawings. This made life a lot easier, as I didn’t have to waste time and money in bars asking them myself. Aon and I are planning on heading straight to Pattaya for a couple of weeks when I land in Bangkok. It’ll be good to get some more of these collaboration drawings done while we’re there. Here’s Aon and I drawing in my room on Soi 7:
Another collaboration page is for the, one and counting, painting Black Francis and I have made together. He travels through the UK quite a lot, usually on tour with his band The Pixies. On one of his visits we went to Billy’s studio in Chatham where he did half a painting on some cardboard I gave him. Then about a year later I finished it. After visiting Billy’s, he and I got an Uber back into London, where he gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever had. We were talking about playing in bands, and that since Shelley (my ex-wife and Elbow Sisters bandmate) and I had broken up, I hadn’t done much since, musically. He suggested I start doing my own thing. I said that I couldn’t because I can’t sing. As soon as I said this, I realised that I was taking the easy anti-Stuckist way out and that he was about to remind me of my STUCKIST DUTY to not fear failure. He didn’t put it in exactly those words, but said these exact words instead “Singing’s overrated.” As soon as I heard this, I was free as a bird. Permission to sing badly from the world’s best singer. Consider it done!!!! We met up earlier this year, in London again, where I belatedly thanked him for this advice. I get the impression he had no recollection of giving it. Nevertheless, it’s therefore directly thanks to Black Francis that Emma and I have our band. Here’s the Black Francis half of our colaboration, in situ with its creator:
There are other collaborations on the site to write about, but I need to make dinner now. This post will have to be a two parter.
