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Oil on Hand-cut Paper
Purple Book36 x 27 cm Purple Clothes36 x 26 cm Purple Poet33 x 25 cm Man and Goat Blue24 x 25 cm Man and Goat Peach24 x 24 cm Man and Goat Orange24 x 24 cm Chicken and Biscuit32 x 24 cm Chickens Eating32 x 24 Chicken and Sun33 x 25 cm
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If you don’t already, I recommend reading @ronthroop Ron Throop’s posts, especially his recent one $18,604.34. I read it on the bus home from Camden yesterday evening, on the way back from scavenging some free cardboard from outside “Guitar Guitar”, which if you hadn’t guessed, is a guitar shop. Henry Thoreau’s story convinced me that it’s now FREE ART FREES ART’s goal to treat every customer better than anyone else has ever treated them. If we do, I’m convinced we win. I think Thoreau perfectly sums up why we’re often victims of no one but ourselves, and I’m glad the small amount of time and energy it takes me to make a painting or drawing allows the luxury of doing FREE ART FREES ART. If baskets could be knocked out as quickly, cheaply and easily as paintings, I’d have thanked the lawyer for his time and left a complimentary basket out of appreciation. I’d do likewise at every door I knocked and be a millionaire within a month. The lawyer would soon have found himself chasing down the street to ask for another five. Here’s a photo of Ron and I painting. Together we are JONRON. When making improvisational free-form jazz, we are FARANGERS.
On a further bright side, it’s now clear why my parcels keep being returned by US customs and it’s pretty simple to fix. The problem’s the cheap courier company I’ve been using. All the ones I’ve sent with them to America have been refused by customs, and all the parcels I sent with Parcelforce have sailed through first time. Thankfully, I have understanding customers who are all getting a load of EXTRA FREE ART for their trouble and patience. Proof that my art and music exclusively attract the highest caliber of people. My nan used to say “Buy cheap, buy twice.” WHY DIDN’T I LISTEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! From now on, as a friend of mine also recently advised, I’m only using Parcelforce for international deliveries. Subsequently I’ve hiked my shipping prices, and also decided to stop selling to Europe because sending anything to Europe right now is a total nightmare. Here’s a photo of Ron and I getting into an argument about Stuckism:
I’m not a political person, but have been reliably informed that the problems sending parcels to the EU isn’t the fault of anyone at the EU, or whoever the people are that dreamed up the ridiculously vindictive and sadistic admin processes of a deranged ex-partner who does everything possible to make your life a misery so you eventually see the misstep you took in leaving, but the fault of none other than, everyone’s favourite dartboard…. Nigel Farage. For all I know, he’s right. I haven’t read the libraries worth it’d take for me to think I had a clue. Likewise, I’ve also been reliably informed that the problems I’ve been having with the cheap courier company aren’t the fault of the cheap courier company at all, but SURPRISE SURPRISE…it’s apparently all Donald Trump’s fault. Again, maybe they’re right. If so, I’d like to personally and publicly thank Kamala Harris for letting my Parcelforce ones through. Assuming she’s still in charge of the blue team. I’m a distant observer when it comes to politics, and judge them all primarily by foolproof gut and hunch, but it’s funny how, whichever side people are on, it’s never their side’s fault. The side they don’t like’s always to blame for what happens under their watch, but it’s the mess their favourite side inherited that’s always to blame when the shoe’s on the other foot. Win, win!!!!!! It’s like when opposition parties wallow in being able to compare their ideology with the otherside’s reality, but then go all quiet when it’s their reality they’re finally held accountable for. Mix all this with the advent of social media for the perfect storm of what I imagine led Noel Gallagher to muse “Everyone’s a f**king expert”. It’s amazing how many of my friends, since the advent of social media, have suddenly all become climate scientists. One person, who I’m pretty sure is a councilor for a major political party I won’t smear by associating with him, publicly accused me on Facebook of being a far-right sympathiser. Of course, this is complete rubbish and I asked him to provide a single example. When he couldn’t, I asked him to apologise. Not publicly, just between the two of us, but he wouldn’t. I did notice, however, that he had the emotional maturity and strength of character to quietly delete his public accusation against me. The vermin you get online’s beyond belief, and I’m sure I’ve experienced far from the worst of it. About politics, here’s a song:
To counter the lost sales from having higher shipping prices, and in keeping with FREE ART FREES ART, I’ll be including even more free art with every order and making all these freebies A LOT more obvious in my shops photos and videos. I’m already doing the TRANSIT COMPENSATION PACKS and “Buy 2 Get 11 Free” on some orders, but FREE ART FREES ART ONLINE needs taking to the next level. The format for giving our artwork away for free in person is THE CAMDEN MARKET FREE ART MAN. I’d like an equivalent to Camden, but online. I’ll sleep on it tonight, and ask Ron and Emma during the next BLACK IVORY PODCAST for any ideas. If you want to watch our podcast live, tune in on Ron’s Substack. We broadcast live on Thursdays at 7pm UK time. There’s a function to write messages, not that we ever get any, but I think two people watched the last one. If you miss the live broadcast, Ron publishes them afterwards on his YouTube.
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The two main things for FREE ART FREES ART are figured out and ready for when I get back from Thailand, probably in January 2027. First, the online shops are selling a decent amount of work now and should be able to fully fund THE CAMDEN MARKET FREE ART MAN next year. Proving that PRETTY MUCH ANYONE can do FREE ART FREES ART because it pays for itself. I’ll film and publish online tutorials including everything anyone needs to know and do, and all the mistakes that made this process take two grueling years of trial and error, research and development and ultimately copying what @ronthroop did on his first day without any instruction. Second, I now know how to do Camden so that at least thirty original artworks are given away each day, which is plenty for a one hour video of interviews. Below is the most recent one.
If THE CAMDEN MARKET FREE ART MAN’s going to build a reputation, I think it has to run more than two days a week. Whatever ends up being possible, it’ll be streets ahead of where things were at the beginning of this year. It’s mid-October and I’m hoping to fly out to Thailand around the end of November, maybe on a two month visa. There’s some admin and tax stuff I need to do before leaving, but otherwise I’m ready to go. If the online shops really start picking up and I can handle the cold weather, I might put off flying out till the end of December. Meet Aon at the airport, straight down to Pattaya for the action (drinking green tea and people watching), up to rural Isaan for the quiet life, then a pleasant 14 hour bus ride to Chiang Mai to visit her son. Thinking about it makes me want to fly out tonight. If I can hold out till the end of December, it’ll mean my winter’s over as soon as I step on the plane at Heathrow. Pretty tempting, and would also mean being out there for both Aon and my birthday’s. These mask paintings were one of the first artworks I took to Camden that were always popular:
Thinking about Thailand all the time might be making me overly optimistic about everything else, but I have a good feeling about HECKEL’S HORSE’s 2027. It’s had a pretty sheltered thirteen year life up till now, publicationwise, but next year things will move. By brute force if necessary. The people currently managing HECKEL’S HORSE haven’t done an awful lot yet. I’m sure they have their reasons and know what they’re doing, but at the same time…GET ON WITH IT!!!!! I’m no expert, but if the time hasn’t been right at any point over the last thirteen years to publish this work, it’s not happening, ever. So what now? What little previous experience I’ve had with these people, as I’ve written about before and won’t go into now because this post is already getting too long, has given me good reason to be extremely wary of them and their intentions. Specifically around the issue of attribution. I respect them, but I don’t trust them. Not an inch, and they clearly don’t respect me, so it’s probably a good thing that there’s a better option now…THE CAMDEN MARKET FREE ART MAN!!!!!!! Here’s another mask:
These Heckel’s Horse paintings Billy and I have painted are top of the range, GRADE A, Contemporary Art by any standards, past or present. I’m not criticising anyone’s handling of HECKEL’S HORSE but if the Commercial Art world has no place for HECKEL’S HORSE, which it clearly doesn’t, then the rest of the world needs to step in and bring these paintings directly to the people, through whatever means available. It doesn’t surprise me that Commercial Art has no place for HECKEL’S HORSE because HECKEL’S HORSE isn’t Commercial Art. It’s too good for them. Thirteen years is long enough to finally have to accept this. The Camden Market Free Art Man was born for this kind of thing. Dedicated HECKEL’S HORSE THEMED DAY’S at Camden Market through the displaying of HECKEL’S HORSE JR. paintings and HECKEL’S HORSE info packs coming soon!!!! You heard it here first.
I knew the The Ted Kessler book SCANDAL would end up being a good thing, what with it effectively attributing HECKEL’S HORSE almost exclusively to Billy. Surprise surprise, this wasn’t seen as a big deal by anyone but me, despite being completely outrageous, untrue and erasing my HECKEL’S HORSE work in a Wikipedia referenceable publication, no less. I strongly suspect Billy was either misquoted or taken wildly out of context, BUT it’s important to know that it’s my business and responsibility to stand up for myself, and no one else’s. As it should be. I’m not represented by anyone. I’m an independent artist, and it’s therefore my job to sort these things out……a massive GREEN LIGHT to publish HECKEL’S HORSE on my own channels and in my own way, and answerable to no one. My speech at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park will include the following poem that I wrote today, about the things Remainers hate about Brexit seeming totally fine in Commercial Art and how we support them being inflicted on poor old HECKEL’S HORSE with every day he waits for THE CAMDEN MARKET FREE ART MAN to finally set him free. Don’t worry HECKEL’S HORSE, Daddy’s coming!!!!!!:
The Relative Freedom of HECKEL’S HORSE JR.
That savvy HECKEL’S HORSE JR.
No bureaucratic hoops for HECKEL’S HORSE JR. to jump through.
No red tape for HECKEL’S HORSE JR. to run through.
No health & safety hurdles for HECKEL’S HORSE JR. to hop over.
No trade barriers for HECKEL’S HORSE JR. to trip over.
No policies & procedures for HECKEL’S HORSE JR. to prance over.
No loss of exporters for HECKEL’S HORSE JR. to lament.
No labour shortages for HECKEL’S HORSE JR. to lament.
HECKEL’S HORSE JR. has FREE TRADE and FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT.
HECKEL’S HORSE JR. can be picked up for FREE by anyone passing through a SINGLE MARKET, Camden Market.
So get yourself down to THE CAMDEN MARKET FREE ART MAN and experience the TRUE freedom that is FREE ART FREES ART.!!!!!!
Avoid expensive imitations in cheap galleries.
HECKEL’S HORSE JR. is managed by FREE ART FREES ART.No FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT for HECKEL’S HORSE.
TRADE BARRIERS at every corner for HECKEL’S HORSE.
Poor old HECKEL’S HORSE.
HECKEL’S HORSE is in this state because he’s managed by people who create barriers for political gain, and to make matters worse, we support them.
Escape the nightmare. Join the dream: FREE ART FREES ART.
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Today I finished nineteen 7 x 5 inch oil on canvas paintings that were all half finished last night. Here’s a video of them:
I’ll online auction one of today’s in a few weeks when they’re dry. If it does well, I’ll start making auctions a weekly thing. For now though, I’m in no rush to upload more listings until I figure out what’s causing some of my parcels to be refused at US customs. A few are on their way to America now, and the enquiry my courier company is doing into the refused ones is on-going. I don’t have a great deal of confidence in it, as they emailed me yesterday to say they’ve closed my enquiry as their records show the parcel was delivered. Yes, it was delivered…back to me. I’ve asked them to re-open it.
It was only slightly raining so I took the bus down to Camden this evening to get some cardboard. I go just after the shops have closed and cut up the big boxes they put out for the bin men. I use it for packaging and as a cheap and sturdier alternative to stretched canvas. Cardboard’s so expensive online, I’d probably make more money closing the art shop and just selling the raw cardboard. I must be scavenging over £100’s worth of cardboard every time.
Sat on the 134 bus from Muswell Hill down to Camden Town, I started writing a speech I’ll be delivering at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. The speech is very slightly a joke, but not really. If my speech was a joke it would be a passive aggressive bad one with a chip on its shoulder. It’s better to do it 100% serious, which I will. It’s no joke, but with me reading it and, if I can convince her, Emma filming, and the placards I’m making for it, I’m sure people will think it’s some prank like most people do, our band. The idea for giving this speech was inspired the other day by a friend posting the following instruction on Instagram “…in future don’t support people who want to create barriers for political gain.” I’m sure it was meant as a light-hearted throw away comment, but….consider it done! I’ll no longer be supporting the people who want to create barriers for a side-project Billy Childish and I have been collaborating on for the last thirteen years called Heckel’s Horse, regardless of any political gain the backenders might have at stake. So far, draft one of the speech is looking pretty impressive.
Hiding the full catalogue of Heckel’s Horse paintings from the world is 100% the anti-art the STUCKIST MANIFESTO lambasted at great length, and that Billy co-wrote with another of my friends Charles. Billy and I have been frustrated by the lack of movement Heckel’s Horse has been allowed, and Billy’s been trying to move things along I’m sure, more than I know. But so far, to little avail. Never fear HECKEL’S HORSE JR’s here.
My grand-father worked in education and used to say “There’s more politics in education than there is in politics.” Wouldn’t surprise me if the same’s true of art, as I’ve had a glimpse of how the Commercial Art people involved with Heckel’s Horse operate. Not much, but enough to put me off being represented by anyone involved. FREE ART FREES ART’s the way. No being told what you can and can’t do all the time. You can’t exhibit this painting, but have you got another of that one? Maybe in a green and slightly smaller? We need some options for the space above our client’s mantlepiece. Sound like a total nightmare? Never fear, FREE ART FREES ART’s here!
I’ll write more about the speech in future posts, but it’s bedtime now. I’m painting at Billy’s studio tomorrow so have to be up early. The Speakers Corner speech will be delivered and video recorded online, hopefully before I leave for Thailand later this year. It considers any kind of suppression or misrepresentation of the truth as a “barrier”, and the Commercial Art world as “politics”. People playing career chess with our art, at the cost of the artistic principles clearly laid out by Billy and Charles in the STUCKIST MANIFESTO, are considered people creating barriers for political gain. There’ll be a section on misattribution, and more than a couple of paragraphs on Ted Kessler’s book. All these things are barriers created where political gains are made in ways that I think need addressing. My friend was right to tell me not to support them in future. Those days are now over.
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If any of the three parcels sent to America today get returned by customs I’ll have to rethink how I ship to America, or if I continue shipping there at all. If it’s the cheap courier, I’ll switch to a more expensive one and increase the shipping charge and subsequently throw in more free art to compensate the customer. If it’s not the courier, I don’t know. The best audience both my music and art have is America so I want to keep selling there. Especially for our music. Most people in the UK think our band’s a joke. If I could move Emma, my family and Aon to the US, life would be so much easier. We’d all live up in Oswego near the Throop’s, do street and home exhibitions, gigs where we’re not just playing to the other bands and sound engineer. If my crypto goes to the moon I’m going to the US. I’d never have to deal with customs again. Really, I’m moving to Thailand but the US is the pipe dream. Here’s one of the free artworks I added to the parcels being resent. Each parcel got an extra two free drawings, on top of the free extras that were already in there. FREE ART FREES ART.
Figuring out what to do would be a lot easier if I knew why the parcels are being refused, but until the courier company has finished their enquiry I’ll have to just keep sending paintings and hoping they get through. One of my big paintings sold today, as usual to someone in the US. If it gets refused again for no apparent reason, resending it will wipe out any profit and waste a load more time. Feels a bit rich for Mr. FREE ART FREES ART to be moaning about profit margins but the online shops are supposed to be the big money spinner that makes FREE ART FREES ART self-sufficient and expandable to anyone, regardless of how rich they are. Not just a hobby for people able to subsidise it but a feasible alternative to the current, and massively inferior, gallery system. The online shops have to be first and foremost, profitable. Here’s the painting that just sold and is about to make its way to America and preferably not back again:
I’m forgetting there’ s no guarantee parcels even get through the second time. Stopping selling to the US would mean closing one of my online shops that almost exclusively sells there and moving all my art into the other one. So I’d be down to one shop. Every problem’s an opportunity though. If my competitors are having the same problem, solving it could make all this ultimately to my advantage. My enemy’s enemy is my friend. Mooney Ra Ra will be getting an education in all this when she’s not being the STRAWBERRY CAKE chief violinist and singer. If only I knew what I’m learning now at her age. When I was at school they told us that all the thicko’s like me would end up having to learn a trade and work for peanuts while all the uni kids would fly off into the sunset. Despite any problems I’m having being a sole trader, at least it’s not what some call a real job. Here’s another of the extra free artworks sent out as bonus compensation. A hand:
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They say every problem’s an opportunity, so here’s my latest opportunity: Two of my parcels to America were refused at customs, so are on their way back to me. I’m pretty sure I know why, but have to wait a couple of days for the company I used to book the order to do their own enquiries. I suspect it’s because I didn’t attach a list of contents to either parcel. The reason I didn’t was because the label I was given to download and attach said “This is all the paperwork you need”, so was the only paperwork I attached. If so, surely the company I used to book the deliveries will have to accept that it was an error on their part. Hopefully both parcels will get back to me soon so I can resend using a different service. In the meantime, I’ve already switched couriers to one whose labels include a section with the contents listed, but they’re a lot more expensive. The main opportunity here, as I see it, is to make sure both the people waiting for their purchases end up happy with the result. If they like owning my work and I’m a FREE ART FREES ARTer desperate to get rid of it, this shouldn’t be too hard to fix. All the images in this post are of paintings sold in the last couple of days, like this one:
Other than this, both shops have been busy. Nine artworks sold in the last couple of days, including two just now. Here’s four major recent changes that seem to have worked out and that I now realise should have been obvious from the start: super low prices, more freebies, combined shipping and selling outside Europe, particularly America. Three changes in the pipeline: TRANSIT COMPENSATION PACKS that fit into orders being sent out in a tube, a more comprehensive info pack, and most importantly, MORE LISTINGS. There should be at least triple the current number of listings in each shop, and an assistant packing the orders and taking them to the Post Office. If Aon can get over here on a work visa, this should all be done by spring next year. I can’t see THE CAMDEN MARKET FREE ART MAN happening again before then. Free art’s freeing art in the form of my online shops freebies. Before, at Camden, FREE ART FREES ARTwas an idea. By the time I return it’ll be a fully functioning irrefutable reality.
Before Aon comes over here though, I’ll be going out there. Visa rules for Thailand are changing but according to videos I’ve seen, it’s the multiple entry ones that are most affected. Standard tourists like me, who just want to visit with an established reason for being there and no history of overstaying or being in any trouble, still seem to have a relatively straight forward experience. Aon shows me videos of her village every day. As winter approaches in London, it gets more and more tempting to jump on a plane and leave now, but with the momentum of my online shops picking up, to do so would be crazy. It’s hard justifying going out there at all but Aon and I have been apart for 9 months already. If it goes to over a year, I think we’d have to officially declare ourselves pen pals, which can’t be allowed to happen. Even at FREE ART FREES ART’s cost. Arm and Dog sold:
Next to get painted are the small 7 x 5 inch oil on canvas. I used to do online auctions for these and sell them at a loss, just to get more people aware of my shop. Then, a couple of months ago, I stopped doing them just because I didn’t have time. Around 30 are nearly finished and I would like to get back to doing these auctions. Despite often being a financial waste of time, at least directly, auctions are my favourite method of selling. Checking in on the bids every night is like following a horse race, and gives me the same dopamine buzz I imagine gamblers get. If I lose money, I can write them off as entertainment. I don’t smoke, drink or go to pubs. I don’t take drugs, I do online auctions. They say everyone has their heroin. But beyond this, I think if I keep consistent with having them every week, they’ll build up into being more profitable. Man and Swan sold:
