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Heckel’s Horse Jr. Green G’s
Acrylic on handcut paper, PVA glued to cardboard.
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Filmed 8th April 2023, Illustrating the writings of Ron Throop
A series of ten woodcut prints, illustrating the writings of the ingenious and insatiable one man art movement Ron Throop. All based on quotes from his Monsieur Tourette Awakens in Mid-Tic: a retaliatory fiction.
These prints are the direct result of an interview I read in the early 90’s with Billy Corgan of the band Smashing Pumpkins. In the interview, Corgan warns against discarding anything good just because you can’t find a use for it right now, and can’t imagine finding a use for it later. Wastephobic nature, the spartan efficiency beast, eventually finding everything its just homely crevice. Anything we don’t kill will inevitably thrive. Corgan was speaking, specifically, about his quiet guitar break in the song Geek USA. Initially a shorter song than it ended up, its break being a separate song altogether. He later ditched the quiet song, but kept its memory alive. Nature did the rest. I forgot everything else he said in the interview soon after reading it.
Corgan’s advice resonated as at the time, I had written only thirty or forty songs, but had hundreds of riffs. I couldn’t build a song around them nor find another song to shoehorn them into. But from that day on, I kept every riff on cassette tape, eventually filling thirty odd cassettes with the audio diary of my musical youth.
Twenty-fiveish years later, Billy Childish and I are working on a storybook collaboration. It starts off simple enough. He writes four stories and I illustrate them with some woodcut prints. However, as we’re putting it all together my enthusiasm bottoms out. They’re quite hard work. Eventually we call the whole thing off. My fault essentially, as once I realised the illustrations aren’t going to be specifically credited to me I lose interest. As much as I like collaborating I like credit more. The illustrations were 100% my own work. If the publication doesn’t specify this, I’m done.
I did about fifty woodcuts for the storybook. I don’t mind that the publication didn’t happen but what do I do with them?
Today, now six or seven years since the storybook that never was, nature’s found ten of the woodcuts a home: Monsieur Tourette Awakens in Mid-Tic: a retaliatory fiction. He sent me a copy a while ago. Ron is an artistic siamese twin of Black Ivory Printmaking & Audio Club despite geography doing its best to keep us apart. He’s a precious ally. As Corgan puts it in Geek USA’s quiet break:
In a dream
We are connected
Siamese twins
At the wrist
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A Stuckism manifesto by The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists.
First performed at Black Ivory Printmaking & Audio Club, 30th March 2023.
Opposing conceptual art goes against the principles of 100% Taste. The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists no longer oppose any art. Art Oppoistion is wrong for the following reasons:
The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists end Art Opposition in opposition to The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists.
Pitching oneself relative to what one is not is for ones that have not.
Art Opposition is a stealth-brag instruction to wrongly assume the opposite of the braggart.
Art Opposition is a cardboard cutout of one’s, subsequently superior, enemy in the centre of one’s, otherwise empty, stage.
In respect, The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists begin both conceptual and performance art, specialising in contemporary dance and abstract literature.
The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists conceptual and performance art is Black Ivory Printmaking & Audio Club.
The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists contemporary dance is Untitled.
The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists abstract literature is Shin Detonator.
Art Opposition is vacuously hate centric.
Art Opposition is mastabatory shadow boxing.
Art Opposition turns what one does into what one doesn’t, and what one doesn’t into what one does.
Art Opposition is autobiographical to the extent it’s repeated.
Art Opposition’s sincerity is inversely proportional to its volume.
Art Opposition’s motivation is as transparent as it is useless.
Art Opposition is self-injected rabies.
Art Opposition is what internet trolls would do if they weren’t people of such high calibre and moral substance, and weren’t so pressed for time.
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Studious is like a compilation album as all the songs were recorded for four previously released albums that I’ve now unreleased. Those four albums all have a lot of songs on that I performed badly, so are now binned. Virtually all the songs I recorded at Ranscombe were done in one take. Maybe all of them, except Colonisers which I remember taking two. Mass produce now, mass release tomorrow, edit later. Splatter gun publishing. At last I have a solo studio album that stands up to the 2 out of 3 rule ones in all the professional senses Stuckism opposes.
Speaking of 2 out of 3 rule, I’ve been watching an American TV show callled ‘My 600-lb life’ which documents the weight loss surgery application process for the morbidly obese. One of the background songs they use is extremely similar to ‘Toy Soldier’ and another is slightly less near-identical to ‘You Can’t Choose Your Friends’. Both 2 out of 3 rule songs. The Toy Soldier one is the EXACT SAME RIFF. Where’s my royalties cheque?
To get the surgery you need to first demonstrate you can lose 30 pounds in a month by going on a strict diet and light exercise regime. But, if you can lose 30 pounds a month without the surgery then presumably, you don’t need it. You have to prove your commitment first by losing 30 pounds beforehand because, apparently, you need that level of commitment after the surgery to avoid putting the weight back on. The only way to get the surgery is to first demonstrate that you don’t need it. After the surgery, you have to carry on doing what you were successfully doing before the surgery to achieve the same result you were already achieving before the surgery. I can’t believe people are spending theirs and their families life savings on major life-threatening surgery for what, can only be at best, a mild appetite suppressant. I’ll have to watch more episodes. If I hear any more of my songs they’ll be hearing from my lawyers.
Other posts about Studious album: Studious magazine | Studious Deluxe Edition
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Since June 2022 I’ve been keeping a YouTube video diary of my Monday afternoon painting sessions at Billy Childish’s studio in Chatham Dockyard. Billy and I have been painting together at his studio on a weekly basis since 2013 (apart from a one year break during covid). The videos are intended to be exclusively of my solo work but Heckel’s Horse (collaborations between Billy and I), Billy’s own work, Gretchen Andrew and Huddie Hamper paintings sometimes appear in shot.
The round trip from Muswell Hill is five hours by bus, train and foot. More travel time than painting. When I had a car it was two hours depending on the Blackwall tunnel. I know, fascinating. Get the full story in the video below. An interview with Charles Thomson, who in 1999 formed the Stuckism art group that isn’t a movement with Billy, who left in 2001 having stomached it for as long as he could. I formed The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists in 2006 being its only member until 2008. I first met Charles at an exhibition of abstract paintings at La Viande gallery in Shoreditch around 2005. I mistakenly thought it was a Stuckist show so went home and berated it and the Stuckists online for being unStuckist.
Although I’m from Muswell Hill, I like to believe I’m part of a Medway art scene even though no part of it, should it exist, has engaged with me in any meaningful way. There was an exhibition of the studio’s work at Sun Pier House in Chatham a while ago, which I expected would lead to some engagement but didn’t. It’s like when I was in bands, I assumed we’d instantly be teleported into smokey gatherings of fellow brotherly musicians lounging around on bean bags. You always hear about these ‘scenes’ but the closer you get to them the clearer it is they don’t exist, apart from Black Ivory.
Read the blog post about my collaboration painting with Black Francis, and our visit to the studio.
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Heckel’s Horse Jr. is not to be confused with Heckel’s Horse.
Heckel’s Horse Jr. is an alias used by Edgeworth Johnstone. Under this alias, Johnstone paints works based on Heckel’s Horse paintings in his home studio in Muswell Hill, London.
Heckel’s Horse is a painting collaboration between Billy Childish and Edgeworth Johnstone. Since 2013, Childish and Johnstone have made roughly 200 paintings together, at Childish’s studio in Chatham Dockyard. Also see The Complete Gallery of The Camden Market Free Art Man’s Heckel’s Horse Jr. Paintings.
Oil pastel and pencil on paper. Drawn in March 2023. Getting most of the work done for my Heckel’s Horse Jr. exhibition in March 2024 at Highgate Gallery in London. Hoping for a good turn out at the Private View. :
Exhibition Title: Heckel’s Horse Jr.
Venue: Highgate Gallery at Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
11 South Grove
London N6 6BS
Private View:
8th March 2024, 6 – 8.30pm
Exhibition runs until
21st March 2024
Edgeworth Johnstone 