K~nesis launch party!
Aug. 24th, 2007 02:13 pmThe launch party was MADE OF AWESOME. Here are just a few of the things that made it one of the most exciting nights of my life EVER:
- My girl! Was beautiful! And everyone who met her for the first time commented on how her gorgeousness lived up to expectation! Which it totally does.
- My boy! Was pure hotness in a pinstriped suit, even if he was wearing a terrifyingly East End pork pie hat (FOR PIMPING). Anyway. He was so hot that people were interrupting their conversations to come over the room and tell him how hot he was. And I got to take him home afterwards. WIN.
- I went up to the bar and asked for a Smirnoff Ice, which I'd switched to drinking after my senses were overwhelmed by the farmiest perry in the world (I swear, it tasted like it came out of a cow. And no, not in the dairy sense). The barman looked at me blankly. "A what?"
"A Smirnoff Ice, please?" I gestured helpfully at my empty bottle.
"You want one of them?" His expression and tone of voice suggested that I might as well be asking for something that had come out of a cow.
"Um. Yes."
He exhaled, and I could sense him mentally re-ordering what he was about to say so that the stupid person would understand. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have a vodka, lime and soda, which is cheaper, nicer, and has more alcohol in it?"
I blinked. "Yes! Thankyou! Yes, you're right, that's exactly what I want."
"Would you like a lot of lime juice?"
"Yes, I would, very much. Thankyou."
He gave me an amused glance over his shoulder, shook his head minutely, and charged me the princely sum of two pounds for my drink. I wholeheartedly approve of barstaff who know their trade and aren't afraid to tell you when you're being stupid. Taking down consumer brands from the inside, y0.
( 101 reasons why we throw the best parties )
- We sold stuff! Like, LOTS of stuff! An astonishing and unexpected amount of stuff! We sold:
The Enchanted Forest
Dragonflower (you see the bottom half of it in these photos; there's also a WIP shot from a few weeks ago here.)
Bird of Paradise (the orange and blue painting, which has a red and green hummingbird in the bottom left, although you can't see it that clearly. There's a pre-hummingbird WIP photo here.)
Polarity
Reflection (the red graffiti-style painting in the middle; also here)
Seahorse (the blue/purple painting on the left)
Seadragon (which spent the evening cunningly evading photocapture, but is the green and yellow painting lurking at the edges of these three pictures)
Solaris (the gold head in the foreground)
Arctura (a silver cybergoff head of which we have no photos yet, but which Kristen was very sad to see go)
Cruella (the black and white head with the tall feather)
... Which is 7 out of 11 paintings for sale (the two Planet Angel paintings aren't for sale) and three out of ten heads - almost half the whole exhibition given that the only other thing on show was the Inner Space sculpture. Overwhelmed is an understatement. I'm currently trying to convince myself that my friends aren't just doing this for the sole reason of being nice to me, but I guess that even if they are, that's still rather a fantastic compliment :) And the total sales so far runs to £1210 including a couple of discounts for friends who provided valuable assistance helping set up the exhibition. Which is really rather staggering, even minus expenses and divided between the two of us. SO! Everything sold will stay on show until Sunday 2nd, at which point we can start sorting out collection and suchlike. There are seven heads, four paintings and one life-size sculpture still going (the heads are a piffling £20 each), but to be perfectly honest I'll be quite happy if none of the other paintings sell, because I wants to keep them for my shiny new house. The rest of you can have prints or something. (Sorry, Kristen. Me and Squid are going to steal them.)
The two most popular paintings by far were Dragonflower and Bird of Paradise, and I'll almost certainly be doing a limited edition print run of those two paintings for all the people who missed their chance to own the originals. Denny reckons I should do some more bright, sharp, tropical flowers in oils along similar lines, but unless I'm working to a specific commission I'm bad at that kind of thing. I'd feel like I was ripping myself off. They'd feel derivative and second-rate, and if they didn't sell the whole experience would just be depressing. On the other hand, if anyone wants to specifically commission another tropical flower painting, that would be fine :) I'm also going to be doing a print run of Winged (the green/yellow painting on the right) and Floating since we've had at least one request for each so far, and we'll see how much demand there is for the others. And I'm very tempted to do some more paintings along the lines of Reflection simply because they're so much fun to do.
The exhibition is open until Sunday 2nd - if you're in or near London I'd be thrilled if you could find the time to go and see it one evening. The Foundry is an awesome venue - it's co-founded by Bill Drummond of the KLF, it has the most vibrant graffiti in Shoreditch and entire bank vaults downstairs filled with exciting art, and it serves locally-brewed organic beers which are highly recommended (although the perry comes with a health warning). We're going to be doing print runs of any painting people want prints of, so let me know if you want to put an order in. And if you can't make it, spread the word! :)
I spent most of the evening running around in an ecstatic daze, which increased to near-hysterical happiness when people started buying things. I drank lots of booze. I felt like I neglected everyone while trying to run around doing the host thing: I needed several clones, so one of them could spend the evening bouncing up and down and locking lips with my beautiful artistgirl, one could look after Denny, one could catch up with
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( MOAR PHOTOS! )
( This is beginning to sound like an Oscar speech. )