Tag Archives: Rob Hardaker

Now I have begun.

Stop Press

I am doing a 20 minute performance art at Firstsite Gallery in Colchester on Saturday 7th November which has now been re-scheduled for 15.00 hrs that’s 3pm, kick off time for Outlaw Pete who will be getting on Jurgen Fritz’s horse! It’s part of Firstsite’s first ever day of performance art with 11 other PA people doing their bits between 12.00 to 18.00hrs. It should be great fun.

Fancy that, I began my art trajectory in 1968 with little or no idea where it would lead me.47 years of nothing doing and THEN in just one week I get 3 such big breakthroughs; IPA, JAB & OAK.

IPA.

At IPA Bristol I got accepted into the Performance Artist community. To quote Anthony Hopkins on last night’s incredible BBC play The Dresser, “The whole event has been one of the best times in my life.” (Radio Times p22, 31Oct-6Nov 2015) and I must admit I was the most senior player but by no means the most experienced. I cried a lot (along with others when they watched my stuff!) I felt strong emotions and a deep nostalgic looking back on my life which was better than any psycho- therapy.

Here’s Hopkins and Jurgen Fritz, my mentor on the IPA fortnight.

a Jurgen-Fritz-IPA Workshop-Leader-2015jurgen on the horse dinging a bell

ant hopkins smHopkins on his horse (ctsy Radio Timesglockeromswhk

if Anthony can do it Jurgen does it too!

Check out my pals Robert Hardaker and Debbie Guinnane from IPA at this week’s SPILL Festival in London http://spillfestival.com/brochure2015/ .

rob an leafs smRob Hardaker on his horse

A colleague on the IPA course, Carol Montealegre,  sent this which Kabbalah Centre International originally shared these words, love ‘em, “We create change by seeing the spark of Light rather than the Darkness in everyone with whom we interact.” ~Karen Berg. Here she is in one of my sketches doing her ting

carol smCarol reigning in her horse

JAB has just published an article I wrote for them about the influence of some German artists on my work. (We can now add Jurgen to Max, Anselm, Kurt, Dieter and all the rest now!) http://www.journalofartistsbooks.org/current/ It’s great to see my work in a prestigious journal from across the big pond. Thanks Brad for publishing me in the company of such greats.

 OAK Knoll is a pretty prestigious fine press publishing house and a little bird has told me that they are interested to stock the poems I did for my artist’s book ‘Inside This Clay Jug’ that David Jury printed as a letterpress set of pages which we collaborated in the making of in 2014. It’s wonderful to see David’s hard graft getting recognition and that more people may be able to see the work we did. Let’s celebrate with this beautiful song by Richard Hawley

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06h3274/later-with-jools-holland-series-47-episode-4

arnolfini outside jug dance sm

Pete doing the Jug Dance outside the Arnolfini in October 2015

Looking back over my two weeks at International Performance Association (http://ipabristol.co.uk/about-ipa/ ) which were so fulfilling and formative I’d love to share my rapid sketches with you. Normally I detest it when you’re not allowed to take photos of artworks & performances but in this case I saw the merit of leaving the photo-taking to Jurgen so we could concentrate on our P A. By the way, feel free to take as many snaps as you wish of any of my PA works. Don’t feel concerned about flashing and I might just flash you too!

So here’s the sketches.

okhu smOkhu dances for the horse

sam chess yew tree smSam outwits the horse by going blindfold, in a big coat