📖 7 Books in 16 languages 📚 including: How To Change The World A Modest Book About How To Make An Adequate Speech.
Blood rushed from my fingertips, weirdly.
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A weird thing happened after I booked the venue for my solo art show: blood drained from my fingers, turning them yellow. They tingled painfully. I took photos to show my wife:
​ If you don’t know already, I’m doing my first-ever solo art show, at a gallery in Hampstead. I’ve loved it, but also panicked a lot. I think that must explain the fingertip thingy. Tomorrow is the last day. Tomorrow, I’ll send details of the pictures in this show, and how you can buy them. ​ The private view was on Tuesday. More people attended than I had any right to expect, given that I booked the venue only six days beforehand. Wednesday was relatively busy. Thursday, with rain, was quiet. Yesterday brought a delightful succession of visitors - and I sold the largest canvas in the show, which was a TOTAL surprise, because nobody had stopped to look at it before that. Not one. That picture has been at the door of my office for about two years. I’m starting to miss it already. But in a good way, because I really want all these pictures to go to new homes and give other people pleasure. ​ ​ One of the great things about doing this show is that it forced me to do things. For example: in the six days between booking the venue and opening the show, I painted five new pictures. It also forced me to get in touch with people I haven’t been in touch with for a long time - and that is SUCH a blessing. How amazing to be back in touch with J—— with whom I travelled across the US. We haven’t seen each other for 30 years (thirty!). Also, people I have known in different parts of my working life have got in touch, and even subscribed to this newsletter. One, C———, is an eminent journalist. In a private email to me, she said nice things about my art and asked if I still do any journalism. I replied: For years I suppressed my strong urge to make and share art because I suppose I thought I "should" just be a writer.
​ It took a breakdown to make me see that art is fundamental for me. (I made about 250 pictures in psychiatric hospital, almost exactly seven years ago.)
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I've deliberately moved away from being a two-journalist household, as it doesn't seem a particularly secure industry. So I don't do a lot of journalism, no. But I love it when there is something really interesting to me. This newsletter is a bit like journalism. It has been written at great haste, a 9.49am on Saturday morning and the gallery opens in 11 mins, so I must rush. Please forgive any errors, etc etc. Thank you for reading. ​ ​ Magnolias of HampsteadVenue: Burgh House, New End Square, London NW3 ​ ​
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John-Paul Flintoff
📖 7 Books in 16 languages 📚 including: How To Change The World A Modest Book About How To Make An Adequate Speech.
Hello Reader A building in Hampstead, on the corner of Heath Street and the High Street: You have two choices. If you take the road on the left, which slopes downhill, you’ll end up at Waterstones bookshop, assuming that you aren’t previously lured into (say) Gail’s Bakery or the Vencchi ice cream shop. If you don’t stop at any of those places and keep walking down the hill you’ll pass Belsize Park, Chalk Farm, Camden Town, Euston, the River Thames, Sussex, the English Channel, France, Africa...
Hello Reader It’s three weeks since the 'Magnolias of Hampstead' exhibition at Burgh House. (Hello Reader. This is my newsletter.) Been a bit of a whirlwind, wrapping paintings very carefully, arranging couriers: and... . . . [ after an agonising wait ] . . . ...receiving confirmation that the deliveries arrived in one piece: There's something extremely satisfying about seeing these magnolias settling into their new homes. *** The exhibition itself feels like a bit of a dream now. I keep...
This woman, in this room? Unimaginable just four years ago. She was in prison, in Iran. And - more trivially - I couldn’t have dreamed that I would be doing a solo show of my art. (Hello Reader. This is my newsletter.) You may recall that in 2021 Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband Richard went on hunger strike outside the Foreign Office in London. He was protesting at the UK government’s failure to get his wife released. I went to see him. I wasn’t on assignment or anything. It was just me,...