It seems that a few things have passed my attention. Ginger beer has suddenly been re-discovered by the masses, cupcakes are in vogue and street artists are not only taking themselves seriously, the public are appreciating their talents too. Most of this was brought home to me in a triple whammy when I went along to the launch night of the Art for Kunst stall at the All I want for Christmas Fair in the Old Truman Brewery last night.
Say what you will about Twitter but without it I think I’d have much less to blog about seeing as I am naturally lazy and inclined not to get up off my backside and seek out things to do. The problem, I claim, is that London is too big and there is too much going on with the end result being I find the choice overwhelming so end up doing nothing. However by following a relatively small group of people/organisations I find a lot of the hard work is done for me and the links they post I tend to treat as having been through a filtration process and so it was when I saw a link to Art for Kunst.
Interestingly, when I saw Art for Kunst I immediately thought of the 10cc song, Art for Art’s Sake but it wasn’t until I checked online that I discovered that Kunst is a Germanic word for Art. Pub Quiz Trivia: Did you know that the Latin inscription above MGM’s roaring lion is Ars gratia artis? Which means… Art for Art’s Sake!
Art for Kunst have come up with a great project, just in time for Christmas, offering pieces from established street and graffiti artists Aida, Dora, Dscreet, Juice 126, Mac 1, Solo One and Zoot. What you are buying is a gift pack which contains an A6 framed print, a t-shirt, some stickers and some button badges. There are 10 designs in total with only 50 of each available and if the launch night is anything to go by these are going to go fast. I’d browsed the website before going along and could only get my short-list down to 6. I’d initially told myself I was only going to go, take some photos and snaffle a couple of cupcakes but when I saw the prints and shirts my backbone and bank balance crumbled and I trotted off to withdraw some cash, which is where I discovered the Cockney Cash Machine!
In the end I settled for the Dora print and had a smile on my face when I got home and opened my pack to find I had print number 1 of 50. I did momentarily wonder if the other 49 buyers might open theirs and discover the same thing…Mr Omneo, ever the cynic ;) Whilst you can buy your gift packs online, if you are in London it’s worth making a trip to the stall as you can buy a raffle ticket for only £2 which might win you one of five packs. Wouldn’t it be nice if my 3 tickets won? OK, nice for me, maybe not so nice for the other raffle ticket buyers ;) On the subject of street art, over on the B-uncut blog there are some photographs of some East London and West London street art and The 405 have interviews with both Dora and Juice126.
Now, what about those cupcakes? When did we Brits adopt the North American (and Antipodean) name for the good old-fashioned fairy cake? I guess that minority of society would spend too much time sniggering over the term fairy to take these decadently delicious delights seriously. Last night’s launch featured scrummy cakes from Molly Bakes (I snaffled three!) and whilst I was unable to partake of the alcoholic ginger beer I’m pleased that people are re-discovering this tastiest of tasty beverages, just a shame it takes alcohol to get people’s attention, but that’s a rant for another time. I’m going to an event on Tuesday which is also going to be featuring cupcakes. However I’m not sure Molly need worry as I understand they are being baked by one of the speakers and not being supplied by a rival cup cakery. Nevertheless I shall be putting them to the taste challenge but the standard has been set pretty high!
Not only did I buy some cool art and scoff some tasty cupcakes I met some pretty cool cats however due to my rubbisher than rubbish memory I can’t remember everyone’s name so can only say hello here to Jim who founded Art for Kunst; Claire and Paul who run A Badge of Friendship and Yodet who I ended up chatting to for over an hour on art and political activism.
Here are a few photo’s from the evening.
