Outsider Art Fair Paris, Castlefield Gallery, Sweet Earth Records and a Happy New Year..

Outsider Art Fair Paris 2015…

Greetings friends, family, fans, followers and spies. I thought I’d write one of these posts to update everyone on some of my activities before the year is out. Firstly, as I mentioned in the previous post in September, I had two drawings shown at the Outsider Art Fair Paris thanks to Galerie du Marché and the Eternod/Mermod Collection from Lausanne, Switzerland. I must reiterate how much of an honour it is to have my drawings in their incredible collection and to be shown at their consistently strong booth, having attended the fair for several years and been absorbed by the potency and selection. This was the first time that my works have been exhibited at the fair, and I was in good company on the wall with a Louis Soutter  above me and a Theo below me, with a Madge Gill below that. As I said in my entry of reflections on the Outsider Art Fair Paris for Outside In‘s blog which can be read here: “In a weird way, I quite like being in the company of dead people who manage to speak from beyond the grave (and particularly in this way).” Quoting myself from other blogs, into my own. The future has arrived. Anyhow, for my perspective on the fair, click on the aforementioned link. The two diary drawings of mine that were shown were bought by the La Maison Rouge collection and a private collector. 

Carlo, beside himself at OAF Paris 2015

Diary Drawing…

I am currently drawing the 9th in my series of diary drawings, with the intention to stop at the 12th, as I’d like to continue a painting that I began in 2011 and hopefully build a series around it. Below, you can see an image capturing a moment in the process of my current diary in progress..

Ninth diary in progress

Castlefield Gallery… Inside Out

I am pleased to announce that some of my work will be shown in Inside Out, an exhibition with a very interesting roster of artists, at the Castlefield Gallery in Manchester, UK. The show will be on from 4th March until 24th of April. For (a lot of) additional info, check out the first link in this paragraph. I’ll go into some more detail about this exhibition in my next blog post, but for now I will say I am very excited to discover I’ll have works shown alongside Nick Blinko, Joel Lorand and Mehrdad Rashidi.

Sweet Earth Records

I undertook a most pleasurable adventure in recent months, in an attempt to shed light on a somewhat obscure, short-lived record company that was active between 1977-1979. My curiosity resulted from a variety of ‘coincidences’ in regards to the records that were released on the label, most of which are rare and all out of print with the exception of Sun Ra‘s The Other Side Of The Sun which saw a reissue through another label in recent years. In my attempt to demystify the story of Sweet Earth Records, I managed to speak with John Sprague who kindly elaborates on his memories of performing and recording with David Wertman and The Sun Ensemble, as well as his involvement with the label and their releases. I also speak with the legendary Amina Claudine Myers about her album Poems For Piano ‘The Piano Music of Marion Brown’, I chat with the charismatic Stephen McCraven who kindly invited me in his home to speak on his classic Wooley The Newt LP, and lastly I interview the great Ahmed Abdullah about a Sweet Earth Records non-release and what would have been Ed Blackwell‘s first album as leader. As far as I know, there isn’t really even a synopsis of what Sweet Earth Records were about, online, let alone an exploratory show containing interviews with someone associated with each release to come out on the label, which is what I’ve managed to piece together. I hope you enjoy it. With that, I’ll stop typing and leave you with those two hours of audio Sweet Earth Records special / See’s To Exist show. Happy New Year!

Bright moments,

Carlo