Those of you who have been following this blog for a while may remember a post in 2019 about Art on a Postcard.
Art on a Postcard was founded, in 2014, by Gemma Peppé as a unique way to raise money for for the Hepatitis C Trust. It works like this. Invited artists are sent postcard-sized pieces of paper to decorate in any way they wish. These miniature artworks are then put up for auction. All works start at £50.
Last week I was up in London at the Winter Auction private view held at the Bomb Factory Art Foundation gallery in Covent Garden.
The auction is run by Dreweatts. Bidding closes at 2pm GMT on 15th November 2022. To bid, just visit http://www.dreweatts.com to create an online bidding account and register to bid.
You can view the exhibition on the site and follow the bidding without registering if you want. Those who have won lots will be contacted by the auctioneers with payment details, shortly after after bidding closes.
So, if you want the chance to buy a bargain from a famous (or soon to be famous) artist, while simultameously supporting a very good cause, pop over and have a look now. Normal sized pictures by me are, of course, always available in my gallery.
Christmas cards Christmas is still coming. It’s November, so it is OK to start thinking about it. Are you ready? Have you got your Christmas cards yet? No. Well, I can help you with that.
These boxed sets of 42 beautiful charity Christmas cards and envelopes, each card designed by a different (mostly local) artist, have been on sale for a while now. They are raising money for Christmas dinner, this year, at No. 84 Tearoom and Eatery at Echo Square in Gravesend https://www.no84.co.uk/ Cafe owners Adrian and Andrea offer a free Christmas dinner to people in the local community who would otherwise be alone on Christmas Day.
I’m delighted to say that over half of the boxes I got printed have been sold now. In fact, I’ve only got 38 boxes left so don’t miss out. Boxes are available on this website https://duncangrantartist.com/product-category/charity-christmas-cards/ and in various venues around Gravesend, including https://www.no84.co.uk/ or you can get them from me directly, if you know where to find me.
Each box costs £20 (£24 including postage and packing if you order them from the website) with all profits going to help those less fortunate than ourselves this Christmas. You can find out more about the 2019 Christmas card project here https://duncangrantartist.com/2019/04/07/only-261-more-days-until-christmas-time-to-think-about-lunch/ Apologies to anyone from overseas who tried to order online but found that they needed to take out a bank loan to pay the postage. That has now been put right. Postage to Europe is £10, elsewhere in the world £15.
As well as me, this year’s line up includes anonymous contributions from famous names from the artworld such as Norman Ackroyd RA, Jock McFadyen RA, Carolina Caycedo, Vanessa Jackson RA, Dan Baldwin, Louise Lawler, Florine Démosthène, Joan Snyder, Timothy Hyman RA, Jeremy Deller, Miya Ando, and Helen Beard. All cards start at £50 so if you think that you can spot a famous artist just from looking at their work, you could snap up a real bargain. I was really pleased to see that all mine have now had bids so I won’t be consigned to the box of shame and will be raising some money for this good cause. Off to the private view on Tuesday. The auction is online https://paddle8.com/auction/hep-c-trust and runs until 14th November, so there’s still time.
As part of my prize, I received five metres of green Tana Lawn Duncan Grant from Liberty – was going to post a link but looks like it has sold out – and Jane made this from it for me. Thank you, Jane.
I am going to pursue the fabric design thing. This week, I attended my first ever art-based since school, at the Fashion and Textile Museum, up in that there London, trying to get some Photoshop skills for my design stuff. https://www.ftmlondon.org/ftm_courses/photoshop-for-textile-designers-3/ Had to walk through the Zandra Rhodes 50 Years of Fabulous exhibition to get to my class., which was kind of ironic because it is one year since I met her in person at the Liberty fabric launch. It was a small group – just four of us – and I’ve learnt a lot, like changing colourways, cropping images, collaging bits of designs and making repeats. Also managed to reset my phone to factory settings and nearly lost my wallet. But more on all that another time maybe
When I entered the #LibertyOpenCall my mate Richard Marshall said, ‘If you win, I want a pair of pants made out of that’. Well, Jane can also make boxers, Richard – and here they are! Now just your part of the bargain to fulfil – looking forward to the photoshoot. watch this space, readers.
For the last three years, I’ve been invited to submit mini artworks for a secret auction by Art on a Postcard www.artonapostcard.com. This brilliant art charity raises money for The Hepatitis C Trust’s campaign to eliminate hepatitis C in the UK by 2025. http://www.hepctrust.org.uk/
It works like this. Famous and emerging artists are invited to donate postcard-sized (10cmx15cm) original, images for auction. Over the years Art on a Postcard have had postcards donated by Sir Peter Blake, Damien Hirst, Harland Miller, Gavin Turk, Rachel Howard, Gilbert and George, Polly Morgan, John Wragg RA, Stephen Chambers RA, Michael Craig-Martin, Chantal Joffe, Cecily Brown, Grayson Perry, Julian Opie and Jeremy Deller. The cards are displayed to the public in a gallery exhibition and, simultaneously, on online auction site, Paddle8. https://paddle8.com/
The twist is that although the names of all the contributing artists are published as a list, you don’t find out which artist produced which work until after the auction is over. You have to guess.
Trying to match artists to their pictures in a kind of artistic Whodunnit is part of the fun, and with bids starting at around £50, there is a chance that you could buy something from an artist that you probably could never ordinarily afford.
Here is one of Art on a Postcard’s Facebook videos from a previous auction in which Director, Gemma Peppé previews some of some of the cards and entices potential punters to guess the artists. https://www.facebook.com/ArtonaPostcard/videos/1819606894762754/
‘We have a group of men who pride themselves on knowing who everyone is, even the more obscure artists’ she says. ‘But last year they got the Marina Abramovic totally wrong! And another year, the money went everywhere because nobody could work out which was the Damien Hirst, and a huge amount of money went on a picture of a pig by a relatively unknown artist, because bidders decided that was the one.’
Last year’s Art on a Postcard raised £81,000 for the Trust.
The fight against Hepatitis C Hepatitis C is a virus that is transmitted from person to person by infected blood. 90 per cent of people with hepatitis C have contracted it through injecting drugs with contaminated needles. Others will have got it perhaps from having tattos or medical treatment abroad, or in the UK, pre 1991, from infected blood products. https://www.infectedbloodinquiry.org.uk/
To eliminate the disease by 2015, everyone who is affected needs to be found, diagnosed and treated. Drug treatment has improved greatly in the last few years, and as more people are cured, there are fewer people with hepatitis C to infect others. ‘It’s that last ten percent who are the most difficult to reach,’ says Gemma Peppé. ‘General awareness campaigns just don’t work. People don’t really take any notice unless hepatitis C is already on their minds. And they’re not going to pay any attention to material that is aimed at drug users, if they just injected drugs once, years ago at university, because they wouldn’t see themselves as that. But people do engage with Art on a Postcard and it just might reach that target group.’
Gemma discovered that she had hepatitis C fourteen years after contracting it in 1988. While she was ill she started working for The Hepatitis C Trust on their celebrity-led awareness campaigns but after being cured in 2013, she regained her energy and, in 2014, launched the first Art on a Postcard auction, with a colleague.
Since then Art on a Postcard has gone from strength. Gemma now produces a fine art postcard auction each November – that’s the one I’ve contributed to – and two photographic auction events. One auction takes place as part of Photo London, held each May at Somerset House in London. The Hepatitis C Trust is the official partner charity.
Photograhy on a Postcard 2019 And being launched today is another annual photographic auction Photography on a Postcard, which features contemporary urban art and street photography. https://www.artonapostcard.com/spitalfields-2019
This year the auction is curated by street artist Ben Eine and street photographer Dougie Wallace. It features over 600 images by some of the most collectable and interesting contemporary urban artists, including Anthony Lister, Vhils, Ed Kashi, Melanie Einzig, Shok1, Sandra Chevrier, Nick Thomm. View the list of participating artists and the auction catalogue here https://www.artonapostcard.com/spitalfields-2019
If you are interested in getting involved, the Private View is on 2nd July Central Mezzanine at Old Spitalfields Market, 16 Commercial Street, London E1 6EW. At this event, Art on a Postcard will join forces with Jealous Galleryhttps://www.jealousgallery.com/ who will be live screen printing and releasing an iconic Ben Eine ‘S’ for Spitalfields.If you would like to attend the private view, you can but tickets here https://aoap.eventbrite.co.uk.
The exhibition continues at Spitalfields until 7th July. If you can’t wait or you can’t get there, the auction itself starts today and runs until 10 July 2019. You can browse and bid on Paddle8. https://paddle8.com/auction/art-on-a-postcard.And on Saturday 6th July, Art on a Postcard will be curating five stalls in Old Spitalfields Market and will be joined by the artists Sara Pope and Rugman. So do pop along there if you get the chance.
Look out too for other Art on a Postcard events too. They’ve done one off-events such as Art on a Ukulele and there is an annual car boot sale, which has attracted artists like Tracy Emin, Peter Blake and Gavin Turk. ‘The trick is to get a destination artist,’ explains Gemma Peppé. ‘The year we had Harland Miller, people started queueing from 2pm the day before.’
Those of you who have been following this blog for a while may remember a post in 2019 about Art on a Postcard.
There is a number of auctions each year featuring work by icons of the art world – for this auction they’ve got contributions from Grayson Perry, Gavin Turk and Royal Academicians, including Chris Orr, Stephen Chambers, Kenneth Draper, Norman Ackroyd, Ian Ritchie and Mick Rooney; rising stars, including Caroline Wong; Miyeon Yi, Orlando Marosini, Rose Electra Harris and Isaac Aldridge ……and then there’s me. I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to contribute every year since 2016 and I have four postcard-sized ink drawings in this year’s auction.
The auction is run by Dreweatts. Bidding closes at 2pm GMT on 15th November 2022. To bid, just visit http://www.dreweatts.com to create an online bidding account and register to bid.
These boxed sets of 42 beautiful charity Christmas cards and envelopes, each card designed by a different (mostly local) artist, have been on sale for a while now. They are raising money for Christmas dinner, this year, at No. 84 Tearoom and Eatery at Echo Square in Gravesend 
Once again I was honoured to be invited to donate 4 postcard-sized artworks to the 6th Art on a Postcard charity auction to raise money for the Hepatitis C Trust. If you are interested, you can find out more about the charity in my blog from June this year 
In September, Faversham seamstress Jane Potter 
The twist is that although the names of all the contributing artists are published as a list, you don’t find out which artist produced which work until after the auction is over. You have to guess.
Photograhy on a Postcard 2019