But who are the art fairies ?
In which we find ourselves asking , not for the first time , “ Dotty , what on earth is going on ?”
For anyone who missed the last issue of The Mighty Whistler - and really , why would you do that ? - there ’ s a new outdoor gallery in town , The Tat Modern .
Now whereas most galleries have art as regular , ongoing fixtures , some rather peculiar and fascinating activity has been taking place with art fairies in the night .
In the last few weeks , I have seen ( to name but a few ) the arrival and disappearance of a religious cross , a mirrored turtle , an arty toilet seat , a horse portrait , a square of Anchor butter and last but by no means least a chandelier lampshade .
My initial suspicions were that someone might plonk a street cone on Lieutenant Landfill ’ s head , but I didn ’ t expect such a high level of interactive art , wrapped around the mysteries of arriving and disappearing .
The quickest item to arrive then go , was a found lamp , with above mentioned lampshade , the porcelain vase was taken in the blink of an eye , whereas the upcycled revamped shade was left on the pavement .
A thought ran through my head . I can ’ t even give my art away . At which point an art buyer , who once sacrificed his entire classics art collection , by placing it back into auction , appeared like a pixie , from nowhere . He said when you hit a certain age and you ’ re surrounded by classics , your living room just feels like a musty museum . So he ’ s transitioned to contemporary art for a vibrant colour hit and loves auction houses . I gave him a small piece of dotty art from the Tat Modern and after telling me he still buys gold snuff boxes , he scuttled off into the streets of Brighton .
As this encounter happened on St Patrick ’ s Day and to celebrate , I had a Guinness or two in the Cresent , while wearing my shiny gold shoes that light up in neon blue on the base .
All of this , art pokery has been in the lead up to my Tat Modern fashion show , for a camera shoot I ’ ve been considering , using a cool established technique called hyperlapse , where the finished cut , gives off the feel of you floating along a street . I decided to do a test run back at TM HQ and gathered all my arty upcycled fashion jackets into a robust mountain climbing zip up case and once again donned my clown shows to head across Montpelier Rd to Temple Gardens .
I unloaded my collection of Royal Academy and Harper ’ s BAZAAR magazines for an eclectic backdrop , then proceeded to take photographs of myself walking in a fashion walk manner and after almost falling sideways inbetween two parked cars , I met an Irish chap , who started taking photos of me in various poses , with the aim of showing them to his painting and decorating brother , as he may want to purchase one of my Artist Dotty jackets .
We concluded the conversation by saying lampshades may really work as fashion hats . So if you see a few shady looking people in Brighton , you know where you heard it first .
Artist Dotty was talking to Matt Whistler