Showing posts with label Made in Chelsea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Made in Chelsea. Show all posts

Saturday, 2 August 2014

My Chelsea experience at Parallax Art Fair!

Parallax Art Fair at Chelsea Town Hall
Phew! The Parallax Art Fair last weekend was amazing! And exhausting! It poured on Friday evening, which made transporting watercolours treacherous, especially since parking was almost impossible - even the local NCP was packed.

Lizzy,still putting up paintings
at the private view!
Squeezing into a tiny Pay & Display spot around the corner, Max and I had only an hour to get everything into Chelsea Town Hall and to put up all the paintings in my designated exhibition area.

Two hours later we were still at it! I'd prepared a scaled drawing of the space but the paintings seemed to hang higher than expected. I wasn't the only artist who discovered this. With no time to re-hang, I believed my pictures couldn't be viewed at their best :(

Lizzy with cousin Graham Barker & art agent, Celia Purcell
With no time to make adjustments, Max and I dashed for the car. Thankfully the place we were staying was nearby. With less than an hour to get ready for the evening's private view I wondered if I could possibly make it in time. Somehow I did it, fishnets, high heels and all, and we cabbed it back to Chelsea Town Hall arriving just a few minutes late.

As my hair frizzed in the heat and humidity of the exhibition space, something I'd have to get used to over the next two days (take a portable fan if you're attending Chelsea Town Hall, people!), I wondered anew if exhibiting at Parallax was such a sensible idea. 


Sandra Blaz, interested in a future commission
Then the lovely London art agent Celia Purcell came walking towards me, wide smile on her face, and I relaxed. I'm always pleased to see her because she's particularly enthusiastic about my 'quirky style'. She loved my exhibited drawing of ‘Notre Dame’ and wants me to paint more for inclusion in her own exhibition nearer Christmas! Celia, I will, I will!

Saturday - before the rush!
Over the two days of the Art Fair many lovely guests from around the world visited my stand and YES! On Saturday I sold my painting, ‘Girl on a Motorcycle’. That made the event for me! The cute watercolour references the 1960s, Vespa scooters and Marianne Faithfull in 'Girl on a Motorcycle' and has long been one of my personal favourites.

Lizzy with Bruce Withington in his Chelsea garden, with 'Girl on a Motorcycle' - SOLD!

Bruce, who purchased the piece, had bought his son Ollie along to the Art Fair. It was Ollie who spotted the painting and wanted it for his bedroom wall. Ollie also happens to be the name of a character in ‘Made In Chelsea’ and I told Bruce how I adored the programme and would love to have my own Chelsea experience. Just like that Bruce invited Max & I to his Chelsea home for Pimm's & strawberries! What a great guy!

Loving my Chelsea experience and totally star-struck (Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys' fame lives a few doors down the road) Bruce took us on to the Phoenix Geronimo Inn, which also features in ‘Made in Chelsea’, where he treated us to cocktails. This fabulous chap gave me my own wonderful Chelsea experience, so thank you Bruce, you're an art lover, thoroughly lovely man and a star!


Parallax Art Fair underway and already there are lots of visitors


Plenty to see & much to talk about!







Artist Bozena Czyz with her work





A closer look
So much to take in across Chelsea Town Hall

Heading home
Silent contemplation. Will she, should she?

Friday, 14 March 2014

Made in Chelsea!

C4's TV show logo for 'Made in Chelsea

I love C4's 'Made in Chelsea', the lives and loves of an elite Chelsea set (will Binky ever end her heartache and break up with the love rat Alex?)!
Set in real Chelsea locations and some of my own favourite London haunts, I'd adore to spend more time in the champagne bars, Bluebird or JuJu, discussing latest love entanglements with 
my girlfriends!


The Albert Bridge, linking Chelsea on the North shore & Battersea on the South
For me Chelsea and the King's Road are really all about celebrity and creativity; in the 1970s Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood Had their 'Sex' boutique and Vivienne remains there still with her eponymous own label.


Sex, Malcolm & Vivienne's King's Road shop
There's the delight of artisan chocolatier, Rococo Chocolates, VV Rouleaux for ribbons & trimmings that are out of this world and the very necessary (to me at least!) Green & Stone for the best artists's materials.

An infamous location









Another historic Chelsea street and home over the years to a long list of celebrities is Cheyne Walk. Sylvia Pankhurst lived at No 120; No 4 was for a time the home of George Eliot. In 1851 the painter JMW Turner died at No 119; Dante, Rosetti & Sir Paul Getty all resided here; and in 1968-69 Keith Richards & Anita Pallenberg lived at No 3 while Mick Jagger & Marianne Faithful resided at No 48.
The Saatchi Gallery, London, by Clara Molden

Outside Mick & Marianne's house, No 48 Cheyne Walk








Walking tours are a great way to explore an area. Chelsea has several and 'Made in Chelsea' has its own Brit Movie Tour. Check it out!
Last year I used a great little book, 'Walking London: Thirty Original Walks In & Around London' by Andrew Duncan, to navigate my way around the Chelsea area. It was a delightful walk which took in the Saatchi Gallery, Physic Garden, Albert Bridge, Chelsea Old Church and the Royal Hospital, home of the Chelsea Pensioners.

Lizzy on Cheyne Walk, the street of her dreams

King's Road has lots of interesting goings on for the art lover