Brighton’s arty: Alison Krog

Pencilled in for Artists open houses

As you read this, the first weekend of Artists Open Houses will be over. And if you popped in to Arty HQ on 12 Kemp Street to pick up a copy of our glorious new book ‘Art in Brighton 2015’ I hope you’ve enjoyed drooling over the pages of sensational artwork it features this year. (And if you didn’t – why not? It’s a limited edition that no art lover can live without.)

However, as I write this (lead times being what they are), we’re still in the run up to Festival month. So The Dane and I are reminding ourselves of all the things we’ve done in the past to ensure that everyone who walks through our door has a memorable visit – which we definitely won’t be stupid enough to try again. Such as the first year we held an Open House, and thought it would be rather charming to use our porch wall as an unconventional visitors’ book and invite people to write comments on the paintwork. The Dane spent hours hanging a rainbow row of pencils on invisible thread from the ceiling, so it would look as if they were floating in mid air. And it did – for about 10 minutes. Which is as long as it took a fascinated 5 year old to tear through them and whirl them into an unresolvable and not particularly artistic tangle, while his mate took a black marker pen to our Farrow & Ball. That’s what happens when you opt for cats over kids. You forget that it’s probably wiser to put up defences rather than decorations.

But we never regret being part of the AOH experience. And we’d be chuffed to bits to see you on the Central Trail. Putting modesty to one side, we really do think that this year’s book is something special. You’ll find all the Arty favourites who have supported us since day one plus some new entrants to the Arty community such as John Link, whose marvellous paintings are inspired by Shakespeare, or the masterful local scenes by Val Fawbert that are shown here. Get yours before they go!
www.artymagazines.com