Podcast: Mudlarking and art collecting
Looking for investment interns
I’ve been ill repeatedly over last few weeks and hoping to be well for my show. This is a special edition newsletter (off-cycle) in particular for those interested in my comedy / performance-lecture on death. It will be live-streamed as well as in-person at Theatre Deli, London, Jan 12. Thinking Bigly: How We Die on 12 Jan 2023 (link to book).
What’s the best way for Ben to die? Help Ben with death admin. Shape his story. Plan his funeral. An interactive performance where you help Ben have his best death*. (*Ben doesn’t die in the show).
Time: 7pm, 12 Jan 2023.
Venue: Theatre Deli, Leadenhall Street, London
Book - pay what you like - at this link here. I think it will sell out, so if you are minded to come do book. (Some people are having trouble booking, but I think this is an issue with accepting cookies, so clear your cache and try again if this is you).
An important part of the show is input from the audience / friends / people on this newsletter.
If you would like to contribute. Please answer or send information on the questions below. You can use the Google Form to be anonymous. But, if you don’t mind you can also just hit reply. I anonymise all data (tho obv. if you have an exact picture of yourself, people will know who you are)
I will read them out in the show, but they will be anonymous. Questions below and in the Google Form here.
What song(s)/music would you like at your funeral?
What would you like someone to say about you or read at your funeral?
Do you have something unsaid? If you were to die this week, is there something you have unsaid to someone ? Or if someone else were to die? Would you like to write it here now?
Is there anything you’d like to confess?
Do you have a photo or image of how you would like to be represented?
This can be literal (a photo of how you view yourself or representation eg. an abstract painting).
If you want to participate, please do send something.
Quick hits:
My investment team is looking for 12 week interns. Would suit someone with 2 - 3 years of some sort of experience (eg MBA, Masters) but open to diversity for a great person. One of our interns of 2022 now has a permanent role. Feel free to reply to me if this might be you.
Florence Evans is an art dealer, historian, curator, collector and mudlarker. This is a Guardian profile featuring Florrie and other mudlarks.
We chat on what does mudlarking tell us about history ? What does art tell us about being human ?
…[what] we mustn't forget is that ultimately there's a real human connection with beauty. So conceptual art aside which serves an important purpose and helps us to think and challenges us in many ways. On the other hand, there's a human need, I think, a kind of nesting instinct to have art for the home, things of beauty to lift your spirits. I think that's really elemental. …
Florrie chats on the cultural history of mudlarking, the stories found objects represent from the both the darker side of human history such as beads and the slave trade, as well as the lighter sides of found items.
We discuss one of her favourite finds, a whole child’s shoe from the Tudor era.
We chat on what we’ve puzzled out from our river finds including a hand blown glass apothecary bottle from the 1600s.
We discuss: bottles, beads, coins, stories, Roman items, buttons and costumes and more…
We touch on her philosophy as an art collector and what art means to us as humans.
One of my happiest achievements in my career thus far was curating an exhibition on mudlarking and mudlarked art in 2019 for the Totally Thames Festival. That was an exhibition that I put on showing art by artists featuring mudlark finds, still life photographs by Hannah Smiles; a photographer of mudlarked finds and portraits of mudlarks as well that she had taken. That was in the Bargehouse which is a massive warehouse space on the South Bank by the Oxo Tower; so right by the river.
That was a joy to be asked to do that and it felt like it was a fusion of both my passion, hobby; mudlarking and what I do in work which is curate and look at art. So that was a fusion of art and mudlarking and looking at craft and elevating it to art. Looking at history and saying, "This is part of who we are as human beings. We create-- There is an impulse and an urge to make things of beauty. Even things that are utilitarian, there's beauty to be found." And that kind of links back to the philosophy of someone like William Morris who believed that art should always be useful and beautiful.
What art Florrie likes and collects and the challenge of modern art.
Florrie gives her advice on art collecting and life.
I've always done what I love and it gives me great satisfaction. You can always find your people, you can always find your niche even just by going online. It's amazing how the world opens up. As long as you are doing something that you're passionate about, you should be okay.
Podcast below or wherever you get podcasts.