On Saturday evening I arranged to meet a friend at Brighton's Phoenix Gallery for Wall Into Pieces, "a large scale art event featuring music, performance, collaborative art and the creation and production of a magazine in real time." The night featured some amazing performance art but I was most impressed by the clowns.
Regular readers of my blog will know that I'm fascinated by clowns. I was waiting for my friend to arrive when a group of blood-soaked clowns came outside for a cigarette. One of these looked very similar to Honour Mission, but these clowns spoke only a gibberish form of Spanish. I was soon caught up in their group.
Traditionally, clowning is about testing social limits and transgressing boundaries. This was the first time I'd been close to this sort of clown and it was fascinating (even if it was sometimes a little too close to my clown novel at points). The clowns pinched drinks and forced people to play cards with them, complaining when the civilians broke the rules. They offered people used chewing gum, or bought them drinks. At one point my friend and I were offered a purse; we had no idea whose it was. It was a fun, chaotic experience, one I really enjoyed.
Let sleeping clowns lie:
Me and a clown:
According to this clown, the drawing on the left is a picture of me:
Clowns playing cards:
Back home, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Looking in the mirror, I saw a huge lipstick kiss on my forehead left by one of the clowns.