As I had somehow galloped into an artist's life, from the first show in Rome, I had sort of felt less excited about London. After all those years in the city, exploring it in all sorts of ways, I was now loving my Italian immersion.
But I had a solo show in London!
The solo show was generously housed at the Embassy of Croatia Gallery, by the curator, art historian, and Councillor of Culture, Flora Turner, whom I had, out of affection, adopted as an aunt. A wonderful, intellectual lady who kept an eye on me of her own accord in the years I studied in London.
Having been present at many exhibitions opened at the gallery as a student assistant, socialite, wine pourer, and a sort of young mascot in the gallery—well known to the diplomats whom I would visit from time to time—having an exhibition in the embassy sort of felt like having an exhibition in my own house. I was that at home in the embassy building.
When I had arrived at the embassy cellars, where I had stored my St. Martins artwork to choose the work to exhibit, I had assumed it would be all quite simple, as I did not have all that many works at St. Martins, just a few large canvases. But I was guided to a cellar full of boxed-up artworks, many sculptures, and told, "That is all yours!"
"Impossible—this is not all mine," I replied.
"Oh, but it is. We were surprised when the lorry came and emptied all this stuff out."
For an instant, I reeled back into my memory to figure out what had happened! Raffaela had asked me if I could have some artwork stored at the embassy gallery from an exhibition she had curated in London—just for a short while. "Some works," she said. I asked, and the ambassador permitted me to store it—not expecting this quantity. But then, neither did I.
The ginormous cellars of the Croatian Embassy were very full, and a huge part of them was filled with what I had apparently sent over as my St. Martins artwork—a lorry full.
Right. I now understood what the diplomat meant when they inquired when I would move my stuff. I had clearly saved Raffa's ass with this storage, and the ambassador, though, assumed it was mine. And I had no idea it was so enormous. I didn't even do sculpture!
I dug about and found my little corner of paintings. We set them up pretty quickly. I did not want to exhibit just the St. Martins stuff—now that I had just painted the new series of portraits of Marco Castillo, which were a whole new style, full of drama and energy. I wanted to show those. We filled the gallery walls with portraits.
The exhibition opened. I remember some of my friends turned up and surprised me. The diplomats. Mother trained over from Eflord . It was a full house.
The Embassy of Croatia cultured and raised me in a way. I was invited to some event once as a student, and from then on, I used to go to events held there and assist. I met many interesting scientists, artists, and politicians and started to train my hobnobbing sport—the talking to anyone that can be so terrifying before you dive in. But I became so good with practice, I was the one who would mingle about and make everyone feel connected and connect them among themselves—people I had just met.
The very elegant lady who was the economics diplomat, whom I had long admired for her style, Daria bought the painting of Ed Spurr for her son, Gaj. I loved that a mother would do that for her child.
It all felt so homely. When you are living what you are called to , in my case exhibitions, after painting, whilst there is always adrenaline- it feels so homey, there is an ease to it, the being at the right place at tthe right place at the right time, doing the true work.
That night, seeing it was my birthday around the date, Laurent, my French banker friend, invited us all to the Mandarin Hotel for champagne on Hyde Park and then to Buji's, the club in South Kensington. There, Prince Harry was hanging out with his friends. I think I met the British musician Craig David. I also met the Croatian fortune Konzum empire owner's son, Ivan—we were both just surprised to be Croatian and there. I guess Buji's was the place to be in London in 2006. It seemed being an artist attracted glamour.
Raffa bought me a birthday ticket to Miami Basel on impulse. But just as I made it to the plane, feeling like life was all jet-set, the reality of my Croatian passport hit—I wasn’t making the flight at all, since Croatians needed visas for America then.
Instead, I sat on a train to my misty Staffordshire village. The taxi dropped me off to a glum stepfather who, through a scowl, without public to see it was honest and said, "What are you here for?" My mother and brothers, who would have remembered it was my birthday, had I met them in the house would have given me a more cheerful welcome to the rural family home. I had to wait for that warmth for some hours, but luckily the cat Miof, wanted me there. The moment my mother got back- she got me involved with a holiday job at the Whittington farm she worked on! No special artist treatment there. Farms always need a hand, selling pie and lemon curd- and no one actually figured out or took seriously the fact that I was already actually living off my own art.
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