Back in the summer of 1982 Archie here conceived and copyrighted the above joke. You’ve got to admit it’s got a certain something. Anyway, despite the fact that earnings have been decreasing in recent years, due mainly to the influx of cheap memes, he’s still got enough to get by. Just about. In order to finally retire in Marbella he’s going to need a new joke. One that’ll see him through his retirement comfortably. He’s going to have to put on his thinking hat…
Archie was conceived and created as a little thank you note in an attempt to be more engaging with our clientele. I wish him well in his new home…
There’s a whole slew of fantasy shows that are popular on various streaming sites like Witcher, Shadow & Bone and many, many more. And I’ve probably seen them all. It’s been a long year. This has led me down the slippery slope of imagining my own show. It would be called ‘The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen’. Think something like Game of Thrones meets Gossip Girl with a touch of Bewitched and you’re almost there.
Averick Cain has had everything taken from her. And now she wants it all back. Yaaasss indeed! This lighthouse of a lady is on a quest to restore her rightful place as the Scarlet Queen and she’s taking no prisoners. Now her tutelage under the brutal Sisters of Affliction has come to an end she is embarking on an epic globe-spanning journey in order to right some historical wrongs. Things will get messy.
Anyway, my hand painted show poster is A2 in size and made using acrylic, oil and paint pen. She’s available for purchase although you’ll have to agree to make a TV show out of it too. Otherwise you can’t have it.
Who here doesn’t like an idiom? We certainly do. We haven’t painted one for a while so have decided to rectify that with ‘Sleeping with the fishes’. It’s unclear what led Tony 2 Chains to end up in this position but it’s clear he’s been here a while as there appears to be an octopus living in his brain cavity. It must have been bad though as they appear to have stapled his lips together. Harsh.
I’m pretty sure everyone is down with ‘sleeping with the fishes’ but if you’re unfamiliar with the idiom it’s an old school gangster cliche which means to be killed and have one’s body disposed of in a sea or other body of water. Apparently the earliest recorded use was in 1833 but the phrase was popularised by the 1972 film The Godfather. Mario Puzo’s 1969 book on which the film was based doesn’t actually contain the phrase but there is reference to a large dead fish wrapped in a bulletproof vest to signify the same thing, although the phrase itself isn’t used. So now you know.
Gather round for I have a tale to tell. I was on holiday when I thought I’d go for an afternoon stroll into the hills behind where I was staying. As I was wandering along the path I knocked a stone which started a small rockslide that seemed to terminate with a deep groan. Having watched too much Murder She Wrote I decided to put on my Jessica Fletcher hat and began an investigation.
After clambering down the small incline I was surprised to find a large head peeking out of the ground and grumbling to itself. To my shock he started shouting at me about being careful about where I was going and to watch my step in a deeply toned accent that I just couldn’t place. I apologised profusely and said I would be more careful in the future and he grumbled something unintelligible and seemingly went back to sleep. Now, what the moral is I’m not entirely sure but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
We haven’t really painted enough walls this year so when Irony got in touch to ask if we’d like to throw some paint around at Nags Head Market in Holloway we replied with all the gusto you can gather from two middle aged men, blew off the cobwebs and said yes.
We were apparently meant to have between 4pm and 10pm to try and get two pieces completed but that was wishful thinking. Instead we had about 2 1/2hrs painting time due to the cleaner who kept gently reminding us that he was leaving soon and that we should leave as well. Nothing like a deadline to get an artist moving.
One of the pieces we managed to complete was ‘The Lady of the Lift’. She guards the lift entrance just like a bouncer and will only let you pass if she believes your intentions are good. Otherwise she just opens the door when the lift isn’t there and woe betide the fool who isn’t quick enough to realise…
If you’ve ever had a dream so real that upon waking you need to take a couple of minutes to work out exactly what’s going on then you’ve probably got some idea of the inspiration behind this piece. A half remembered memory of something that really never was…
This little lady is on a 60 x 60 cm canvas and has been made using the magic of spraypaint and imagination. Drop us a line if you’re interested in giving her a new home…
In my mind there’s not much creepier than a disembodied doll’s head staring at you blankly with it’s huge eyes as you walk quietly by minding your own business. So I think if our goal was instil a sense of disquiet in you then perhaps we’ve succeeded.
I’d really love to know our intentions when this was created. Unfortunately we’ll now never know as those reasons have been lost to the mists of time. All we’ve got is this so it’s time to spread the love..
Karen has always had a squiffy eye and doctors have told her that she can have surgery to have it corrected if she wants but she’s never wanted to have it done and never will. She likes the fact that people find it off-putting and when talking to her just don’t know which way to look. Karen also has a knack to roll her bad eye into the back of her head to really hit it home.
Through the years people have called her many names due to her affliction but one that has stuck because Karen liked it herself was ‘Ambly’. Karen also has a skill which is a direct cause of her wonky eye: she can tell if anything is squiffy even by the slightest degree with just a quick glance. Due to this many business sectors hold Karen in great demand for her unusual abilities. From the scientists at CERN to the builders of the worlds largest skyscrapers, to Tony from down Karen’s local pub who always asks her to see if he’s squiffy but Karen is always to polite to give him an answer. In all fairness everyone at the pub already knows the answer to that one…
Just like an old school 12″ record today’s piece has 2 sides and you can flip between the two to your hearts content depending on your mood. It also appears to be based on the colour orange. I know not why. It’s a nice colour.
Side 1 features a disembodied tiger’s head floating in the air something akin to Damien Hirst’s shark. Except it’s not real and it’s got some cool Adidas style palette stripes in the background. He’s just chilling.
Side 2 features one of our demotivational posters. ‘FRANK! Just let it be!’ is a common enough refrain heard up and down the country on a Friday night. The Beatles even famously sang a song about it where the mantra of ‘Let it be’ is repeated many times. Sometimes it’s just not that easy though…
She’s on a 60 x 40cm wooden board and is made using the magic of spraypaint, stencils and imagination. Drop us a line if interested.
So how do we start a write up about lady Cheltenham? Maybe its best to explain our monumental balls up that started it all.
There we were during the week looking at the weather forecast and lo and behold it forecast rain for the Saturday. This year our design consisted of quite a bit of emulsion so we thought it best to get an early start so that it wouldn’t run in the rain. So with as much preparation as we could muster we headed down on Friday to get an early start which we did with an ease that id-iom is known for.
When we got to the Frog and Fiddle is when the problems started. The wall that looked like the one we were painting hadn’t been painted white like the rest and it seemed a little wider than what we were expecting, so we asked the bar staff who pointed at another wall which we took for consent to paint. In hindsight this was probably not the best idea.
Lets move forward to Saturday lunchtime when we finally dragged ourselves out of bed after a few too many drinks the night before we set off back to the frog and fiddle to finish our piece but i think you can already guess we had painted the wrong wall. With a few expletives thrown about for our stupidity we set about trying to get the new wall finished before either the rain stopped play or the after party started.
Anyway what we have for our troubles is Lady Chelts
Thanks to Andy and Angela for once again putting on a wonderful festival. Onwards and upwards guys!!
thisisidiom.wordpress.com 
You must be logged in to post a comment.