The End of Year Show!

The show went really well, I'm so pleased with my exhibition space, it looks exactly how I wanted it to. Had a minor panic towards then end when it didn't look as though my plinths were going to be built in time, and then they were all different sizes! But it got sorted and I'm really chuffed.

Many people engaged with my catalogues and some people even took some home which is quite a nice compliment.

There is still room for improvement with this project. There is definatley scope for pushing it further and looking further into the idea of why people collect, the types of people who collect and buy things from car boot sales. And also the idea of these collections becoming a piece of artwork now that so much thought and consideration has gone into their curation.

This is the photograph of my stall that will be on the wall above the objects and their catalogues.

I have now finished the book, and the shelf on which it will sit during the exhibition is currently being made.

Exhibition Space...

This is how I have decided to have my exhibition space for our end of year show. I wanted to exhibit some of the objects but not all of them as I did for the exhibitions at the car boot sales. This way the objects seem to have more worth, and could even be considered to be a piece of artwork in their own right. After all they have been taken to all the car boot sales with me, and some of them are even showing the signs...such as bird poo! They look authentic.

I want the exhibition space to look clean, ordered and professional, which is the complete opposite to how it looked during the exhibitions in the car boot sales.

Ince Blundell Exhibition

The second and final exhibition I had was at Ince Blundell car boot sale, small town in rural Merseyside. My dad and I arrived at 6.30am and there were certainly no dealers mobbing us when we arrived this time! In fact we were the second people to arrive! I couldn't quite believe how different this car boot sale was first thing in the morning to how 'The Big One' in Leeds was.


When it eventually got a bit busier with more sellers and buyers, I noticed that there was only white British middle aged or old aged pensioners at this car boot sale. There were families too, and a definite community; especially inside the hall were all the regular stall holders were set up.



Most people were very interested in my project and were happy to answer questions I asked them. The majority of people I spoke to where locals and came regularly to this car boot sale, to meet friends and see if there were any good bargains on offer. Some of the stall holders told me that it was especially quite that morning and it was probably due to the fact it was a bank holiday and people were away on holiday.

Exhibition at 'The Big One'

On 18th May 2008 I held my first exhibition of my collected car boot items at 'The Big One' in Leeds. We arrived at 6.01am and were immediately surrounded by dealers who were peering into the back of my car to see what we'd brought. They shouted questions like "Jewellery? Records? Mobile Phones?" We just gave them a terrified look and said no! I set up the table as seen above, and people started to come to talk to me about what my stall was all about. I got a great deal of feedback from my audience and got a real sense of the community at that car boot. The people who attend it are very friendly, and they were interested in my project. There was quite a large range of ages and races. There seemed to be a large Muslim community who go every weekend to chat and gossip. There was a bouncy castle for the children to play on, and I noticed there was always one parent supervising them as they played so the other parents could wander and chatter.



Quite a few people engaged with my catalogues and looked through them to get information about certain objects. Because the car boot sale is quite close to the airport there were quite a few people I spoke to who had just popped in because they were on their way back from the airport and noticed all the cars. There were of course, regulars there that come every weekend to have a wander and to get out the house. A few people I spoke to said they were there just to walk off a hangover!



Over the course of the morning I spoke to many different people from all walks of life, I heard many different languages being spoken, I got asked if I was selling my camera, and made a profit of £10 by selling some of my objects!

The Next Step...

The next stage in my project was to create some form of information catalogue that brought together each of my collections: children's toys, shoes, mugs, ornaments and religious artefacts. I designed my catalogues around auction-style catalogues that I collected for research from Bonhams. The catalogues look great, I'm so pleased with the clean, sophisticated look they have. They really make the objects look so much better than they look in real life!

More Collecting!!

After the success of my photo shoot, I felt my collections were still not quite enough...so I did another 2 collections. Firstly I went to 'The Big One' which is a car boot sale near to the Leeds Bradford airport. Here I collected SHOES!!!



As we were car booting, my sister took pictures of me whilst I bought shoes from various stalls. This was a very friendly car boot sale, there seemed as though there was a real community there.



After this car boot my sister and I went to the Otley Cattle Market car boot sale where I collected mugs. In order to get into this car boot sale we had to queue in this queue!!



We couldn't quite believe we were having to queue to get into a car boot sale, it was totally strange. But quite obviously from looking around, this happens every week and were stood amoungst all of those to queue to get in first every week in order to get the best bargains!

The Second Photo Shoot!!

This photo shoot was far more successful, although when I arrived at the lighting studio first thing in the morning, hired all the things I needed for the shoot, I realised I had totally forgotten what I was doing with the flash lights. I have used them in the past but it was 3 years ago now and I had no idea what I was doing so had to get someone to help me! But once I got myself set up with 2 flash heads with reflectors and one underneath the table lighting it from below with a honeycomb diffuser on, I was ready to go! And it was a success!

The First Photo Shoot!

I took my collections that I have made so far to the lighting studio at college where I tried to do a photo shoot that would be suitable for an auction-style catalogue. However, I only used tungsten lighting to light the table and my objects, and so therefore, these cast quite a large shadow around the object. I also only used a 18:55 lens which could not get close enough to the object to capture all the detail. So I am going to have to use a marco lens when I next do a photo shoot and probably use flash lighting instead of tungsten lights.

Pontefract Car Boot Sale

I attended Pontefract Car Boot Sale in Leeds on 6th April 2008. It was unlike any car boot I had ever been to before, there were some very commercial market stalls there as opposed to all car boot stalls, there was only a small section at the back of the field that was allocated for car boot vendors. However, because of this there seemed to be a real community there, the market traders especially knew each other and there was a lot of banter and chatting and gossiping going on.

2nd collection...

The second car boot sale I visited was on Stanley Road in Liverpool. Here I collected ornaments and ornamental figurines. Under this chosen topic I collected 14 items. I noticed when in Liverpool that the price of the items I purchased was overall lower than the previous car boot sale I'd been to, and no bartering was needed!

Unlike with the previous collection I did not create gallery style information cards for each of the objects, as I have now changed my concept slightly so that I will create an auction-style booklet in which all the objects will have photographs. I intend on having detailed information about the object/item alongside the photograph in the booklet. These will have to be as correct as possible and serious. I hope to exhibt the collections I've made at a car boot sale along with the auction-style booklets I will have created.

so far...

The first collection I made was in Ince Blundell near to my home town of Formby. The collection I made there was of children's toys. As this car boot sale was located in a fairly remote area in the 'country' the kind of things that people were selling were mainly bits of bric-a-brak, old bits of tat that they no longer wanted, many ornaments, children's toys and items of clothing.

I noticed that the price of the bric-a-brak was rather high, and so I had to do some serious bartering with some of the stall owners! It was quite a cheerful atmosphere nonetheless.

When I got the collection home I made information cards for each item. I did this with a slight sense of humour and so the cards take the mick somewhat. Here is a picture of the collection itself:

Car boot collections

For my final major project I have chosen to curate collections of object I collect from car boot sales around the country. I found inspiration to start my own collections when I attended my first car boot sale. I found the obects that were on sale intruiging, each one seemed to have a story to tell, layers of dirt from years of standing untouched, or from being passed from grubby hand to grubby hand.

These objects that were once sitting in a shop waiting to be purchased suddenly seemed so forlorn piled into carboard boxes or onto fold out tables in an unused muddy, puddly car park. Their stories changed then, and they will continue to chance whilst they are in my care. I intend on experimenting with curatorial practices, and pushing the boundaries of what we know as art and an exhibition.