Then please interact with this artistic genius:)
Edgeworth Johnstone and UK Stuckism
As I write I’m tuned into Edgeworth Johnstone and Emma Pugmire’s live Instagram broadcast. He’s doing the dishes now because they’re running a bit late, and 8 o’clock means 8 o’clock, even with a full sink. Edgeworth is a Stuckist star, burning bright. He’s been art-making practically non-stop since I began following him in 2019. I’m glued to these Thursday night live events. One night it’s music, another night is painting. They’ve been on a painting jag for the past three weeks. He and Emma make up the Edgeworth Band, with Edgeworth on vocals and guitar, and Emma on drums. Edgeworth writes the original songs. Painter-musician Paul Harvey got his PhD in Stuckism. He wrote how punk rock and Stuckism go hand-in-hand. It’s DIY or die, no matter how horrible. Suffer if you want, but why would you? The Edgeworth Band isn’t punk. It’s avant-garde. It’s anti-art/pure art, so new that anyone who appreciates contemporary art would hate it, until they don’t. From Harvey’s essay “Nostalgia for an Age Yet to Come”:
For many Punks, the movement gave them an opportunity to speak for the first time, unrestricted by a lack of technical ability… No one was speaking on their behalf, so they did it themselves, creatively.”
That’s “punk attitude”. And it’s my Stuckist story as well. Maybe Edgeworth’s too, maybe not. He sure wasn’t born to sing. So instead, because he is a great artist, he births a new kind of singing, which is instrumental, medieval, haunting and beautiful. I am certain the style will be copied soon if it isn’t already. “Stuckism for Your Ears” is the ongoing title for Edgeworth Band musical performances at the Black Ivory Printmaking & Audio Club, including occasional table side poetry readings by Charles Thomson. An art thief looking or listening for something new should visit. It’s practically a 24/7 creating circus to cherry pick a heist. Edgeworth and Emma use the Internet to broadcast their sessions. Five people all over the world can be watching, and I swear that is enough. Instant community! He is a posting genius and will need a big box of external hard drives to hold the accumulated photo/video archive of Stuckism for your eyes and ears. I pulled this out of a recent interview of Edgeworth given by Emma Pugmire
The only reason I started painting was I thought it’d be easy money. I saw an old school friend on telly making a fortune from being an artist. I was working as a Photo Lab Assistant at Boots and playing in 2 out of 3 Rule, resigned to the fact that the band’s never going to pay. Even if we got signed and all that, it didn’t seem the musicians were making much. 28 feels pretty old when you’re in an unsigned band without a regular drummer, and whose singer’s just moved back up to Leeds. There was no back up plan so I guessed I’d work at Boots for as long as people needed their photos developed, which was already drying up. I had no interest in art and the only paintings I’d done up until this point were the ones I did at school, which showed no promise at all.
There it is! The confession of a musician ready for Stuckism when the well dries up. “So I saw my old school-friend, Sacha Jafri, on telly… Anyway, how hard can it be? Do a load of sloppy paintings, walk into a central London gallery with a few dry ones under my arm and let the rest take care of itself. I did my first painting, a man in a turban, and was instantly addicted. At the time I probably couldn’t name you five painters. Picasso, Van Gogh, maybe a couple of others. I didn’t know what I was doing, but this expanse of clear virgin land opened up ahead. It was quit-my-job time, which I eventually got round to four years later.” My first painting was a gouache self-portrait of a very strange man. I gave it to my three-year-old daughter. I knew that it would be impossible for a peasant cook to make a liv- ing as a writer. Diversification was the key to art, although I wasn’t thinking like that at the time. It just seemed natural to paint, play music, write poetry, improvise soups — make stuff thinking out loud. I regret that I never took music to the plac- es Edgeworth has. He is accomplished in guitar and song- writing. That opens up more expressive doors for him. It would have been helpful for me to have music in the marrow at the time of my stopping point for Stuckism to start. But I’m old and set in my ways. Although I play at an intermediate chord level, and can function decently on rhythm guitar, at this time in my life, I feel that practicing music won’t set me free. I guess what painting artists like Edgeworth express with music, I’ve also done with soups and sauces, but it’s very personal. I don’t want to cook on video or TV. My formative art years happened while cooking in restaurants and bringing that passion home with me each night, to continue practicing in my own home kitchen. I’ve been an average culinary artist for over 30 years, but nobody outside the stomachs I’ve pleased needs to know. Edgeworth is taking Stuckism to places it hasn’t gone before. He has time-jumped, leading us through an art worm hole. At the time of writing the manifesto, Thomson and Childish could not anticipate the future expressive explosion of the Internet. It makes sense that today they’re still stuck in the old paradigm of media and galleries holding the keys to the kingdom. The kingdom of what? Money? Success? Certainly not art. Stuckism proves that. Art isn’t dead, though the Internet buried the gallery lie (which has never been art) a couple years after Stuckism’s inception, when international groups were forming local “chapters” to discuss and share their work. Painters sent images over email, and an adminis- trator would upload a few on the Stuckism website. That itself was revolutionary. Social media was several years away. Youtube wouldn’t be born until 2005, and limited to 30 sec- ond videos. The old guard believed fame was the fortune (they still do). They’re stuck in old Stuckism. Edgeworth once wrote that Stuckism needs to grow up. Absolutely. But when it gets big and tall, I suggest we clock its knees with a pipe. One of his recent blog posts has 32 videos with over 9 hours of total run time. A single post! Most of the videos are his own. And links to almost everything I need to know about the artist Edgeworth Johnstone’s star energy. It’s an under- statement to say that he over-elaborates the Stuckist call to “explore his/her neurosis and innocence through the making of paintings and displaying them in public”. Not just paint- Making Friends With Wild Dogs ings. There’s music, interviews, mask-making, daytrips, stu- dio exhibitions galore, and a new project “Jompiy”. The Internet can’t keep up. Edgeworth is “putting it all out there”, in spades. Jompiy is worth a look, just to better understand what I mean when I declare Edgeworth to be a top creative genius on the planet. One day he gets hold of some craft paints, tiny canvases and a salad spinner, and a manifesto is born. On Mondays he paints with original Stuckist founder, (and Stuckist denier ever since), Billy Childish. On Thursday are the live painting sessions, and all the time in between he’s making more magic. Edgey Teddies, Me A Doll, masks, woodcut prints, Aesphonly (aesthetics and phonetics only), Edgeworth Band (with Emma), exhibiting, writing, printing, making merch. The Jompiy manifesto is brief. I include it to share more of his humor and intellect:
Abstract paintings are figurative paintings of abstract paintings and therefore not abstract.
Figurative paintings are only figuratively figurative.
Abstract paintings are only abstractly abstract.
Jompiy is abstract for a maximum viewing time of five seconds.
Figuration at creation is censorship of abstraction and therefore unstuckist.
By removing the mask of abstraction at early exposure Jompiy gives abstraction content.
Art that has to be figurative to be art isn’t art.
Abstraction is realism.
Jompiy sacks the artist’s brain and switches the roles of hand and eye.
Jompiy is freedom from the worthless distractions of human expression, emotion and intent.
At present, as far as I can tell, there isn’t much UK Stuckism beyond what Edgeworth and Emma are doing. Hundreds of prolific painters post pictures on social media, but that’s vanity — not an outward expression of an inner neurosis. There aren’t very many of those embarrassments being expressed. Not on Facebook anyway. It appears that everyone is waiting around for the big cheese to authenticate their phone photos of brilliance made all alone, figuratively, in the dark. Edgeworth and Emma open up Black Ivory Printmaking and Audio Club to all and sundry. They have exhibitions, invite everyone on earth, and nobody comes. Edgeworth posts a video after the no-showing. He’ll get a few likes, and very few, if any, comments. What’s going on in London, UK? How pathetic a city and country overflowing with Zuckerberg iPhone artists! All still pining for the big break, that coveted gallery show. The mass seduction repeated over and over by the lies of education driven by avarice. It’s like 1989 in cavern- ous echo, and the Internet never awakened. Childish and Thomson publish a manifesto a decade later and ignore it when convenient or unprofitable. Childish leaves for his reasons, which make sense, because he’s still arting today like its 1989. Thomson stays true to Stuckism’s ideals but forgets to have a solo home exhibition posted to international audiences once a week to keep Stuckism fresh. Neither understand Edgeworth’s proclamation that, “It’s the Stuckist’s duty to harness and ride the Internet”. Or they do, but privately acknowledge where the real money lies. That’s fine, we all get old and hope to settle our affairs someday. It’s the powerful magnet of conservatism. I also feel time pressing in. Last night I told Rose I want to quit painting, remove my Internet presence, and prepare for death. Then first thing this morning I got on Instagram and watched Edgeworth painting live. I put on my work pants and descended the stairs to the studio to paint. Most days I also think it’s still 1989. I have all of Edgeworth’s energy, and then some, but send out just a tiny fraction of his Stuckism.
Open house in Muswell Hill and nobody shows. A city of 10 million people, and no takers to the free exhibition. Not bad. Actually, a badge of honor for any prolific self-loathing/respecting artist. And fuel to continue while Londoners wait for another artless poser in the Sunday Times to tell them where to go. Oh look, a Time Out advertisement! Must get to the money box with the pretty vetted pictures on the walls. Must get to the popularity show where everyone pays not to be humiliated. This year, thanks to Edgeworth and Emma,
Stuckism is born again a big healthy baby.Here’s a cliptease from our movie “Saving Stuckism: A to Zed”:
