As my blog yesterday mentioned performer/artist The Iceman, I thought I would ask Gencraft AI to create an image of “a man made of ice attempting to melt himself with a flame-thrower”.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
This was the result.
It’s an interesting idea, but is this an example of Artificial Intelligence taking the piss…?
Is Artificial Intelligence taking the piss…?
Filed under AI, Eccentrics, Humor, Humour
Anthony Irvine aka The Iceman recently had a book Melt It! published about him – crafted by multi-tasker Robert Wringham. I posted a blog about it.
Now the book has inspired a forthcoming movie Melt It! The Film of The Iceman.
The selling line is: “In the 1980s and 1990s, Anthony Irvine was a comedian and cabaret performer. His act was a little unusual. As the Iceman, he went on stage – to melt ice. But what happened next and where did he go?”
The documentary is co-produced by Robert Wringham and director Mark Cartwright.
I talked to Robert and Anthony via Zoom… Mark was elsewhere, possibly in Wolverhampton.
JOHN (TO ROBERT): Did you approach Mark or he you?
ROBERT: I was trying to promote the book and Mark has a YouTube channel where he interviews comedians and musicians. His interviews are very intelligent.
JOHN: Oh dear.
ROBERT: He likes fringe comedy so I thought maybe he’d like to interview the Iceman. And it turned out he had been looking for appropriate subject matter to direct a documentary. Someone from the fringe pockets of comedy. The book made him realise there could be a film in the Iceman.
JOHN: So what’s next? A Disney animation? You’re already doing a film of the book of the act. Disney could do an animation of the film of the book of the act, then do a live-action version of the animation of the film of the book of the act.
ROBERT: We do have dreams of getting our film in cinemas. We’ve just signed up Michael Cumming to be the executive producer. He directed Brass Eye, Snuff Box, the Toast projects – Toast of London, Toast of Tinseltown etc. His current project is Oxide Ghosts, where he shows cutting room floor material from Brass Eye and does Q&As. He’s very familiar with the whole indie cinema circuit.
JOHN: In the film’s Kickstarter appeal for funds, the selling line is: “How much permanence and success can we assure for this man whose entire act was about impermanence and failure? Back the film and be among the first to find out”… Isn’t there an irony about trying to be successful with a film about failure?
ROBERT: (LAUGHS) I’m aware of that and I’m actually concerned it will spoil the true legacy of the Iceman!
JOHN (to the ICEMAN): Is that a real moustache you have on there?
ICEMAN: Yes. Traditionally, I put on a moustache for all Zoom meetings.
JOHN: I hate Zoom. What is that thing you have?
The Iceman (bottom) with rubber duck, Tapwater Award and irrelevant pot…
ICEMAN: It’s a Tapwater Award which I won at the Edinburgh Fringe.
JOHN: The alternative to the Perrier Award…
ICEMAN: It has been touched by Malcolm Hardee and Charlie Chuck.
JOHN: Without mentioning ice once, why are you doing this film?
ICEMAN: It’s going to be a sophiceticated film. In the production team, there is quality and creativity and a seri-iceness of purpice. I think it’s an adventure that will give coherence and professionaliceism to the Iceman concept. So, late in the day, The Iceman is going to be distanced from the incoherence and chaos of the original act…
JOHN: (SILENCE)
ICEMAN: The core of it is based on the Melt It! book. So a lot of it is talking. But there will be an element of Battleship Potemkin, Luis Buñuel, Stanley Kubrick. There will be a lot of art involved and interviews with people saying they remember the so-called legend that was the Iceman. And the whole concept of the ice blocks living on will be part of it.
The question is: Will The Iceman outlive the blocks or will the blocks outlive The Iceman?.. Having a film might suggest the blocks will outlive The Iceman.
There will be touches of Federico Fellini and…
JOHN: Sam Peckinpah? It needs conflict.
ICEMAN: There’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Have you seen that? It’s about a painter painting a portrait of a model who didn’t want to be painted.
JOHN: Is there a car chase in it? You have to have a chase sequence. You could chase someone round the block. The ice block.
ICEMAN: (SILENCE)
The Iceman with duck, block of ice and a Melt It! movie poster
JOHN: When is it going to be finished?
ICEMAN: Well, due to public demand, I have been invited back to the famous art gallery in Stalbridge, Dorset – Guggleton Farm Arts – for an exhibition of my paintings – from 15th July to 14th August this year. I think the idea is we have a finale there where we film the public filing in to look at my pictures… and buying them… in cash.
ROBERT: There are strands. Old footage of Anthony doing the Iceman stuff. Interviews hopefully with comedians and artists. And it’s all going to come together with where Anthony is today, which is that he has been accepted into the Art world. The Guggleton Arts event will be a kind of a denouement.
ICEMAN: Because, as we all know, The Iceman is now a contemporary visual artist known as AIM. Hopefully we can get famous comedians to say: “Yes.. He was a legend.”
JOHN: “Was?” In the past tense. In order for that to work, you would have to die.
(LONG SILENCE)
ICEMAN: I’m painting a picture at the moment called Riced in Pice.
JOHN: Riced in Pice?… Ah!… Rest in Peace? Why?
ICEMAN: Because I’m thinking very much about mortality and Will the melting blocks outlive me? So I’m confronting death in this picture. It’s basically me at my own funeral. I’m not being morbid. I’m just toying with the idea of…a church made of ice blocks and… that sort of thing. Do the blocks live on in some form? They must.
The Melt It! Iceman movie poster
This is a serious film. I notice when you write these blogs with me, it’s always completely confusing conversations. I am going to answer every question seriously from now on.
JOHN: Why do boxers not have hair on their chests?
(SILENCE)
JOHN: You have developed from performance art into Art art. Are you now going to get more into movie making?
ICEMAN: I am going to stick to oil painting. But film is a visual medium and it’s quite exciting to see me slightly objectified. The film will include reference to the painting. I’m quite happy to have this parallel artistic life.
I’m quite interested in filming a block of ice melt for the entire duration of the film. Like Andy Warhol’s film of the Empire State Building. It maybe sound a bit naive, but I think there could be quite a lot of interest. It obviously couldn’t be TOO big a block or it might take 400 days. But, if you had maybe a day’s melt, I think there’s a film there.
JOHN: Surely, to become successful, all artists have to become bullshit artists? You have to say: “This is a representation of global warming. It is Art”, Then Tate Modern and the Museum of Modern Art in America will beat a path to your door and you’ll make a fortune.
ICEMAN: Well, I WAS the first green artist.
JOHN: Eh?
ROBERT: The idea that the ice is melting anyway. Once Man is involved, it accelerates.
ICEMAN: Ah!
JOHN: Ah!
ROBERT: Ah!
Anthony demonstrates the effect of Man on a melting ice cap
JOHN: Have you seen the movie The Iceman about a real-life killer who had that nickname?
ICEMAN: Yes, that’s rather unfortunate. I’m a bit worried that, when you Google “Iceman” this murderer comes up. I want my film to overtake his film.
ROBERT: Is he still alive? Maybe we could interview him in prison.
JOHN: It’s all coming together now. The ideal way to promote your film is for you to be dead. The Iceman kills The Iceman to promote The Iceman movie.
ICEMAN: I ‘received’ the title Iceman. I didn’t make it up: it was given to me.
JOHN: By whom?
ICEMAN: By all the other comedians of the time.
JOHN: What were you billed as before? Just Anthony Irvine?
ICEMAN: Yes. The film, in a way, is a tribute to the performance artist who disappeared and then returned as an artist. I think it’s going to be professional, which is in contradiction to my actual live performances. But, as you know, I’ve always had a very serious side. I have a feeling the film is going to highlight my metaphysical thoughts.
Have you heard the pop song Melt It?
JOHN: No, I’ve not heard it. But you should record some songs to promote the movie when it comes out.
ICEMAN: I’m quite a heartfelt singer but I can only sing if I’m trying to be funny.
JOHN: As a defence mechanism in case people think you can’t sing properly?
ICEMAN: Possibly. I don’t know what the psychological reasons are. I can only sing to satirise the song I’m singing. That way it becomes quite moving and funny at the same time. Which is what a German woman picked-up on in Edinburgh. She stayed behind to say: “I loft yor singeen” and I knew she meant it, because I looked in her eyes.
I think what we’re hoping for from you is a serious blog. Is it an art film or a documentary film? I suppose it’s both.
ROBERT: I agree.
ICEMAN: I think the whole concept of the blocks disappearing and changing is quite deep. And that’s why some audiences follow me round going: “Deep!… Deep!”
I might even say something like: “Well, I have to go now,” and people will go: “Deep! Deep!”
JOHN: Anthony, why have you actually got a block of ice with you on this Zoom call? You are not about to do a performance. Why have you a block of ice?
ICEMAN: Well, this is a…
(AT THIS POINT, THE ZOOM CALL CUT OFF…)
Filed under Art, Comedy, Eccentrics, Movies, Performance, Surreal
Last week, I blogged about the death of multi-talented British eccentric Bob Flag.
In the summer of 1981, he was performing on stage off-West End in London as part of The Mad Show.
Another of the Mad Show performers was Anthony Irvine, who later developed an ice-block-melting performance art routine as The Iceman and who, more recently, became a painty-painty real artist as AIM.
The Iceman with ice and duck in London
Anthony has just shared some memories of Bob Flag with me. He writes:
I loved Bob’s helter-skelter act in The Mad Show. I used to admire his manic energy, both on stage and off.
In The Mad Show, his act included drums, music and a chaos that I related to. He had a sort of milkman sidekick on keyboards. I watched him every night of the run. Something about his fast-talking, almost serious, delivery got me – and the disintegrating drums, like The Iceman’s music stand.
I can’t remember if he participated much in the other antics in the show, like the immersion in the aquarium or the Japanese singing fruit group or the open bus trip round the Mall where Dave Brooks (of the Greatest Show on Legs) joined the soldiers at Buckingham Palace during the Changing of the Guard. He wore his kilt and played his bagpipes.
I didn’t really stay in touch with Bob after The Mad Show finished – my loss. But I do remember two particular meetings.
The first was a completely random meeting of 40 seconds when I got out of a northbound train at somewhere like Newark and there was Bob on the platform.
We both behaved as if this was completely normal.
Before I could say much beyond the pleasure of seeing him again years after The Mad Show, I had to get back on the train which was only doing a brief stop.
The second and last time I saw Bob was when I sold him a brand new baritone saxophone I had bought in East Germany before the Berlin Wall’s de-construction. The saxophone was very big in relation to him. He paid cash. It was in Leyton.
He came in like a man in a hurry to get elsewhere. It was a very good sax. He paid me in wads of cash. I was surprised how much money he had on him.
I had bought the saxophone in East Germany – possibly in Leipzig – with lots of East German Deutsche Marks that I had received. And, yes, I was big in the East before the Wall came down.
I blogged about Anthony a couple of times in July (HERE and HERE) when he was about to start an exhibition/clearance sale of more than 1,000 of his (AIM’s) artworks at a gallery on a farm in Dorset.
That exhibition/sale has now finished. The exhibition/sale was titled PEG IT! because a lot of the exhibits were pegged up in mid air.
Part of The Iceman/AIM’s multi-pegged art exhibition/clearance sale at the farm gallery…
He (Anthony/The Iceman/AIM) tells me:
De-pegging and dismantling the show was a huge physical effort because I had spent four weeks adding to/pegging up the show. Fortunately I had a team of customers – Jonathan, Liz, Dale – who broke the back of it.
While we were un-pegging, a local lady – Alison – appeared and chose eight pictures she wanted to buy. She kept going home to get more cash. She repeatedly kept having a new painting wish and going home to get more cash to the extent that I showed my concern about whether she could afford to buy them. This inadvertently became an unintentional sales technique.
I sold over 20 paintings on the very last day. As the gallery is a bit out-of-the-way, this was remarkable indeed.
A site for sore eyes: the waste recycling site
My latest project is to sell my AIM paintings at the waste recycling centre in Bournemouth.
This is very logical because people at Bournemouth’s waste recycling centre have just dis-burdened themselves and so have empty cars.
I can get in with an opportunistic sale.
The idea started when I was talking to Stuart Semple at the GIANT gallery in Bournemouth.
Stuart liked my idea of ‘recycling’ sales and latched onto the “performative element”. This gave me confidence.
The very next day I tested the idea on site at the waste recycling centre.
It did feel a strikingly original idea and the public intercourse that resulted was very funny.
There was some interest, some amusement plus some indifference.
Overall it was a success, though I can’t give any sales figures at this junction. I found the ‘performative element’ to my satisfaction: interacting with the dis-burdening public
Two recycling workers at the waste recycling centre had diametrically opposed reactions which, I think, encapsulated the experience.
One was very sympathetic and we talked about Egyptian art.
The other warned me that I was breaking regulations and I must be off.
I have also now got into film shorts mapping my artistic achievements. You can see them on YouTube HERE.
Filed under Art, Comedy, Eccentrics, Humor, Humour, Performance
In the summer of 1981, Malcolm Hardee and The Greatest Show on Legs were appearing in London slightly off-West End (at the Bloomsbury Theatre) in The Mad Show – a collection of kinda eccentric speciality acts.
These included Anthony Irvine (later called The Iceman) who, at that point in his career, did an act where he crawled across the stage wearing a yellow souwester cape and Wellington boots, got up a ladder, put a chain with a hook on it between the two parts of the stepladder and picked up a bag. He then took a toothbrush out of the bag, cleaned his teeth, got down the steps and crawled off stage again. This took between 10 and 20 minutes depending on audience response.
It was a golden era of bizarre genre-crossing speciality acts.
Also on the show was musician/ performer/ actor/ comic Bob Flag (aka Bob Evans) with an odd act involving a saxophone. He had played with musicians like David Bowie, Ken Campbell, Thunderclap Newman and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
In The Mad Show, he came on stage several times dressed in various Army regalia for mostly unfathomable reasons.
Three years later, in 1984, Bob Flag was the face of Big Brother in the movie version of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
His other film roles included the ever-so slightly odd 1986 TV movie The Madness Museum, which also included comic performers Ken Campbell & Marcel Steiner, musical people Den Hegarty & Edward Tudor-Pole and the admirable David Rappaport. All of whom, I think, appeared on children’s TV series Tiswas during my time there.
In 1989, Bob Flag appeared in the movie Cold Light of Day. He played the central character based on notorious serial killer Dennis Nielsen. Comedian Eugene Cheese played Bob’s father in the film.
Uncategorisable performer Tony Green aka Sir Gideon Vein told me yesterday: “I think Bob got Eugene the part – I turned down ‘third rent boy’”.
In 1990, Bob and his wife artist Takae Horton took part in The Flip Show, the pilot for a Gong Show rip-off which Malcolm Hardee and I produced for Noel Gay Television/BSB. Their act was fairly indescribable and may eventually see the light of day on YouTube.
Yesterday, though, I heard from the above-mentioned uncategorisable Tony Green aka Sir Gideon Vein.
He wrote…
I received an e-mail from Takae Horton a little before 3.00am this morning informing me that her beloved husband Bob Flag had passed away on July 31st. She contacted me from Japan where it is eight hours ahead. Takae was the talented artist wife of the Bob in question.
I last heard from Bob in April this year and was about to send him an e-mail regarding Tony Allen’s recent pre-wake.
Bob, was 92 in June, had been far from well and had been living in Japan for around the last 15 years. Takae is Japanese and together they set up The Marufuku Gallery in a small village high up in the mountains of Okayama Province – for them a dream come true.
I first met Bob back in 1980 or 1981 along with John Hegley – when he and I were doing a double act. At that time, Bob was running his ‘totally off the wall’ Krisis Kabaret. I recognised Bob as a ‘fellow traveller’ and we remained friends from that time onward. Bob always put 150% into everything he did.
If you wanted something different you were sure to find it in Krisis Kabaret. Comic lunacy/inspired madness on a high level. Refreshingly, it was far removed from the school of ‘look at me aren’t I clever and just possibly funny too?’
Bob was a veteran even then.
He had turned down an offer to get involved with Tony Allen‘s original Alternative Cabaret. Tony needed acts who had sets of a known duration then – but Bob always hated repeating himself. Spontaneity was virtually his middle name. An early manifestation was The Riot Squad back in the early 1960s showcasing Bob’s (he was Bob Evans then) talent as a saxophonist with David Bowie on vocals. Bowie’s onetime wife Angie was later to become involved with Bob’s ‘Krisis Kabaret’. (Do, if you can, get a copy of Bob’s lavishly illustrated autobiography Drumshtick published 2017 – although I fear this will not be easy)
Bob was also one of the comics who appeared on the opening night of Peter Rosengard’s infamous original (London) Comedy Store featuring Alexei Sayle and the (dreaded) gong in 1979. He garnered much praise for stealing the show.
Regrettably, Bob was never going to pave a career as an alternative comic. The fact that he was a fair bit older than everyone else at the time didn’t really come into it. It just wasn’t what he wanted – he was always a maverick and would always go his own way.
The ‘trouble’ with Bob as far as I was concerned was that he had just far too many arrows to his bow. He was a talented all-rounder and he wasn’t going to concentrate in any one area.
He was a talented sax player – his preference was for alto, though I thought he was much better on tenor. Bob was proficient on many instruments.
Among other things, he was a hyper-polyglot – he learned his wife’s language pretty early – no easy feat.
He was incredibly quick at everything he did. Sometimes I thought if he hadn’t been so quick he would have got the kudos he deserved – but I don’t think that worried him too much.
I fondly remember him inviting me to dinner many years ago in his immensely cluttered King’s Cross flat.
“But Bob,” I said, “there’s nowhere to sit!”
“Of course, there is!” he replied.
And …yes… as if by magic (Bob could often be magical) he pulls out a table from somewhere and in no time there’s a bottle of wine, plates of well- cooked food and seating for the three of us.
He could be a harsh heckler, though.
On one occasion, he heckled Norby West (formerly The Brixton Bank Manager): “How come you have so much confidence and so little talent?” (Norby was being deliberately naff).
He then preceded to drag Norby off the stage.
Even I thought it was part of the act. But it wasn’t.
Bob could also be humble, though, and was not above apologising.
Many years later, Norby told me Bob had contacted him regretting his actions that night. Norby had forgiven him years before anyway.
I would book Bob on a number of occasions over the years (and it was likewise). He was always totally dependable and an absolute pleasure to have on board. He will be sadly missed and my heart goes out to Takae.
Bob really was a rare one-off and I know this has been said about departed people countless times before but I have not the slightest hesitation in saying it about Bob Flag…
THE WORLD SHALL NOT SEE HIS LIKE AGAIN.
(… MORE ON BOB FLAG (AND THE ICEMAN) HERE…)
Filed under Comedy, Eccentrics, Music
Three weeks ago, I wrote a blog about famed performance act The Iceman (aka AIM aka Anthony Irvine) and his then-upcoming art show PEG IT! at Guggleton Farm Arts – ‘The Gugg’ – in Dorset.
Yes, it’s a farm.
There are over a thousand paintings, all for sale. He is now halfway through the month-long exhibition and is living on-site at the farm/gallery.
His live performance act involved/involves melting blocks of ice in increasingly desperate ways.
So how, I hear you ask, is his new art exhibition going?
Well, funny you should ask. The Iceman – whose painting name is AIM – has just updated me. He says…
The Iceman points out that, as an artist, he is now called AIM…
It took a few journeys to get all the art works here – over a thousand – and a lot of physical work hanging them.
There are still lots on the floor.
I’ve been framing some from old frames, defining and professionalising the images.
This is my own assessment of the show at half point.
In all seriousnice, the show is going rather well and I am selling more than I expected.
The Gugg is not a traditional gallery as such but quite a lot goes on there. People go to events there (eg open mike music/pizza evenings on Thursdays) and I beckon them into the milking parlour gallery. Quite a few people come back more than once because of the sheer volume of art works. The most common initial response is: “Cor! That’s a lot of pictures!”
I sleep in the hayloft. It is very dark at night.
Skye, a woman who used to live near Crazy Larry’s in Chelsea (the venue of my first ever block of ice) has just moved into a house next door to The Gugg. On Thursday, she chose four paintings with which to decorate her bare walls.
In a video, The Iceman explains his performance art act AIM and its vital components…
Skye’s friend Charles just couldn’t get enough of AIM’s paintings that night and he waxed lyrical – eg “This is the most amazing fucking exhibition I have ever seen!” – to me without realising I was the artist.
He said the same thing in the morning… sober… when I met him at Dikes, the local independent supermarket.
Later on that evening he explained to me, during a sambuca session in the barn after a visit to meet Stalbridge locals in the local Swan pub, his technique of not vomiting when drinking to excess – incredible mind control – before rescuing Skye’s dog from behind a gate by pulling it up by the scruff of its neck and then relieving himself perilously near AIM’s art work. He recognised my painting of the post-iceterity block at Richmond Bridge because he rows on the Thames.
A man from Dagenham wants the opposing painting-post-iceterity Block at Gravesend.
AIM/The Iceman points to his painting of Gravesend
One of the best things that has happened has been visits from the local Stalbridge primary school: three separate visits from years 4/5/6.
They loved the art and chose their favourites and I got The Iceblock out of the freezer for them to meet. This is an extra long-lasting block because it keeps going back in the freezer after making an appearance and The Iceman does not shorten its life by his traditional means.
The Iceman did put the Block on his head and say “Ice-cap!” which bemused the children.
(IN AN ENDEARING, FASCINATING AND NOT UN-ECCENTRIC VIDEO ON YOUTUBE, THE ICEMAN aka AIM SHOWS YOU ROUND HIS ART EXHIBITION… HERE)
Filed under Art, Eccentrics, Humor, Humour
AIM, the artist formerly known as The Iceman
What is The Iceman? Who is he?
Comedian Stewart Lee describes him as “a blank canvas. You project your own ideas onto him: fun, single-mindedness, commitment, a love of life and its inherent absurdity”
As a performance artist, he’s The Iceman. As a painter/artist, he’s AIM – comic Simon Munnery says AIM creates “absurd beautiful art”.
As himself, he’s Anthony Irvine. And he occasionally turns up in this blog.
This week, on Friday, for the first time in ever, AIM will be exhibiting his paintings all based on The Iceman’s performance art.
Well, the exhibition runs from 7th July to 5th August.
The exhibition is called AIM: The ICEMAN PAINTING CLEARANCE SALE and it’s at Guggleton Farm Arts – ‘The Gugg’ -in Dorset.
That’s right. It’s a farm which is an art gallery.
We had a chat about it.
AIM has a penchant for bunging AIM/ICE letters into words
JOHN: As well as the exhibition of your art, you are going to do a ‘big’ painting there – live…
ICEMAN: Yes, I’m going to do it on site. Maybe find a bit of an old stable or door or…
JOHN: …a horse?
ICEMAN: No. But people can come and watch the progress of it. My idea is to name it PEG IT!
As well as the gallery where I’m going to hang the bigger ones up with bamboo, I’m going to peg all the smaller paintings onto long lines of BT rope across the farm.
JOHN: BT rope as in British Telecom rope?
ICEMAN: I don’t know. I guess so. It was just abandoned next to a litter bin. I thought That could be useful. I’ve got 1,000 paintings. Then I had to buy bulk pegs. A thousand plus.
JOHN: Over a thousand paintings?
ICEMAN: Yes, it’ll take some time to hang them all up with the pegs. The show is billed as A CLEARANCE SALE…
JOHN: I suppose all gallery exhibitions where you can buy pictures are clearance sales…
ICEMAN: PEG IT! Do you like it? It has a double meaning.
JOHN: Sounds like you’re going to die.
ICEMAN: Yes.
JOHN: Well, that’s not untrue. Local Trading Standards can’t complain.
ICEMAN: Over one thousand paintings.
JOHN: They’re all for sale?
ICEMAN: Yes. And there will be a raffle ticket. People have to guess how many paintings I will actually manage to sell and, if they get it right, they get a free painting… though I’m just a bit worried they might decline the painting…
JOHN: Is there an entrance fee?
ICEMAN: No, you just come through the farm gate.
On Friday (7th July) I’m being interviewed by a poet called Roshan Doug – He was Birmingham City’s Poet Laureate.
JOHN: Really?
ICEMAN: Yes. Dr Doug – He’s a doctor of philosophy. (He wrote an appreciation of The Iceman’s work HERE.)
JOHN: Where are you staying during the show?
IDEMAN: I asked if I could sleep in the barn. I was originally going to stay in Sherborne where I do educational work at the International College, but that fell through.
I’m not used to publicising art; I’m more used to comedy.
JOHN: That jacket, that hair, the neckerchief… You’re the biz… What biz I’m not so sure…
ICEMAN: I have a friend in Bournemouth who likes my act and has written a song and I’ve done the chorus: Melt it! Melt It! Melt it!
JOHN: Cool.
ICEMAN: I see what you did there.
JOHN: What is the song called?
ICEMAN: Melt It!
JOHN: Seems reasonable.
JOHN: It’s called Melt It! after the title of your recent book?
ICEMAN: Yes.
JOHN: Very trendy.
ICEMAN: And I’m on Tik Tok.
JOHN: So the Chinese will know about you. Good sales potential…
ICEMAN: I’ll show you one of my Art films on Tik Tok? I’m not boring you, am I?
JOHN: How long’s the film?
ICEMAN: It’s a short. Look. I’ve built a boat out of cardboard. Do you think I could be a film maker? I’m quite amused by the sliding block of ice.
JOHN: You can’t beat a video of a sliding block of ice for entertainment value.
ICEMAN: I think I might get labelled as an outsider, a Jean Dubuffet type. In the text publicising the exhibition, I have put that AIM – that’s my painting name – “declines to be categorised. He just paints pictures of himself with a block of ice”.
JOHN: Again, undeniably true.
ICEMAN: But what if no-one comes?
The Iceman with his book on a train by a toilet
JOHN: If no-one comes, you just say it was a massive success, massively crowded and, if no-one came, no-one knows otherwise and all anyone knows is that it was a massive success. That’s the eternal default position for Edinburgh Fringe shows. If it gets round that you’re a massive success but unknown, you could end up at the Saatchi Gallery in the blink of an eye.
ICEMAN: I’m already on a little website which acquired the name Saatchi Art. No connection.
JOHN: (LAUGHS)
ICEMAN: It looks impressive.
JOHN: I’m impressed.
“I had an old-fashioned kitchen sink and, for some reason…”
ICEMAN: When I first went on it, I put really ridiculous prices: £100,000 or something. But now I’ve reduced them. There are about 70 pictures of mine on it. The one I claim is extra-valuable is the one I’ve called Crazy Larry’s – a painting of the very first block of ice I ever did at a Chelsea club. Rory Bremner and people like that were there.
JOHN: Why Crazy Larry? That’s another name for Wild Man Fischer…
ICEMAN: Crazy Larry’s was a Chelsea club.
JOHN: Maybe it was named after Wild Man Fischer,
ICEMAN: Maybe. It’s no longer in existence.
JOHN: Nor is Wild Man Fischer.
ICEMAN: It was the craziest block I ever did. I had an old-fashioned kitchen sink and, for some reason, I brought that along and I remember being mainly horizontal. People thought I was actually insane.
JOHN: And the strangest thing of all is that you’re not.
ICEMAN: You can buy Crazy Larry’s – the painting – for £3,000.
JOHN: Well, if you like it and you have that sort of money, then £3,000 isn’t a lot. Have you seen The Laughing Cavalier?
ICEMAN: Yes.
JOHN: It’s a tiny little thing. I expected a big OTT canvas. Tiny. Must be worth a bit more than £3,000. Like Kylie Minogue.
ICEMAN: I think my art is definitely different. I’ve called my most recent series of paintings OneOne – I just do one brush stroke. Then I also have TwoOne, which is two brush strokes. But with multiple colours on my paint brush. Big brushes. Then the other series is EightOne…
JOHN: Let me guess.
ICEMAN: Eight different brush strokes.
AIM – Guess the Brush Stroke title…
JOHN: I have to say that sounds totally mad and therefore the sort of thing that the real Saatchi Gallery or someone like that might be interested in.
ICEMAN: Normally I’m very fussy in my paintings. But I think I’m onto something here with OneOne. For me, it’s all a slight game, I want to do the most unlikely thing and sell my Art against all odds.
JOHN: I know nothing about the Art trade but it seems to me the thing to do is to create something you want to do for yourself, then think of some more or less random blurb words that make it sound intellectual. It has to sound intellectual. So you say something like: “It encapsulates a post-Covid re-awakening of post-modernism with the unique twist of icy Brexit cynicism”.
ICEMAN: Mmmmm… Guggleton Farm Arts in Dorset, 7th July to 5th August.
(…UPDATED HERE…)
Filed under Art, Comedy, Eccentrics, Performance
The Iceman with ice in a cup and rubber duck in hand at London’s South Bank Arts Centre…
Occasionally, The Iceman turns up in my blog.
As my avid reader in Guatemala will know only too well, The Iceman’s stage act involves attempting to melt a large block of ice using increasingly desperate methods.
I first met him in 1987 when I auditioned him for Channel 4 TV’s The Last Resort With Jonathan Ross.
I would have booked him.
The powers that be did not agree.
Now, with Robert Wringham, he has a new book out called Melt It! The Book of The Iceman.
It is illustrated, according to publishers Go Faster Stripe, “in thrilling Instamatic colour”.
I met The Iceman for a chat on London’s South Bank and co-author Robert Wringham (see my May 2022 blogs) joined in from Scotland via FaceTime.
THE ICEMAN: Last year, John, you mentioned my book Thespian Follies in a blog and, about five minutes before I met you today, I got an email from the drama people, saying: “You have been selected to receive an award regarding your publication Thespian Follies and we have an item to post to you.” Isn’t that lovely? It’s a New Author award.
JOHN: And now there’s your new book Melt It! You’re on a roll…
THE ICEMAN: The exciting thing is there’s a lot of fine art in this book.
The Iceman, in London with duck looking on, holds up a near-invisible ice cube to Robert in Glasgow
JOHN: So how did this book Melt It! come about, Robert? You wanted to be put in touch with the Iceman and I gave you his contact details.
THE ICEMAN: I was at the top of the Himalayas, I think.
ROBERT: The thing I knew about the Iceman was that he took a photo of each block and recorded it in a ledger. I thought: Ah! Maybe that would be a nice photo book! and he was amenable to that but he only had 56 Polaroids.
JOHN: How many ice blocks had you melted over the years?
THE ICEMAN: That’s a good question. I used to be meticulous, but… Somewhere between 800,000 and 5 I guess.
JOHN: So basically you’ve done a 184 page book with 56 photographs of different blocks of ice.
THE ICEMAN: There’s a lot of text as well…
ROBERT: I had not known that, as well as taking Polaroids, he was painting pictures of the blocks. I wanted to interview him to get some answers, at last, about his motivations, because there are people that want to know. And I wanted to know. We spent a day together at Battersea Arts Centre and we ended up with a 15,000 word interview with no waffle.
The Iceman book as seen from Glasgow via cyberspace
So I approached some publishers and they all told me to get fucked. But then Chris from Go Faster Stripe saved the day. He’s got the right audience for it. Thousands of people with an interest in niche or fringe comedy and a lot of them know of The Iceman and want answers too.
THE ICEMAN: Rob was very good at glueing it all – freezing it all – together. He is hard-working; he’s a grafter; he works fast.
ROBERT: I’m always worried that I’m going to lose interest or that other people will lose interest.
THE ICEMAN: Rob is resuscitating The Iceman and I’m game for anything. After my retreat in the Himalayas, it’s time to be back. I like working with Rob.
JOHN: You can see royalties on the horizon?
THE ICEMAN: Money is not my main priority.
ROBERT: We may do a book launch in London.
JOHN: Simon Munnery wrote the Foreword to the book and Stewart Lee wrote the Afterword. They are both big fans. Stewart put you on at the Royal Festival Hall.
THE ICEMAN: Yes, and Simon wrote quite an incisive Foreword – He concentrated on an ice block in Sydenham at the Greyhound pub. I think it was Block 126. He said it was “beautiful art”. I was quite touched by that.
ROBERT: Neil Mullarkey described your set with the repetitive music – the one I saw for The Last Resort With Jonathan Ross – as…
THE ICEMAN: …a riposte to showbusiness…
ROBERT: When Neil saw that act, he said the only people in the room laughing were him, Mike Myers and Ian Macpherson.
THE ICEMAN: …and Ian Cognito.
JOHN: I wonder whatever happened to Mike Myers.
THE ICEMAN: He died didn’t he… on stage… like all the greats.
JOHN: Mike Myers?
THE ICEMAN: Ian Cognito. He used to bang a nail into the wall at the start of his shows. The audience was scared from the word Go.
JOHN: He was certainly tempestuous. You don’t bang nails into walls, but you have turned from performance art to fine art painting of late…
THE ICEMAN: I’ve actually got a formal exhibition at the Guggleton Farm Arts – ‘The Gugg’ – in Dorset. It’s on 7th July to 5th August this year (2023). Four weeks of solid ice work. It’s a farm. I’m in the pigsty.
JOHN: Literally?
THE ICEMAN: (LAUGHS) Well, it’s an art community farm now. It’s owned by the Countess Isabel de Pelet. I’m going to have ‘security’ there.
JOHN: What? To try and keep you out? They have specifically talked to you about security? Why?
THE ICEMAN: I used to live on a houseboat on the Grand Union Canal.
JOHN: That’s not an answer.
THE ICEMAN: It was called the Tivoli… It sank… It was a converted lifeboat… I can ask the Countess if she will stock my book. That’s why I need security.
Guggleton Farm Arts – now more tasteful gallery than a pigsty
JOHN: It’s a farm; they’re used to having stock. She’s turned the farm into a gallery?
THE ICEMAN: It’s been going 25 years, but not many people know about it.
JOHN: They approached you?
THE ICEMAN: I approached them. A friend had an exhibition there. I thought: Ooh! They could exhibit MY art! And they said Yes… You know I worked in a circus? I know all about animals.
ROBERT: …and in a chicken factory.
JOHN: You worked in a chicken factory?
THE ICEMAN: You need to read the book.
JOHN: Long ago I met someone who used to ‘sex’ chickens. It’s very difficult with animals that small to…
THE ICEMAN: …to see?
JOHN: Yes. To see the relevant bits. And it matters because of breeding. It matters if they’re male or female. So he made lots of money travelling the world checking the sex of chickens at speed. If your book doesn’t sell and the ice work dries up, you could look into becoming a chicken sexer.
THE ICEMAN: It sounds a bit intrusive to the chickens’ privacy.
(THOUGHTFUL PAUSE BY JOHN AND THE ICEMAN)
ROBERT: Look! The book is full of The Iceman’s beautiful art.
THE ICEMAN: I’m glad you got the better quality paper.
“This is the book I’m proudest of… It’s so… so pure…”
ROBERT: Yes. This is the book I’m proudest of. It’s so… so pure…
THE ICEMAN: Pure… Pure…
ROBERT: There’s not a single regret in it.
THE ICEMAN: Pure… Pure…
ROBERT: When I look at my other books, there’s always some weird phrasing or something I wish I’d done differently. This is just a perfect book.
THE ICEMAN: What more can we say to ‘sell’ the book? I want to be a businessman like Andy Warhol said.
JOHN: He did?
THE ICEMAN: He said “Good business is the best type of art”.
ROBERT: I don’t like that quote.
JOHN: No. Surely art is the best type of business?
ROBERT: Ice is the best type of art.
JOHN: What’s your next project, Robert? How can you follow The Iceman?
THE ICEMAN: By turning the book into a hardback.
ROBERT: Yes. An Iceman hardback. Also, I’ve written a novel.
THE ICEMAN: Is that The Man in The Bath?
ROBERT: Yes. Well, it’s actually called Rub-a-Dub-Dub, but it’s all about a man in a bath. (MORE ABOUT THAT IN A PREVIOUS BLOG.)
THE ICEMAN: I love my rubber duck. (MORE ABOUT THE DUCK IN A PREVIOUS BLOG.)
The once but maybe not future cover…
ROBERT: There was going to be a rubber duck on the cover of Rub-a-Dub-Dub, but I’m not sure now.
THE ICEMAN: What about your James Thurber thing? You were going to go to the States.
ROBERT: That’s a long way away…
JOHN: …about 3,000 miles.
THE ICEMAN: He’s very keen on James Thurber.
ROBERT: Things like that generally. I like short humour.
JOHN: Charlie Drake?
(A LONG, LONG PAUSE, THEN…)
THE ICEMAN: Poor… Poor…
JOHN: I did Latin at school. Now I’m reduced to this…
(THE ICEMAN’S WEBSITE IS HERE…)
(…AND THERE IS A BOOK TRAILER ON YOUTUBE… )
Filed under Art, Books, Comedy, Eccentrics, Performance
Anthony Irvine – The Iceman – appears occasionally in this blog.
I first auditioned his stage act – melting blocks of ice – in 1987.
In a later incarnation – AIM – he added painting to his creative output. Some of his fine art can be bought from the Saatchi Art website.
For example, a painting of his first ice block – Crazy Larry’s Painting – is currently on offer at a bargain price of £4,280.
And now Anthony has become an author…
JOHN: So you are now an author as well as a performer and painter…
ANTHONY: I have a literary background. When I was a young man, I studied literature at a very ancient institution.
JOHN: Bedlam?
Debbie’s fantastical adventures with Antarctic animals…
ANTHONY: It’s a children’s book called Lockdown Melter.
JOHN: And you presumably wrote it during the Covid block-down…
ANTHONY: Yes. I thought of everybody suffering. It’s a fantasy where a young child – Debbie – is frustrated with the situation and escapes with the aid of Lappy, a polar bear – a small polar bear – who she meets in her bedroom and she goes on this adventure to Antarctica.
To facilitate this adventure, Lappy instructs her to get some ice cubes from the fridge freezer. The ice cubes are put on her head and there’s a magical transformation and she goes on this journey.
The idea is that Antarctica is a pristine, beautiful, relatively-undamaged place that we can all go to; the animals are in harmony and, in the story, the penguin says…
JOHN: The penguin?
ANTHONY: Yes, the penguin… There’s a penguin… As I wrote it, I thought: This is an amazing parallel to my Iceman stage act. It retains an ice theme. In a sense, I melt blocks of ice to achieve purification. Similarly, Debbie is finding something away from this world really – saṃsāra and all that.
JOHN: Saṃsāra ?
Anthony Irvine – his self portrait…
ANTHONY: The Buddhist concept of suffering. Do you chant?
JOHN: Not as far as I know.
ANTHONY: Lockdown Melter was a very simple story but I quite liked it, so I approached a publisher, Olympia, who have an imprint called Bumblebee who have published it.
JOHN: Well, if you write a good children’s story that doesn’t date – it’s a fantasy – it’ll sell forever and internationally.
ANTHONY: You can get it from WH Smith, Foyles, Browns Books, the Book Depository, Waterstones, Amazon, the lot…
JOHN: You should tell Waterstones you will do a signing of the book AND melt a block of ice the same time. That should get people in. Does JK Rowling melt blocks of ice in a bookshop? No. She’s just not trying hard enough.
ANTHONY: Perhaps I should go Banksy-style and sell a book that melts. You know his picture that shredded itself?
JOHN: Yes. The water from your melted book might be worth a fortune.
ANTHONY: Is it technically possible?
JOHN: I dunno. You are The Iceman. Why become an author?
ANTHONY: I used to tell stories to my young son and I guess I’d always had the thought I might write a children’s story. It is really for young children. The idea is young children could read it themselves or parents could read it to them; it’s more like a picture book. So then I realised I had to get the pictures.
The illustrator is actually Greek: Sofia Stefanis Pons. She did some nice – I think dramatic – illustrations. My pictures were declined as being too ‘rough’. But hers are great.
Debbie meets Lappy for the first time… illustration by Sofia Stefanis Pons…
JOHN: So do you have an idea for a second book?
ANTHONY: Yes. I like the innocence of Lockdown Melter.
When I was a child, I was very unhappy at one point and I built an arch with stiff cushions. I went through the arch and discovered I was happy. So the Lockdown Melter idea is simple but it is like going somewhere and attaining awareness. It’s the same principle.
Debbie goes on a journey. She meets animals who are nice to her and she finds the Antarctic world all very beautiful and something happens at the end which I can’t give away. But I think the idea of the story is the idea that human beings – the human race – need help and in this story it’s the penguin who gives that help.
JOHN: The penguin?
ANTHONY: Yes, the penguin… There’s a penguin… Next time I think Debbie might go to the Sahara.
JOHN: Difficult to work ice blocks into that story.
ANTHONY: An ice block could bring irrigation to the Sahara… I think if this first book is successful I WILL continue with the writing idea.
Anthony Irvine’s educational Thespian Follies, coming soon
I have already written 13 little plays for drama classes in schools. That book is due to be published soon. It’s called Thespian Follies.
It’s an educational resource; I’m going quite mainstream, aren’t I?
Ice blocks were my life and still are my life to some extent but I feel I have to do a bit more. My next ambition is to write a Channel 4 type series: a bit like The Outlaws but based on car rental. When I was in debt at one point, I did a job at Hertz car hire, cleaning cars and taking them out to the Army and so on: that’s a ready-made situation comedy.
JOHN: You could call it Hertz of Darkness.
ANTHONY: I was thinking of calling it Hurts… That’s my next project.
Maybe writing will displace painting in time, but at the moment my main activity is still painting. I’m trying to sell Bill Bailey a painting; I’m playing tennis with his accountant this afternoon.
I sold a painting to Mark Thomas at the Electric Palace in Bridport recently. He was on tour and I hadn’t seen him for about 40 years. He gave me his book and I sold him a painting in which he appears.
JOHN: You are a born entrepreneur. JK Rowling will have to start learning how to melt blocks of ice…
Entrepreneurial Iceman – a self portrait
Yesterday, I got an email from the uniquely entrepreneurial Anthony Irvine aka performance artist The Iceman aka fine artist AIM.
He told me about GIANT – “a new prestigious art gallery in the ex-Debenham’s department store in central Bournemouth” on England’s south coast.
At 15,000 square feet, it is claimed to be the UK’s largest artist-run gallery space outside London. The Iceman told me:”There’s a giant polar bear in there which I thought was a good omen for me.”
“He has heard back from neither them nor the polar bear”
So he left his business card but, so far, has heard back from neither the organisers nor the polar bear.
Forever entrepreneurial, he has also written an open letter to the Taliban, who surged back into power in Afghanistan this week… in the hope of getting a performance booking from them.
In 1975 he travelled overland via Turkey, Iran (where the Shah was still in power), Afghanistan and Pakistan to India and Nepal, with appropriately long hair, pretending to be a hippy.
The giant Buddhas of Bamiyan (Photograph from Wikipedia)
In Afghanistan, he stopped in the Bamiyan Valley and, he says, “climbed the rough steps up one of the tall Buddhas carved out of the sandstone rock. At the top, one could actually get into the head. I’m not sure if I experienced immediate enlightenment; more a slow burn…”
The Buddhas were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.
His open letter to the Taliban this week is worth a read in its original form on his website.
But, for the lazy, I translate it here:
Dear Taliban Team,
I’m not sure if it’s appropriate for me to send Congratulations, but I hope you do better than the last time.
In 1975, I was in Afghanistan. I went up to the beautiful lakes in Band-e-Amir on horseback. I went to see and enter the incredibly still Buddhas in the Bamiyan Valley.
Why did you blow them up? You thought them idolatrous? Or is it because you understand the concept of emptiness? Probably not.
The Iceman’s image of Block 223 as submitted to the Taliban
Anyway, if it would help, I am happy to come and melt an ice-block somewhere in your rugged country. But, if I make a mistake, please don’t amputate any of my limbs – I need them for my art work. Give me a Community Care Order instead?
I attach a Polaroid of a previous Block [223] to give you a sense of my performance art work.
Do you think it would be popular in Afghanistan?
I also attach a photo of myself for ID purposes.
Yours sincerely,
Anthony Irvine [aim]
Because Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts died this week, The Iceman also shared with me these two memories:
“I remember seeing him getting a taxi in Hammersmith… also at Knebworth in 1976 when I was meant to be on stage with him but was overwhelmed by other factors…”
“WHAT?” I asked. “Knebworth? Other factors? Tell me more…”
And he sort-of did.
The Stones at Knebworth, as portrayed by the Iceman/AIM
“The Stones,” The Iceman told me, “had insisted that the promoter should attempt to try to instill a carnival atmosphere at the show by hiring a large number of clowns, buskers and other circus acts, who were supposed to entertain the crowd between sets. I guess I was part of this.
“Chris Lynam booked us. I was in a street theatre group from Penge called Shoestring. I played a character called Private Parts. But I think on this occasion we were less performers and more atmosphere creators, interacting with festival goers. I had designed my own clown costume. I think I also wore a chef’s hat.
“I remember Chris Lynam shouting at me to get on stage but I had challenged myself with an alternative form of stimulus and couldn’t get off the ground. I think my colleagues all assembled on the main stage, but I missed my biggest audience.”
On his website, partly as his 1976 self, partly as The Iceman, partly as AIM, his artist persona, he remembers:
I didn’t make it onto stage, man, but I was booked, man – I let the Stones down, man. Not good to let the Stones down, man, but, like, man, they understood, man. Icespecaimlly Mice Jaimgger, man. Things happen at open air concerts, man, and there’s a lot of stuff going on, man. Things happenin’, man, all the taim, man – all kinds of stuff, man, around everywhere, man. It’s craimzy, man – raimlly cricy, man…
We can but wait with bated breath to see if the Taliban reply and sensibly give him a booking in their new (or do I mean old?) Afghanistan…
Filed under Afghanistan, Art, Eccentrics, Performance
The Iceman crops up in this blog erractically and eccentrically.
He used to be a humorous performance artist, destroying blocks of ice – sometimes by just letting them melt, sometimes using a blowtorch, sometimes blowing them up with explosives. Nowadays, though, he is a painter.
He paints pictures of blocks of ice.
Recently, he did a Zoom call with pupils at the highly prestigious Westminster School in London. I Skyped him to ask why…
JOHN: Why?
ICEMAN: A young sixth former became aware of my work and approached me on behalf of the Westminster Literary Society, which sounded very prestigious.
JOHN: But you’re not a literary creator; you’re an artistic performer and performance artist and now artist.
ICEMAN: Yes but, as you know, I use words, often with “aim” or “ice” in them.
JOHN: Errr… “aim”?
Portrait of the Artist as a mystery man
ICEMAN: That’s the n-ice name I have adopted as a painter. AIM = Anthony, Ice Man. But it always has a deeper meaning…
JOHN: Ooooooh!
ICEMAN: That is the correct response. Ooooooh! Deep. Deep. What are we AIMing for? I’m aiming for something very particular.
JOHN: What?
ICEMAN: Nirvanaima.
JOHN: Yer wot?
ICEMAN: Some people call it Nirvana. I call it NirvanAIMa… The Westminster Literary Society liked the wordplay… I am now a cult figure in the sixth form at Westminster School… I was baptised in Westminster Hall.
Westminster Hall is the oldest surviving part of the Palace of Westminster – ie the UK Parliament building (Photograph by Jwslubbock via Wikipedia)
JOHN: Westminster HALL???
That’s in the Houses of Parliament!
ICEMAN: Yes. The old hall where Charles I was tried.
JOHN: You were baptised there???
ICEMAN: I had good contacts in those days.
JOHN: Bloody good contacts. Tell all!…
ICEMAN: Anyway…
JOHN: Forget the Anyway. Why did you get baptised in Westminster Hall and where did you get the water from? There’s no font. You must have brought your own water. What was the font? Times Roman? What connections did you have? Political or Lordly?
ICEMAN: I’m a commoner.
JOHN: So you had a relation who was in the House of Commons?
ICEMAN: As a baby, I was good at networking. I have a little block of ice here…
JOHN: I don’t want to know about your little block of ice. I want to know about the water in your font and how and why you got baptised in Westminster Hall. Does this mean, bizarrely, you have a connection with Westminster School?
ICEMAN: One wonders, with all this synchronicity going around… You have an unhealthy interest in this… I think the person who invited me – at Westminster School – unbeknown to me, took my work very seriously, thought it was deep and funny and the initial subject I was talking to them about was Can Stand-Up Comedy Be an Art Form?… but I turned it, really, into a promotion of my paintings.
JOHN: Your paintings not your ice-melting performance art?
ICEMAN: I am a man of two parts.
JOHN: You’re a man of three parts. One is in Westminster Hall as a baby.
ICEMAN: There was ice in the font. It was February… No, it was April, actually.
JOHN: You remember ice in the font?
ICEMAN: I sensed it… Anyway… One of my audience at Westminster School was called Cecilia. She said she laughed so much at my Zoom meeting that her eyeliner ran.
JOHN: Where did it run to?
Iceman and duck talk to Westminster scholars
ICEMAN: My duck was there. You remember my duck? You blogged about it.
JOHN: How could I not?
ICEMAN: But the thing that I appreciated was that my art – seemingly genuinely – was being appreciated by a new generation. Now they can’t stop sending me emails. And even their English teacher said how deeply moving and funny it was at the same time. They had a block of their own. They called it Alice.
JOHN: Alice?
ICEMAN: – Al-ice.
JOHN: Aah! So you’ve inspired new ice artists?
ICEMAN: Well, they say I have inspired them. They are painting lots of pictures and they are going to send me a booklet of all their pictures. It has been a stimulus for their writing and art.
JOHN: But will they cough-up to buy a painting from you? How much would it cost?
ICEMAN: I dunno. If they gave a fiver each, how big is the Sixth Form?… £500?
JOHN: That’s quite cheap for your ice blocks.
ICEMAN: They haven’t replied to that e-mail.
JOHN: This would be you selling them not a block of ice but a…
ICEMAN: …a painting of a block. Yes. I know you met me when I was a performance artist, but my main creative activity now is painting, though still using the motif of blocks of ice. Every painting has a block of ice. I told the Literary Society that, when I look back, I see the blocks as stepping stones to my later career as a painter.
JOHN: But if the past blocks are stepping stones, they will melt, so your future career is uncertain.
ICEMAN: Yes, but I’ve got there now. A painter called Alfred Wallis reminds me of myself. He was part of the St Ives Group in Cornwall, but he was really a Cornish fisherman and he painted on cardboard, using ship’s paint. Very simple and child-like, which reminds me of me because I tend to paint on mounting board. He was taken up by Ben Nicholson. He was a genuinely naïve painter.
I’m not saying I’m emulating him. I came across him later and realised he’s like me in some ways. He only started painting in his Sixties.
The Iceman in full flow… His art is not easily accomplished… It is a combination of art and art-if-ice
JOHN: Back to your birth. Where was your father born?
ICEMAN: In Aberdeen. But I was born off the King’s Road in Chelsea. I think there might be a plaque there. It was a bit more bohemian in those days. I broke free and became The Iceman.
JOHN: Did you go to university?
ICEMAN: I can’t give too much information about myself without demystifying myself.
JOHN: When you were 19, what did you want to be?
ICEMAN: I think I wanted to join the Royal Navy.
JOHN: Why?
ICEMAN: To do ice patrols…
JOHN: Of course you did. But, at 19, did you decide you wanted to be a creative person of some kind?
ICEMAN: I think I had an idea of being some kind of actor. But then I recognised the limitations of that field.
JOHN: What are the limitations?
ICEMAN: Spouting forth other people’s words. I guess I became a performance artist but not one of your heavy Marina Abramović types. More of a slightly humorous performance artist. When I played comedy clubs, they said I should do art galleries; and art galleries said I should go and do comedy clubs. That’s the story of my life.
I ran into Arthur Smith. I said to him: “I never had success.” He said: “You had your moments”.
JOHN: Well, you’ve done better than Van Gogh did in his lifetime.
ICEMAN: That was one of your greatest blogs – The Iceman out-sells Van Gogh… You don’t remember! You don’t know your own blogs!
JOHN: I send the recordings off to some bloke in China and he transcribes them and puts them online. I seldom read them. But I remember the duck.
ICEMAN: You have a sort-of tabloid journalist’s eye for a good headline.
JOHN: Yeah: The Iceman was Lord So-and-So’s Son…
ICEMAN: No.
“a bit of blue tarpaulin attached to it that looked like a fish.”
JOHN: You sent me an image of a new painting of a block yesterday.
ICEMAN: Yes, it is called The Tombstone Block. It has a lateral flow test thing block and The Iceman was in PPE outfit and it had a bit of blue tarpaulin attached to it that looked like a fish.
JOHN: Anything seems reasonable. Has the pandemic lockdown inspired you to create more things than you would otherwise have done?
ICEMAN: At one stage I created a regular routine of painting more or less every day. Recently it’s more like one a fortnight.
JOHN: They take about a week to complete?
The Iceman amid his recent art, holding an old Polaroid
ICEMAN: About five minutes. (LAUGHS) But the build-up… I do think about it prior to the event.
I used to take Polaroids and, when I started painting, I was painting my interpretation of those photographs. But, when I ran out of photographs, I started painting more from memory.
And, more recently, I’ve painted more from a concept.
The block I did with Stewart Lee at the Royal Festival Hall – I imagined it going to Gravesend, Richmond Bridge, the North Sea, lift-off into space, then to a neighbouring universe. I’m getting more away from the basic literal block portrayal.
JOHN: How are sales of your paintings going?
Shrewd buyer (left) of a second Iceman painting – thaims 16
ICEMAN: I’ve just had an order from a previous buyer. He’s the Head of Music at Monkton Combe School. Many years after buying the original one – LidO – based on Tooting Lido where I did a block, he became interested in a painting called thaims 16, which is basically a boat with an ice block on it… and the other one he likes is more abstract. I tried to get him into three figures, but he’s whittled me down to £50.
I like the fact I’m now painting. That has given me a completely different experience from performing. When you perform, you’re interacting in rough and ready ways. But when you’re painting you’ve usually alone. They are both intense, but completely different experiences.
When I paint, I think it’s the one time I forget about… well… For all my limitations as a painter – because I’ve had no training – I think what I bring to it is a spontaneous feeling. In one way, that relates back to the performance art work, which was always rough and ready.
I like using oils because, on canvas, they can emulate the ice block effects… I like dribbles.
The Iceman’s Zoom chat with the boys and girls of the Westminster Literary Society is on YouTube… The video lasts 29 minutes…
Filed under Art, Eccentrics, Humor, Humour, Performance, Uncategorized
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