One Man's Treasure

One Man's Treasure clothes

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The shop was open Monday-Thursday, 10-4.30 and Friday 12-4.30, which meant Louise and I spent over 30 hours in the shop a week. We spent these hours serving people, thinking up events, organising them but most of our time was spent working on the clothes which were then sold in the shop.

We took the clothes which had been donated to us and altered them, hoping to make them more desirable and valuable. Reflecting ideas stemming from the spirit of WW2- from making do and mending and using sequins, embroidery, buttons, feathers and other embellishment to alter garments- something which was banned during WW2. We created clothes labels which went next to the original- reflecting on this idea of working with something and adding to it to make it better. The prices were kept low again, using charity shop prices as a guide to how we'd price our garments. The items on sale were therefore the garments as they'd been given to us and the work which had been done to them was infact free. Our time and effort sold for free. Again we wished to encourage people to give up a little of their time and in return find love again with something they previously loved and have lost fondness of.

Above are photographs of some of the new love-infused garments which were on sale.

The things which we sell...

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Louise and I arranged and held events in the shop, which I've spoken about in previous posts, however I haven't really spoken about what the shop sold. So here it is...

We wanted to encourage as many people to be a part of the shop as possible and for the space to be seen as ever changing and growing. Luckily for us we have a good, strong group of friends in our year group who helped things get moving, which resulted in others seeing something which they liked and wanted to be a part of.

Becky, Clare, Giles, Michael and Richard all very kindly donated work which was for sale. As Louise and I wanted to encourage people to think about how they judged how valuable a piece of work was, we encouraged the audience/ customers to think traditionally, in the sense of using the cost of materials and a wage per hour of how long the work took to make. The plaques beneath the work would contain the artists name, with a minimum price, which was the amount of money which the artist had spent on materials and producing the work. Beside this was the amount of time spent on producing the work. Therefore the price which the work sold for was left up to the customer to decide.

Here are photos of their work (apologies for the bad photographs):

Printed letters by Clare Asquith-Finegan. Minimum price: 5p each. Time spent: 2 mins each.

1 of 3 ink jet prints by Giles Bunch. Minimum price £2.50 each. Time spent: 3 hours each.

A5 Cross- stitch by Louise Fitzjohn. SOLD for £5.00

A1 drawing on paper by R B Grange. Minimum price £10.00. Time spent: 6 hours.

A4 collage by Michael Marczewski. Minimum price: £3.50. Time spent: 4 hours.

Embroidered text on fabric by Rebecca Price. SOLD for £40.00.

Special thanks to all those lovely people for donating their work to us. All profits going to our degree show.

It just needs a bit of love.

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The blog updating has been pretty slack which is sad. But I come bearing a little time and quite a lot of love to try and make this blog a better place.

I shall start where we left off; with week two of the shop.

Tuesday was a great day, with tea and cake a-plenty which made it the most popular shop on campus. People were squashed in at the door watching Suvi sit peacefully between the delicious bread she had hand-baked and invited us to spread with butter (which she'd molded to the shape of her face.) and eat. Pudding came from Becky, Rachel, Sara, Tina, Hayley, Alex, Louise and myself in the shape and taste of lots of different kinds of cake.

After the busy day, we celebrated being open for a week by holding a party, lots of new friends made through the shop came along, drank some beer, ate the remanding cake, made new friends as well as doing some shopping.

Here are some photos from the day:

Line-up of week two at One Man's Treasure

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Tuesday:
-Cake sale
-Week anniversary party, from 5.30-8.30
-Freek home baked bread and butter from Suvi Salonen.

Wednesday, Thurs & Fri Clare Asquith Finegan's Star Light Cinema will make it's debut in the shop. Please come and see us to chose which film you'd like to see and to book a time to see it.

If you would be interested in holding similar events in the shop at some point in the next two weeks then pleae get in contact. You can email us at: one.mans.treasure@hotmail.co.uk or come in to the shop and speak to us in person.

Photos from the grand opening.

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With special thank you's to Alex & Cheski for the photos.

Before & After.

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From this...

To this:

Press Release.

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Press Release

One Man’s Treasure
The Old Art Shop, Middlesex University Cat Hill Campus, Barnet
Tuesday 10th March 2009 – Friday 27th March

One Man’s Treasure is the collaborative work of Louise Fitzjohn and Amy Honour, 2 Fine Art students in their final year of their Bachelors degree at Middlesex University. The two proposed to open the now disused art shop on Cat Hill Campus and run it together as a gallery-come-shop.

Both artists have independantly been working with the idea of value and decided to collaborate on a larger project, one section of the shop is devoted to this idea. Fitzjohn and Honour have gathered thrown away objects and transformed them in to new versions of themselves with the use of other cheap, throw away items, showing that you don’t need to spend a fortune on owning something of value or worth. Infact a bit of TLC and attention are often more valuable. These items are priced with their material costs- the amount of money spent on them, as the minimum price which the customers can pay for them, alongside this is the time which the artist spent working on the item. It is for the customer to decide how much they believe the artists time and work is worth.

The artists use of space again reflects these ideas, they wish to celebrate the use of the space, making it a place of conviviality. With a seating area, interctive pieces and events being held they encourage the participation of others. They also wish to promote other artists work from both within and outside of the arts campus, which they believe could be placed in to the category of affordable and available, yet highly valuable, hand made, limited edition pieces of work.

One Man’s Treasure, is the name for the collaborative projects of Fitzjohn and Honour’s, the shop being the main project with other projects evolving from it. In February the artists set up a stall at the wedding reception of Hayley Dixon and Richard Bernard Grange, there One Man’s Treasure promoted itself. After the shop closes One Man’s Treasure will continue running and expanding with the use of their specially constructed ‘market stall’ and other events/ ideas which will evolve as a natural progression of this work.

Grand Opening- Tuesday 10th March

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Please click on the invite above to view the information.