BOOKVILLE 2005-10
Summer 2005, 37 Long Headlam, Newcastle
After finishing in High Bridge, we reopened in my house as a by-appointment bookshop selling artist made books.
Everything in boxes after moving out of Highbridge
The space in my house after we opened shop.
Feb-May 2005 - 37 High Bridge
When I first moved to Newcastle in 1999, there was a great deal of empty properties that artist were making use of, but by the time I had finished my degree 3 years later, there was almost nothing. Some film fanatics had been running the cinema down on the side (they later formed the Star & Shadow), but that was kind of it. I had heard that Waygood Gallery was undergoing renovations, so I contacted the director, Helen Smith. She gave me one of the shop fronts that was to become available (now the entrance to Baltic 37) when they moved out. I leapt at the chance and put a programme together with Maggie Tran. The below images and text were all from that time. It was the last time I really used film in a camera. I didn't know much about the internet or digital things back then, so the pictures are pretty small and pixellated. I probably wouldn't write the text now as I did in my mid-20's, but it's nice to see how things have changed.
Graeme Walker 2016
Waygood Gallery provided Bookville with a space in a disused hairdressers for four months in 2005. Primarily conceived as a bookshop, Bookville put on over 40 events and supported over 100 artists – including live music, workshops, day residencies, exhibitions a week long performance festival, readings and sleepovers. This was supported by both the Waygood Gallery and Arts Council England.
The famous Bookville book cake with crayon candles, by Wendy.
The first exhibition, by Simon Jones, included a series of large prints of closeups of crisps and a collection of objet d'art on two shelves.
Plenty of red tape on the opening night.
Before it was Bookville, 37 High Bridge was a hairdressers. This meant a plethora of hair related events, including free haircuts. I did my first ever performance on the opening night. After they painted my hair, they turned me upside down and used me as a human hair brush.
RudeboyNoah read Moby Dick in its entirety, out loud, mostly by himself, in a mouldy cellar we discovered adjacent to the main room.
On this day, Maggie Tran surreptitiously is taped up by Tereza Buscova.
"ODD", the product of a potato printing workshop.
07 Feb - Slumber Party + Ghost Stories
One of the coldest nights I can remember. Cold February, cold basement. We did it for my birthday which happened to have Shrove Tuesday after, so it was pancakes for breakfast.
Earlier in the day the charming Hector & Glen [who I later did a gig with at the London Artist's Book Fair] came up from London to see me on my birthday. They left a collage of copies on our wall...
14 Feb - Valentine's Day readings & Performance
Mags & Debs organised this mix up of reading dirty love poems & performance around a big double bed in the centre of the room. I read out some stuff, as did RudeboyNoah & Alec Finlay. One guy also read out the sweets from an entire pack of love hearts as he ate them, wrote them down and pinned up the poem on the wall.
12 - 18 Feb - European Animal
The noble European Animal stepped in at the last minute to fill a gap & what filling they provided! Decorating practically the entire space with an array of curious little characters.
19 Feb - Bookburning with Mat Cowan
Saturday the 19th of February saw Mat Cowan lead a book burning with a difference.
23 Feb DJ Callan
Christopher Smith AKA DJ Callan, brought his protable record player in a few times during Bookville on High Bridge & was the original inspiration for Creamola Foam.
24 Feb - Joe Scurfield
Rest In Peace Joe. A tiny audience - probably a bit too weird for some random weekday.
25 Feb & 6 May - Jazz in the Shop
We invited a Jazz band to come and play in the shop a couple of times during the day while people browsed around and did things. Nice.
26 Feb - Story telling with Gary Cordingley
Lovely ex-fireman Gary Cordingley was spotted telling stories at the Cumberland Arms and was asked to give a day residency, giving stories to our guests and customers.
27 Feb - 06 Mar International Week
We invited a whole load of Dutch and Irish artists over. The Art-Is-Dinner was organised for that Friday and was an opportunity for people to meet the artists and see their work.
Jan Voss from Boekie Woekie didn't make it though.
15 Mar A.J.Bumpus
Andy Bumpus did a residency & exhibition in the space where he produced some beautiful collages, posters and videos. He also did artwork for a book which I helped publish called The Cylinder With Four Million Teeth.
16 Mar - Poetry Vandals & Book Launch - "Six of One"
The Vandals performed on a couple of occasions, reading both old and new works.
17 Mar - Nev Clay
Nev performed a beautiful gig today to the merry sound of chopping paper. You see, Richard Hall and I had decided to make a little zine, Nev's audience started coming in and then they all suddenly got involved. Afterwards they got to take a little book home with them - sweet! As I recall Lake Me couldn't make it, so John Egdell played instead with Jennie, which was lush.
25 Mar - Creamola Foam
I got me a portable turntable too & me 'n Callan got together a few times to play sweet records for anyone who wanted to listen. We went on a tour of Scotland in the summer, played for Exploding Alphabets in Morden Tower and have done some gigs seperately. [I did a one for Novellus Castellum. These pics were of Chris' solo CF effort at the Cumberland Arms
27 Mar - Easter Day Treasure Hunt
The idea was simple enough... Mags and I made a little book called EGG about a little chicken who comes out of it's shell. All the pages were hidden around the space and contenders had to find all the different pages in order to make up the complete book. An alternative egg hunt you see!
29 Mar - Steven Lowery
Steve put up an impressive exhibition of drawings on yellow paper that more or less filled the space. He also made a couple of books with us. We also tried to have a jam as our old band, Sock! but, as per usual, it ended in complete chaos [probably on purpose].
01 Apr - George J. Pemlid - "ALOSA AESTIVALIS"
A beautiful and quiet performance by shy George at Newcastle City Swimming Baths.
04 Apr Pillow + Amateur Dramatics + Greenspace
12 - 16 Apr - James Johnson-Perkins
James did a wicked residency day and exhibition of new prints all using a gadget to turn normal photos into zx-spectrum graphics. Click here to check out his website.
17 Apr - Bookville at Tynemouth Market
Me, Mags & Chris set up a funny stall at the crusty Tynemouth Bookfair. M did crazy portraits dressed up as "French" woman & Chris & I played records, made books & badges.
22 Apr - Lachrymose One + Tears of Abraham
Grunge-pop gruffness from Lach1 followed by Babreham's deep reverberations.
23 Apr - The Brighton Linesmen
Linesmen Rory & Larry came all the way up from Brighton to do a huge drawing for the space. It was exhibited with pride.
30 Apr - 01 May - Bookville at the Green Festival
Creamola Foam made the usual stunning appearance with the badge machine, while Mags read people's Art Tarot in a grotty tent. It was a perfect weekend.
07 May - Florentina Mei Mei White
Equestrian art-nut Florentina spent the day dominating myself & Richard Hall, poor boy. She left this strangely awful picture of a horse behind.
10 May - Neill Sheasby
Neill positioned this extraordinarily heavy concrete shopping trolley by our front door. I believe it's still there.
13 May - 3 POETS
Alec Finlay, Paula Cunningham & Ira Lightman gave a quiet poetry reading in the upstairs part of the shop.
14 May - Colleen Chen
Calligraphy master Colleen Chen painted the symbols for "Book & Village" for us & gave us a lesson in Chinese writing.
16 - 20 May - MEANWHILE... Performance Week
Mat Cowan was our butler on Monday
On Tuesday Carol Luby reconstructed Pieta as a Tableaux Vivant
Mat Giraud's Upside Down Man & Bridie Jackson's Sketch Night in the evening.
Wednesday had Topsy galavanting down the Waygood's old back alley in Love Me Avenue
Howard Laing's painting Tango & Patrick Snape in the evening.
The Newcastle Music Department descended on the basement on Thursday with a free improv night.
First thing on Friday was Hannah Paronage's Come Dancing to tape recorded instructions...
21 May - Games workshop with Ilana Mitchell
Ilana utilised Bookville's chequered floor to develop some curious games for our customers.
Dave Hails grafs up the joint under his Germ moniker.
26 May - Improv night II with Guessmen
The Newcastle Music Dept. posse came back the week after their first outing to Bookville and sorted us out with an amazing gig including improv work from Guessmen & Will Scrimshaw.
Rudeboy Noah performs extracts from Narnia at Newcastle's Monument.
31 May - Bookville closes on Highbridge - The Big Bookville Basement Bash Bonanza
This was the night to end it all. It was crazy, beautiful and intense. I opened the door at 12 O'clock and let people take away free things while Creamola played records. At about 3PM the music started and carried on into the witching hour. A wicked way to go out & on to new things...
Splendid visuals were provided by Debs & Mat
An early Field Music gig.
Dressed in Wires hurt everyone's ears with his wicked crunchy scary and sometimes droll glitchcorepainthrashtrashhorror. Famously, he took a Barbie spaceship upon his head and ran through the crown with a wild look in his eye straight into the toilet door - a move repeated [remarkably] at the Distraction Weekender the following summer.
A DJ set from King Biscuit Time
