RCA Secret 2004

RCA SECRET 2004

This year I resolved that I would get there by no later than lunchtime. The cards were not published on the internet and therefore I had only had the previous Sunday to look at the cards and to make my original list.

By arriving at around 12 noon it gave me the chance to look round the exhibition all afternoon and make my selection. I spent this time with by now the usual suspects - John, Hugh and Chris. As usual we compared notes and exchanged information on who we thought had done what.

The night passed reasonably uneventfully. I had a terrible cold and had had a bit of Jack Daniels and coke before I went to sleep so I am afraid that I snored a bit something which my next door neighbour in the queue probably wasn't best pleased about.

Again eventually the waiting was over and we filled into the hall to buy our cards.

I was much more organised with my list this year and had a much better structure about what I was going to ask for. By the time I got to the front all the talk around me was whether the Nick Park's had gone (they hadn't).

When I got to the front I therefore excitedly read out each of the Nick Park numbers. The first three numbers had all gone but then I struck lucky on number 4 and a Nick Park was mine.

I also got a card I had identified as the only Ray Richardson at the exhibition (a lovely little pencil drawing of a dog); a lovely abstract oil painting on board by Vicky Finding; a signature piece card by recent graduate of the RCA Debbie Lawson and, most exctingly, an abstract of a house that both me and Lisa had fallen in love with. It was only when the card was turned over that I saw it was by Donald Hamilton Fraser RA- a real piece of luck.

In fact our luck continued to be in as Lisa and I went back to the exhibition the following day and bought two cards by Lawrence Weiner and one by the Sculptor David Nash.

A great year.