FUCK INTO LUCK
When I heard the devastating news, the only words that came out of my mouth were ‘fuck’
For 6 hours. It was like I had fuck tourettes. I physically couldn’t help it.
FUCK.
I'd just found out I had to evacuate my studio in the cavernous wonder tunnels that are hiding underneath Waterloo station. My heart, suddenly ripped out and thrown somewhere desperately unpleasant, had stopped beating. I'd lost my love.
I’ve lived and loved many spaces; Places that make your hairs stand on end. Spaces so deep and dark you feel totally alone, and nothing in the world can touch, or stop you.
For 6 hours. It was like I had fuck tourettes. I physically couldn’t help it.
FUCK.
I'd just found out I had to evacuate my studio in the cavernous wonder tunnels that are hiding underneath Waterloo station. My heart, suddenly ripped out and thrown somewhere desperately unpleasant, had stopped beating. I'd lost my love.
I’ve lived and loved many spaces; Places that make your hairs stand on end. Spaces so deep and dark you feel totally alone, and nothing in the world can touch, or stop you.
The Vaults was one such space.
When I first walked through those damp tunnels, I felt
at home. Spiritually at home. Apparently they even used to keep the dead bodys there... Perfect.
I loved the smell, I loved the decay, I loved the weird noises and
trains grumbling above my head comfortingly, reminding me that time was real.
I happened there after an invitation to exhibit in their gallery. The Show was called
The Museum House Of Death
And shit loads of people came.
As well as a traditional gallery space, The Vaults also offered 'The Wet Room'.
It was beautiful. It was perfect. In fact, I actually screamed when the doors to my wondercave were opened.
It was here that more of the singing dancing taxidermy puppets I had stored up in my head, came to life....
I sat in the dark underground from 11am-6pm everyday for a month, making sure the museum was always open to explorers. I wrote to the
director and told him it was my spiritual home…and please
could I live here forever.
A few months later they gave me this room.
And over a year and a half... I filled it.
I was in love.
My studio was hiding under the theatre. I’d always wanted to live in a theatre, and there I was, in the beating heart of London in my secret underground magical world.
The amount of shit that went down here should go down in history...apart from no one really knew it existed.
And that's how I liked it.
------
The first space I loved and lost was a vast concrete jungle,
a wasteland full of wasters living the dream when and how we wanted it.
Before it was flattened, this suburban paradise was hiding right by Bow flyover, overlooking the then dismal canal. Right at the bottom was a selection of huge abandoned warehouses with basically nothing but crime going on in them.
The property even came with it's own empty sewage trailer to blaze the days away...
This space gave me goosebumps, it made me cry, it made me laugh. We nurtured and comforted each other.
Undisturbed, it enabled me to go places into the dark that I never came back from.
Undisturbed, it enabled me to go places into the dark that I never came back from.
You see, no one was around ....which meant no one could stop me.
I was completely alone and I loved it.
Another loved and lost studio was hiding inside a care home in
Walthamstow. I’d been a property guardian for a long time and have had to hide
my craft from various housemates over the years. Sometimes this has proved tricky...and an eviction quickly followed for me and anyone that new me (long and horrible story).
This room I adopted was the in-house doctors treatment room. Small, mighty, light and breezy, and best of all, it had a sink and a lock.
This room I adopted was the in-house doctors treatment room. Small, mighty, light and breezy, and best of all, it had a sink and a lock.
------
One house we were 'protecting' came with a cesspit basement which had seen years of terrible abuse. So I swept up the needless, condoms and indiscriminate faeces, painted it white and turned it into an art gallery. It was perfect. Perfect aside from the fact it was located in one of the darkest areas of Romford Road.
After that literally came crashing down, I found The Vaults.
The Vaults was the best.
It was great.
It was amazing.
The Vaults were also the partons for Sing For Your Life,
they helped produce and literally bring the singing dancing dead animal puppets
to life. .. a debt I’ll never be able to pay back. Having this idea realised
and understood is a feeling like no other.
Oh the incredible highs!!!!!
Spiraling wildly and uncontrollably into terrible lows.....
Oh the incredible highs!!!!!
Spiraling wildly and uncontrollably into terrible lows.....
I felt safe at The Vaults. No one could touch me. Now my magical carpet has been pulled from beneath my feet and i've dropped into the cold, hard and fast lane.
FUCK.
I am out on my own.
A real person.
A real artist with nowhere to call home.
FUCK
But i'm going to turn this
FUCK
into LUCK.
FUCK INTO LUCK!!
Yeah.
#FUCKINTOLUCK
Fuck into luck
FUCK INTO LUCK!!
(Apparently, the more you say it, the more it becomes true)
You can find out about the next exciting/TERRIFYING new chapter of my weird life in these social media voids.
@goodnessgates
Insta:CharlieTuesdayGates
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