I have lived in Brighton for more than two decades, but 2014 marks the very first year that I will be participating in the Artists Open House Festival.
What are Open Houses?
Brighton’s Open Houses are a real institution, dating back to the early eighties.
It began with a few artists who lived in and around the Fiveways area of Brighton. They opened up their homes, treating them as a kind of open gallery space where anyone was free to enter, browse, and perhaps buy.
The idea took off – bigtime – and now, every year, hundreds of houses and studios open up each weekend during May.
It coincides with the main Brighton Festival and the Fringe Festival, so for any culture-loving Brightonians, and visitors to the city, it is a very busy month… in the nicest possible way.
I have always loved walking round Open House trails, looking at the massive diversity of artwork, and – let’s be honest – enjoying a shufty around other people’s abodes.
It’s a well-known fact that half the visitors come to gawk at the interiors, especially in Brighton’s grander pieces of architecture. Sometimes you can sit in the garden and eat cake, too.
I think I’ve passed the habit on to my daughter. But that’s ok. Open Houses tend to be child-friendly. Remember the bit about cake? Sometimes there are pet cats as well (and once, a tortoise).
If this all sounds good, you can find all the details online from 11th April – or, if local to Brighton, start looking out for the catalogues around town on that date. They’re superbly put together!
Where to find my prints
Yay! This year, I will be a part of it all myself. I’m sharing wall space in an Open House at 116 Balfour Road, not far from the Fiveways area where the whole thing began.
I’ll have prints, cards and postcards for sale, and there will be several other artists’ work to peruse as well. The owner of the house is also behind the Real Patisserie, the Brighton cake shop/institution, so expect a superior range of refreshments to be on offer.
What you can buy!
The prints I’ll have on sale will be:
- Stamps Landscape
- Stamp Forest
- Tins
- Skittle Cat
- Sleeping Cat (Iggy)
- Animal Tea
- Crows Fly Over A Village
- Muesli Mountain (showing the Hanover area of Brighton)
I’ll only have a couple of each though, so come early if you want something specific.
Dates
The house will be open on every Saturday and Sunday from the 3rd of May to the 25th of May, from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.
I will be around on the 11th May (11am – 2pm), 18th May (11am – 2pm) and 24th May (2pm to 5pm), so do please come and say hello if you’re passing.
More information nearer the date.
Myfanwy Tristram 
