00:00Hello, I'm Mick Artistic and I'm in Armley Library and this is where I live. I live in Armley.
00:05And right behind me, there's 15 brown paper bags hanging in the window.
00:10And when I was younger, for about 30 years, I used to go out and I used to draw people
00:15on brown paper bags in Biro.
00:18And it was a right cavort. It was great fun.
00:22And my friend worked out that I'd probably done about 20,000 brown paper bag drawings over the 30 years.
00:29So I started back in like 1983, January 83 in Ireland and I travelled all over.
00:37These are people, ordinary people, that probably would never entertain the idea of walking into an art gallery
00:45or would know who Picasso was or whatever.
00:49But I would hunt these people out. I wouldn't sit on my stool there waiting in the studio.
00:55I'd just go out round. I'd walk in any door, knock on the door, walk in.
01:01And there might be an office and I'd say, hello, I'm Mick Artistic and I draw people on paper bags.
01:07Would you like your own personal paper bag?
01:09I'd walk in garages, there'd be somebody there with a spanner in his hand.
01:12And he'd say, but I'm not dressed. I said, no, you are. You look great with that spanner.
01:17And I'd just catch people, as they were, in the wild, just like, not cosy, not tidy, not cosmetised, but
01:26alive.
01:28Double chins, everything. Just get them as they were.
01:31Because that's what we are, you know, we're just flawed creatures, but beautiful.
01:36When I drew them, often people would say to me, like, well, nobody's ever looked at me that long before
01:42in me life, not even me wife.
01:46And I said, are you all right? And they said, no, that was really nice, cos I felt like, I
01:51felt noticed, I felt present.
01:55And sometimes people, you know, cry, and sometimes I'd cry, you know.
01:59But it was a very intense experience, because it was not something that most people would ever, sort of, go
02:08through.
02:08I have a band, Mickey Artistic's Ego Trip, and we've done Glastonbury 15, 16 times.
02:14And we were playing at the Weekend in Otley, we played a festival down in Shropshire.
02:18I'll be doing a gig at the Broodnell at Christmas. I normally do a couple of shows at Christmas.
02:22And I'm 71, and I feel about 14, you know. I just wish I'd started.
02:28I wish I'd started earlier, but life doesn't work like that, and so you just grab the opportunity when you
02:34can.
02:35A bag is just, it's nothing. It's of no importance.
02:38A biro has no importance, but I know that, you know, I can know that drawing in pen is a
02:45really demanding task.
02:47And so I'd try and create something special from the humdrum, and I didn't need pop stars or philosophers to
02:57draw.
02:58I'd just draw the person around the corner.
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