Amelia's Magazine | Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration Launch Party at Concrete Hermit

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Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration Launch Party at Concrete Hermit

The super busy Concrete Hermit at my Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration book launch

So, last night was party night… and after months of very little sleep it was time to celebrate the official launch of my first book. Hurrah! Concrete Hermit very kindly offered to host the launch and I decided it would be nice to daub their walls with a some of the renewable technologies imagined by illustrators in the book, so Sunday was spent bombing between Climate Camp in Trafalgar Square and sort of overseeing how the collaboration went (which featured contributions from Saffron Stocker, Craig Yamey, Hannah Lewis, Liv Bargman, Chris Cox, Barbara Ana Gomez, Jess Wilson, Leona Clarke, Karolin Schnoorand Andrew Merritt) but mainly involved me gobbling cheese and humous sandwiches and not being very helpful at all.

Super busy outside Concrete Hermit: thank god it didn’t rain!

Thanks to the power of twitter I managed to secure some booze sponsorship at the last minute (you know how crazy people talk about sending your wishes out into the universe by writing notes to angels and the suchlike – well with twitter it actually works, people listen!) A lovely lady heard my plea and offered me the best beer ever - Adnams East Green carbon neutral ale, which was really delightful and the perfect accompaniment to the evening. We also got another sponsorship at the last minute – a yummy New Zealand beer – which as some helpful friend of mine pointed out probably totally wrote off all our smug carbon neutral credentials in one feel swoop. Oh well!

Checking out Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration

I arrived a wee bit late, as I am wont to do (took me ages to do my make up – I decided on a glitter-on-eyelashes look at the last minute which was fun to achieve) and the place was already hopping. It remained fairly rammed both inside and out for the entire stretch of night, and I felt less stressed than I normally do at such occasions, possibly because many of my good friends did actually come along – which has been a rarity at most recent magazine launch parties. And I am generally in a better mood these days, what with heartbreak being quite a long way away (3 years; I know, it takes me awhile) As well there were loads of other lovely folks – many of whom I didn’t know, and lots of the featured illustrators came along with friends and family, or alone, as did uber-typologist and endpaper queen Lesley Barnes – who travelled all the way down from Scotland on the train for the event.

Lesley Barnes and Amelia Gregory, with Valerie Pezeron filming in the background

My parents came (who were massively helpful during the making of the book – my father having researched all the technologies, and my mother having subbed all the writing from their caravan whilst on holiday in New Zealand) and my cousin Camilla, though my cousin Matt who works at RBS didn’t – he sent a text message saying “Amelia hates me because I work for the most evil bank in the world.” Haha! No I don’t!

But you really should change jobs.

Checking out the book: Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration

To be honest it was all a bit of a whirl, so I think I’ll just leave you with a bunch of photos to tell the story better than I can. We ended the night at that artists’ favourite (and mine, for the ten years I have lived in the area) The Owl and Pussycat, just around the corner in Redchurch Street, and a fabulous time was had by all, including my trusty interns Jermaine and Grace, who did a sterling job keeping the place clean and clearing away the bottles – it was my biggest fear that they would get broken and mashed into the pavement like they oft times are during gallery openings in the area. Valerie is working on a little video of the whole thing, so watch out for that in the coming weeks. In the meantime, enjoy! It were like a proper book launch, with books laid out on the table and everyfink. Get me!