An artist friend had me schlepping to Battersea last night to see the RCA graduate shows of the Fine Art and Material departments – Material being Ceramics & Glass, Jewellery & Metal. I didn’t go to Art School, though I did a design degree, but I did hangout with art schoolers and their fabulous vintage chords back in the day. My flatmate for four years Hannah went to two art schools and had the finest pair of red chords you ever did see. I still feel the envy. Anyway, it really struck me last night how tribal we are as people, the attendees of the show feeling just as they did in the 90s (lovely bunch, great haircuts – I am simplifying a bit). Here’s a little glimpse of some of the eye-catching bits we saw….

Some of the paintings were amazing and we found a Rembrandt whose best work was too crowded with people for me to photograph, but I got to this one, almost as good…

The colour and detail was amazing in those skirts and shoes.

My companion of the evening studied Fine Art herself, first in Stuttgart and then at the Slade school, and she was telling me horror stories about how hard it is to price your work for the shows. One of her friends ended up saying no to a ludicrously low offer on her work only to find herself years later having to clear the exact same pieces out of her space altogether as she didn’t have room for them anymore. Not sure what point I’m trying to make here, but basically it’s hard to have a commercial head on when you’re at graduating age.

It was in the Ceramics area that I found my favourite thing of the evening.

Honest to God my photo probably isn’t doing it justice, but that ceramic stool was a real beauty and just the thing you could imagine seeing in Mint or The New Craftsmen or similar. It came from a family.

The artist had already sold two – they were priced between £600-900 – and I expect they’ll all be gone by 5 July when the show ends.