I didn’t really know what I was letting myself in for. No, I really didn’t. I know I mentioned it in my debut article, but the reality was so much more. If you want to know my abiding impression of the Brighton Festival of Artists Open Houses, it’s this. It’s big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is.
Twelve trails, 750 artists and 170 venues. In the remote future anthropologists will unearth an Open Houses brochure and construct models of the übermen who, in a mere four weekends, navigated hundreds of miles of trails with thighs of steel and craniums enlarged to cope with the assault on their senses.
My visits to three trails have barely scratched the surface. And it’s not as if it’s all paintings and pottery. Just look at the exotica I’ve missed. Lizzie Lee’s recycled plastic handbags. Nettie Heron-Middleton’s “Ndebele Bling and Karnataka Chique”. If I’d made it to WallTalk I would have seen “light at peace with its surroundings”. Junk Soup Sound Art was offering “an exciting soundscape environment, encompassing junk music played in a decorative patio embracing exterior and interior trompe l’oeil paint effects”. And at 60 Albion Hill Meg Powers offered the opportunity to “saw trees in the living room and stuff in the attic”. What or whom I might have stuffed I shall sadly never know.

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