fieldey’s Freakshow – a tale of trials and tribulations

Whilst I was busy holidaying around on Norfolk Island in early January, I received an email from the crew at OnWilliam with an intriguing proposition – to be the first artist to create a Street Snaps photo booth for the Laneway Night Markets that coincide with the awesome Fringe World Festival at the end of Jan.


The booth was going to be 3m x 3m which sounded reasonable to someone with no spacial awareness like myself. It was only when I got back to Perth and marked it out in my living room that I realised just how big that really is. This was to be the biggest thing I’d ever created and what followed is a long (Ok, two week long) tale of trials, tribulations and derring-do.

I had to come up with a concept for the booth and then basically set it like a stage. My idea was to create a sort of rip-off Victorian era freakshow complete with silly dress ups and creepy props. On paper it was easy:

Coming up with the concept and the plan was simple, but figuring out what to paint ON was a different story; most papers and canvas didn’t come in big enough sizes. My first brainwave was to paint on 3m x 2m painter’s drop sheets. So I went to the hardware store and bought about nine square meters of the stuff and convinced Mr Fieldey to help me paint an undercoat layer on them on a 37ºC day in the middle of our driveway… Tempers were frayed and a crap-ton of white paint was spilt over our rental house driveway and I realised the weave of the fabric was too coarse and WHOSE GREAT IDEA WAS THIS ANYWAY?

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