> Patricia Fleming, Director of the Art Car Boot Sale, on how art is for everyone - SNACK: Music, film, arts and culture magazine for Scotland

Patricia Fleming, Director of the Art Car Boot Sale, on how art is for everyone

This October, Scotland’s biggest contemporary art market returns, featuring over one hundred Scotland-based contemporary artists. The Art Car Boot Sale welcomes audiences to explore works by leading artists, taking on the familiar format of the car boot sale. With a wide range of price points and many award-winning artists present, there is no need for extensive knowledge of the art industry, or for a huge amount of disposable income – just £5 can allow you to take home your very own unique art piece or add to an existing collection.

I spoke with Curator and Director, Patricia Fleming, to find out more about the event and how the public can get involved.


Do you have any advice for people who haven’t bought art before?

The aesthetic is the same as a normal car boot sale, so hopefully that encourages people into a more familiar environment than walking into a gallery and asking for a price list. Because this is an art car boot sale, you know that the prices are going to be more accessible than walking into a high end gallery where the prices aren’t visible. So hopefully that helps to break down the barriers to starting a collection. 

Because it’s two days of ‘get it while it’s hot’, the artists have completely discounted the work they would ordinarily sell. If they were represented by a gallery, it would be selling for double the price. It is like we are opening up the artist’s studio – revealing works that ordinarily wouldn’t be accessible. There’s drawings, there’s maquettes, there’s things that help explain the nature of exhibitions, and talking directly with the artists is the key thing.

If you go to a regular car boot sale, you always enter into conversation with the person who’s selling, and this is no different. The artists are primed and ready to talk to the public because they don’t ordinarily get the opportunity to do so. If you think about an exhibition opening in a public institution, not all of the public are allowed to be there. They won’t all have been invited, because that’s impossible. And so the artists actually find these two days really refreshing where the public can ask really frank questions and then, for example, when they see that artist exhibiting elsewhere they will then have a greater understanding of that artist’s practice because they’ve had a chat with them at the Art Car Boot Sale, and they may even have bought a piece of their work.


Allyson Keehan, Black Satin in Blue Light

What was your aim when starting the sale?

We all have to start somewhere. Collecting is very personal to the individual and it says something about the individual’s passions and tastes and the things that’s important to them.

This is our sixth year running, and we do have people that are returning all the time and they are building art collections. When they ask me for advice I’ll think about the collection that they’re putting in place and maybe their profession. That means that the individual will continue to be inspired by that work, long after that initial falling in love moment. To be inspired by art and to have longevity of living with real art is really the goal here. I know the kind of money people pay to decorate their homes with art, and it’s actually not that much more to buy unique work that’s meaningful to you. Art will continue to outlive you and you can potentially build a collection that your family will then take on after you.

When you start out on a journey, like anything, you might come back to something and think ‘that’s not really me’. But that’s okay, you don’t have to have everything out on display all the time. I change things around in my house all the time.

There’s not much in this world that’s utterly unique like that. What a fascinating journey, to be watching an artist’s career. We’re definitely trying to encourage a new local collector base for those artists in Scotland that are internationally recognised.


Janie Nicoll, Hirta

Tell me about the variety on offer. Is there something for everyone?

The artists themselves bring so much variation naturally. What I do is make sure that we don’t have too much of one thing and not enough of another. I try to encourage people to unearth unique works – for example it’s incredible to own a real oil painting. It has a presence in your home that nothing else can really compare to. Small sculptural works on your table or your mantelpiece also say a lot about who you are and are a talking point for the people around you.

I’m an absolute minimalist – sometimes I have nothing on my walls because I just have to come home and not see art. I let it settle and then go back through my collection and think about what I want to live with at that moment. It’s really easy to do – you can spend a weekend curating your own exhibition in your home. 


Leah Moodie, Matinée

The Art Car Boot Sale takes place from 26th till 27th October, at Tramway, 25 Albert Drive, Glasgow, G41 2PE

Featured Image: Mick Peter, Wristwatch Clock

You May Also Like

The Last Dinner Party Interview

Abigail Morris on forming the band, releasing their sophomore single ‘Sinner’, and having to ...

Interview: Martyn Robertson – Ride the Wave

Alone off the coast of his wee home in Tiree, Ben Larg found refuge ...

STUART MURDOCH on finding a voice, escapism, and throwing off the shackles.

In 2015 we were introduced to ‘Nobody’s Empire’, a classic twee folk track from ...