This is a mug I bought in New York City in 1999, at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, as a gift for my mum.
I’d applied for the trip, along with my flatmate Vi, at the last minute when we saw an ad on the Illustration course notice board, a floor below the BA Painting studios where I worked. I’d been reading obsessively about Warhol, Haring and Basquiat, and New York seemed like a mythical place to me, full of possibilities. We were told the trip was full, and put on a reserve list.
Two days before, I got a call - someone had pulled out after breaking a leg, and I had first refusal on their place. I decided to do it, despite not knowing anyone else who was going. My mum and dad said they’d help pay the £300-odd fee, agreeing that it was a good opportunity, none of us having never left Europe before.
It came at a point in my life where I had discovered a passion for art that I’d never known before. I’d been drifting through education since school - first busy being a bullied child, then an angsty art college teen, then a disaffected, listless twenty-something, struggling to find my place in the world. But lately, my paintings had started to mean more to me - I’d become absorbed in the process, and started finding artists I could relate to directly, rather than distant canonical figures that felt musty and academic. Warhol and Basquiat seemed larger than life, both through their work and as people. I was interested by the way they constructed their identities - how their individuality seemed as significant as their output.
I was reading Phoebe Hoban’s Basquiat biography on the plane. One of the Illustration tutors noticed and started chatting to me, giving me gallery tips and talking about NYC landmarks. I became a favourite amongst the tutors after that - someone genuinely into the culture and history of the city, where many were just along for the ride - and they would ask me where I’d been when they saw me each day.
They told me there was an odd number of people going, and gave me the option of having a room to myself, but I said I’d prefer to share, hoping to make a new friend from the Illustration course that I could hang out with.
The guy I was paired with was a loner by nature - quiet and introverted. We got on, and spent the whole time together, which suited both of us - I liked the company, and had a list of places to go like the Guggenheim, MoMA, the Whitney, PS1, Gagosian and Castelli, and he was happy to have a guide with a plan. It took until the third day to find out he had a wife and kid at home, and on the fourth he let slip it was his birthday. He’d told nobody else on the trip, so I hastily arranged some drinks and bought him a little cake.
New York City was a joy and a revelation. I look at the pictures now and see someone still emerging as a person and starting to come into his own. I had bright red spiked hair with a side parting at the front, polo neck jumpers and a long black leather overcoat, clean shaven and black plastic glasses. I look skinny, happy, camp and youthful.
I got a sudden urge to see this cup again on a recent trip to my parents and went crawling on the kitchen surfaces to find it tucked away in a high cupboard. Just seeing it and touching it was enough to bring the memories and sensations of that exciting time flooding back.
