No RCA Secret This Year

Alas, there is to be no RCA Secret this year but fear not as next year's show has been moved forward from its usual November spot to March the 14th. I've already started work on my pieces for 2013 but as its a secret I guess I'll have to keep schtum for now. All I can say is that they should stand out from the rest of the work on show - oops! I've said too much already.

Here's one of my cards from last year's show but to see all of my entries feel free to check out my Oodles of Doodles blog post.

 
For anyone that doesn't know what the RCA Secret is, it's an annual (apart from this year, obviously) exhibition of postcards at the Royal College of Art in London. And on the last day of the show (next year's is Saturday 23rd March) all of the postcards are available to the public at very reasonable price - especially considering that some of the artists contributing would normally be selling their work for thousands of pounds. But here's the secret bit - each postcard in the exhibition is signed only on the back, so collectors won’t know the identity of the artists until they had made their purchases. For one day only, all the cards are sold to the public to support the RCA Fine Art Student Award Fund. With generous contributions of new work from hundreds of leading international artists and designers, RCA Secret continues to help hundreds of emerging artists at a formative stage in their careers.

But a word of warning - if you fancy buying a postcard do your research beforehand (spend a good few hours looking round the show and make a long list of your favourite pieces) and be prepared to get in the queue very early as hundreds of people turn up every year. Some people even camp out days or weeks beforehand to get a good spot in the queue. Alternatively, you can always enter the raffle for a chance to win one of the first few places in the queue. But even if you don't win a place and can't get to the show at ridiculous O'clock in the morning it has been known for work by very well known artists to still be available for sale quite late in the day so don't worry, just make a very long list of your favourites.

As well as taking a year out the next RCA Secret has a change of location, moving across the river to the Royal College of Art’s landmark development, the Dyson Building, off Battersea Bridge Road, SW11 4AS.

 For the best hints and tips on becoming an RCA Secret collector or to find out what it's all about I suggest listening to the fans themselves. Here's the RCA Secret blog. And if, by any chance, you haven't had enough of my waffling on then here is my interview that appeared on their blog last year.