Lynsay Raine Rocks the Auckland Jewellery Geek Gang Patch in Belfast - 03AUG12

Auckland Jewellery Geek Lynsay Raine, who now resides in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Subliminally Infiltrates a few pubs and gallery openings and happens to bump into some very important craft people because of the gang patch. One of whom knew an artist represented by Masterworks where Lynsay used to work in Auckland

"Last night was late night art night in Belfast, a good time to do and infiltration and show off my new gang patch I thought.

Before embarking on the pilgrimage of galleries Mike and I decided to quench our thirst in our favourite pub. I had just pinned my patch on and felt a tap on the shoulder at the bar. I turned round to a big lad with a southern accent asking my about my patch. He told me he was the head of department of ceramics at University of Ulster, we introduced ourselves and turns out he was Michael Moore, the gentlemen Paul Maseyk told me to look up in Belfast.  They both did a residency together in Montana a few years back, I could tell Paul and Michael had some good times there, it wasn't long before stories were being unravelled about buying erotic paraphernalia and all sorts! We had a chat about the New Zealand crew, it was cool that he knew Moyra Elliott and John Parker after meeting them at the Santa Fe conference....

We started our art night at the Naughton gallery at Queens University... it was an unusually sunny day and as we hadn't anticipated this we were quite sweaty and stinky by the time we got there, it also turned out we were early for the opening so decided to go cool down with another beer and watch a bit of the cycling with a friend. Time was ticking on though and there were lots of other galleries to see. Mike learnt what nettles were at the Platform studios, we saw a good ceramics show at SpaceCraft then whizzed down to 'Work in Progress' at Craft NI, it was very packed and a good place to begin infiltration photos, not sure if many people noticed the patch though! We headed off to golden thread gallery, a very cool space but as we missed the live performance, the artist could only describe what we had missed...something to do with fired eggs and talking gnomes....

The final stop was at the Black Box Green room cafe to check out some stuff on the walls.My friend RIckie helped model some geek jewellery. No art night is complete without at stop at the lovely Duke of York Pub where we bumped into Michael Moore again, this time he was with the director of the Irish Crafts Council. We decided we would pose for a few photos he mentioned something about an 'Iron Bar' that him and paul had in Montana and this was the reason we had to do angry poses....can Paul shed any light on this???

We ended up having a bit of a boogie in the John Hewitt bar but unfortunately the crafts council man had to leave hastily. I think Michael could have happily stayed all night otherwise!"