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Screening Tuesday 12 May
OffBeat Folk Film Festival

Last year I was researching endangered craft industries in the UK, and discovered the 89-year-old Jost Haas, the last glass eye maker in Britain. He still hand-blows glass eyes with a bunsen burner, in his little front room in North London.

I found Jost via a series of stills taken by the photographer Carmel King. I emailed Carmel, asking if she might put me in touch with Jost, with a view to making a film about his process.

Carmel emailed back, saying that she was up for it, and that she would get in touch with Jost to see if he would be interested in being in a film. At the end of her email she also asked me if I happened to be the same Tom Harrad who grew up in the Kingsdown area of Bristol in the 1990s.

I had a sudden flash of memory, and before I was really thinking clearly, I sent an email reply to Carmel in all caps: “OH MY GOD ARE YOU MY BABYSITTER”

There was then a few anxious moments where I realised that I had either a) correctly identified Carmel as the woman who used to babysit me as a child in Bristol, or b) had just sent a deranged all-caps email to a random photographer I have never met.

Luckily it turned out to be the former. And so through a bizarre co-incidence I teamed up with my former babysitter to shoot a tiny short documentary about the UK’s last glass eye maker.

It’s only a few minutes long and it will premiere at next months OffBeat Folk Film Festival, at Staffordshire Street in Peckham from 6:30 on 12th May.

Check out @offbeatfilm for more info

@carmelkingphoto

Last year I was researching endangered craft industries in the UK, and discovered the 89-year-old Jost Haas, the last glass eye maker in Britain. He still hand-blows glass eyes with a bunsen burner, in his little front room in North London.

I found Jost via a series of stills taken by the photographer Carmel King. I emailed Carmel, asking if she might put me in touch with Jost, with a view to making a film about his process.

Carmel emailed back, saying that she was up for it, and that she would get in touch with Jost to see if he would be interested in being in a film. At the end of her email she also asked me if I happened to be the same Tom Harrad who grew up in the Kingsdown area of Bristol in the 1990s.

I had a sudden flash of memory, and before I was really thinking clearly, I sent an email reply to Carmel in all caps: “OH MY GOD ARE YOU MY BABYSITTER”

There was then a few anxious moments where I realised that I had either a) correctly identified Carmel as the woman who used to babysit me as a child in Bristol, or b) had just sent a deranged all-caps email to a random photographer I have never met.

Luckily it turned out to be the former. And so through a bizarre co-incidence I teamed up with my former babysitter to shoot a tiny short documentary about the UK’s last glass eye maker.

It’s only a few minutes long and it will premiere at next months OffBeat Folk Film Festival, at Staffordshire Street in Peckham from 6:30 on 12th May.

Check out @offbeatfilm for more info

@carmelkingphoto

Last year I was researching endangered craft industries in the UK, and discovered the 89-year-old Jost Haas, the last glass eye maker in Britain. He still hand-blows glass eyes with a bunsen burner, in his little front room in North London.

I found Jost via a series of stills taken by the photographer Carmel King. I emailed Carmel, asking if she might put me in touch with Jost, with a view to making a film about his process.

Carmel emailed back, saying that she was up for it, and that she would get in touch with Jost to see if he would be interested in being in a film. At the end of her email she also asked me if I happened to be the same Tom Harrad who grew up in the Kingsdown area of Bristol in the 1990s.

I had a sudden flash of memory, and before I was really thinking clearly, I sent an email reply to Carmel in all caps: “OH MY GOD ARE YOU MY BABYSITTER”

There was then a few anxious moments where I realised that I had either a) correctly identified Carmel as the woman who used to babysit me as a child in Bristol, or b) had just sent a deranged all-caps email to a random photographer I have never met.

Luckily it turned out to be the former. And so through a bizarre co-incidence I teamed up with my former babysitter to shoot a tiny short documentary about the UK’s last glass eye maker.

It’s only a few minutes long and it will premiere at next months OffBeat Folk Film Festival, at Staffordshire Street in Peckham from 6:30 on 12th May.

Check out @offbeatfilm for more info

@carmelkingphoto

Last year I was researching endangered craft industries in the UK, and discovered the 89-year-old Jost Haas, the last glass eye maker in Britain. He still hand-blows glass eyes with a bunsen burner, in his little front room in North London.

I found Jost via a series of stills taken by the photographer Carmel King. I emailed Carmel, asking if she might put me in touch with Jost, with a view to making a film about his process.

Carmel emailed back, saying that she was up for it, and that she would get in touch with Jost to see if he would be interested in being in a film. At the end of her email she also asked me if I happened to be the same Tom Harrad who grew up in the Kingsdown area of Bristol in the 1990s.

I had a sudden flash of memory, and before I was really thinking clearly, I sent an email reply to Carmel in all caps: “OH MY GOD ARE YOU MY BABYSITTER”

There was then a few anxious moments where I realised that I had either a) correctly identified Carmel as the woman who used to babysit me as a child in Bristol, or b) had just sent a deranged all-caps email to a random photographer I have never met.

Luckily it turned out to be the former. And so through a bizarre co-incidence I teamed up with my former babysitter to shoot a tiny short documentary about the UK’s last glass eye maker.

It’s only a few minutes long and it will premiere at next months OffBeat Folk Film Festival, at Staffordshire Street in Peckham from 6:30 on 12th May.

Check out @offbeatfilm for more info

@carmelkingphoto

Last year I was researching endangered craft industries in the UK, and discovered the 89-year-old Jost Haas, the last glass eye maker in Britain. He still hand-blows glass eyes with a bunsen burner, in his little front room in North London.

I found Jost via a series of stills taken by the photographer Carmel King. I emailed Carmel, asking if she might put me in touch with Jost, with a view to making a film about his process.

Carmel emailed back, saying that she was up for it, and that she would get in touch with Jost to see if he would be interested in being in a film. At the end of her email she also asked me if I happened to be the same Tom Harrad who grew up in the Kingsdown area of Bristol in the 1990s.

I had a sudden flash of memory, and before I was really thinking clearly, I sent an email reply to Carmel in all caps: “OH MY GOD ARE YOU MY BABYSITTER”

There was then a few anxious moments where I realised that I had either a) correctly identified Carmel as the woman who used to babysit me as a child in Bristol, or b) had just sent a deranged all-caps email to a random photographer I have never met.

Luckily it turned out to be the former. And so through a bizarre co-incidence I teamed up with my former babysitter to shoot a tiny short documentary about the UK’s last glass eye maker.

It’s only a few minutes long and it will premiere at next months OffBeat Folk Film Festival, at Staffordshire Street in Peckham from 6:30 on 12th May.

Check out @offbeatfilm for more info

@carmelkingphoto

I made a new podcast

two drawings for the Ruskin Park Community Garden

two drawings for the Ruskin Park Community Garden

dicey evening

been a blast guys

been a blast guys

been a blast guys

been a blast guys

been a blast guys

keep bumping into these

keep bumping into these

keep bumping into these

keep bumping into these

Only a month late, I have a few copies of my 2023 version of the @bookspeckham calendar left. A1 poster size. £8 all proceeds to @mindcharity. Features jokes this year ⏳

2022 - some memorable moments

2022 - some memorable moments

2022 - some memorable moments

2022 - some memorable moments

2022 - some memorable moments

2022 - some memorable moments

Sweeping the dock in Corniglia #35mm

- Huhtamaki Wab’s Bedroom Museum

@harradical: The Genius Treasure Collection profiles the personal collection and museum of artist Huhtamaki Wab. The collection itself is a monument to everyday creativity; a vast array of creations, artworks and found objects all bought from artists, markets, car-boots, or found on motorway sidings and other unlikely places. The objects and artworks in the collection are valuable treasure, and bringing them together in a museum is Wab’s way of celebrating the creative ingenuity of ordinary people, and artists working outside the traditional art world.

Wab opened his Collection up to the world, and put it all on display in his bedroom, in a former church in London Bridge. Every Thursday, he would welcome any visitor to his space so that they could enjoy his collection. The museum spread through word of mouth, and it became a much-loved, semi-secret destination for London's creative community.

The pandemic brought about the end of the museum in its current form, but before covid hit @harradical and @Edfenwick were able to capture the collection on film. The film portrays an unusual, warm, and welcoming side of London which is becoming rarer by the day, and provides an insight into a unique and generous artist and collector, who believes passionately in the creative potential of us all.

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Edit: Tom Harrad
Camera & Sound: Ed Fenwick
Music: “Loving Isn’t a New Thing” - Dolphin Smile, Paul Carman 2020
Thanks: Harvey Carman, Huhtamaki Wab

www.huhtamakiwab.com
www.tomharrad.co.uk

#film #documentary #shortfilm #documentaryshort #doc #museum #artist #director #collection #genius #treasure #huhtamakiwab #waba #london #secretlondon #city #londonart #filmmaker

Link in bio!🧃

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#london #artist #huhtamakiwab #geniustreasurecollection #doc #documentary #collector #shorts #film #museum #genius #waba