Twist It!

 It all seemed such a long time ago when I pulled out my tea stained and baked paper and began the long hours of writing up all my notes and tracing the timeline to produce the first version of the guide that eventually became the souvenir guide book for the new Lost Impossimals - The Complete Twistory tour.

Holding the guide book in my hand over the weekend at the official launch and looking at it's bronze leaf lettering was a proud moment, explaining the concept to the galleries was something else entirely though, with little time but an overwhelming amount of information to get across both myself and Jayne were all talked out by the end of each day.

But let's start with the guide itself, limited in quantities I suggest if you are looking for one please contact your nearest gallery and get yourself on the mailing list or attend one of the many appearances, if the interest shown in it during the show translates into the galleries then it will quickly become a collectors item in it's own right, which incidentally, is exactly what I am hoping it will be as the whole collection has been lovingly crafted to reflect the three years love and attention to detail both myself and Jayne dedicated to it. Washington Green has to their credit done the Lost Impossimals proud helping me put together a quality, collectable and desirable body of work.

The opening of the guide gives a hint at what's inside, you are presented with the inside plate of a Victorian encyclopaedia, this is no ordinary art catalogue after all, turn the page over and you get to meet Charles Burroughs, explorer and collector of the Lost Impossimals.

This short history lesson sets the scene for the entire collection, an explorer who disappears, a forgotten crate and an accidental discovery at the National Museum of Antiquities, the basis for an exciting adventure.

Each 'plate' in the guide fills you in on the background to the Lost Impossimal, taken from Charles extensive notes, allowing you to learn a secret Twistory, a story connection between The Lost Impossimal and an event be it an invention, leap in knowledge or simply a classic book.  Now comes the Twistory, 90% of everything in the Lost Impossimals is true, the other 10% is pure Twistory, it's up to you to decide which is which and if you hear the story from a gallery I have asked them to add their own personal bit of Twistory too!

Here's where the fun starts, you are going to take the role of Charles Burroughs. I want you to add your own Twistory to any piece you collect from the tour, on the back of each and every edition is two tags to confirm authenticity, one is the official museum tag the other is Charles 'official' story for the piece, if you pass the story on maybe to friends or family I want you not only to try and convince them it's true but also add a little extra Twistory in there that you have thought of. When you are confident that you can do that send me the new Twistory story to your piece or pieces via impossimal@gmail.com, the best three will win the original signed Lost Impossimal Twistory documents that I prepared two years ago and may even get a visit from me and Jayne to present them personally if we can at your nearest participating gallery. Full details will appear on my website a little later.

Now on with the story, hidden in the time line on the central pages of the souvenir guide is Lost Impossimals which do not form part of the initial seven releases, now you can play explorer and try and find the location of these pieces to help build up the online archives of the National Museum of Antiquities.

The other hidden Lost Impossimals are in the form of originals, own any original you own part of the timeline and the bespoke story for the piece which is included on the back of the original. Even the galleries are unaware of who will get what and where but they may be able to help you track them down throughout the UK as the appearances begin on the 18th February. As an example, above is the Peruvian Party Python, it's gallery whereabouts is currently unknown but find it and let me know the first line of the story via e-mail and I will activate it on the Lost Impossimals website for everyone else to discover and read about it and I will also include your name on the site as the official 'Lost' discoverer.

So that's the start, I'm not going to post the rest of the Lost Impossimals quite yet as the galleries need to digest it all and also I need to wait for the official images to be released but for those of you who have already received the first batch of Souvenir Guides I hope you like it and look forward to seeing you all in a few weeks time in Solihull and Bristol :-)

One last thing, the Lost Impossimals movie, yes, you did read that right, should be released in time for the beginning of the tour at the end of next week. Squeeee!