Just a note to thank all you artists out there who donated paintings for the auction. You contributed to securing the immediate fute of the festival.

For those of you who were not there, it was a wonderful night and the auction was certainly one of the highlights - providing an evening of electrifying theatre, to be remembered for a long time.

The auctioneer, Nick Nugent, did an incredible job of whipping up the frenzied atmosphere and moved the whole thing along superbly. Basically, we had 42 paintings up for auction, exhibiting a real cross-section of interesting art. Amongst them was the very valuable Hirst. As announced on the night, I was the only person privy to that painting and framed it myself. Although we were warned that there were a few sharky art dealers in the audience, we succeeded to stifle their grand designs. Paintings were bought for prices ranging from E50.00 – E550.00 ( although a couple went for about 1,800 and 4,200 ) but the Hirst itself went for only E380.00  - to Alan Moloney, (who already has three Hirst Spin paintings adorning his kitchen wall). Although he later announced that he instinctively felt he had bought the Hirst, the dealers instincts and  expertise had bought them diddly squat.

At the end of the auction I presented the painting to the audience ( it was actually a Spin mounted in a cheap rectangular frame ) and asked Mr. Moloney to come up on stage and receive the painting.  Then, as a last minute, long-shot idea, I asked Mr. Moloney if he would consider putting the painting back up for auction. Expecting to be advised as to where I could put such a ridiculous idea, he replied “yes, okay … as long as there’s a 20,000.00 reserve”. To a mass audience gasp, the painting went back up for auction, became a dog-fight amongst the dealers and was consequently bought for E95,000.00 by Mr. Kevin Spillane, a dealer from Wicklow. 

Without making too many bones about it, this substantial ‘windfall’ will obviously have stirred more than a little speculation as to the appropriation of these unforeseen funds, so we think it best to dispel any notion of expensive Caribbean holiday’s for myself and Mr. McCabe as soon as possible. We are in fact purchasing a small but productive pill-making laboratory in Tydavnet and already have orders from as far a field as Butlers Bridge. Erectile dysfunction is definitely on the up and we feel our new company, ‘Shaft Tek’ can go from strength to strength in a rapidly expanding market.

No, but seriously ….although the festival was put together on a shoestring budget, we had been hemorrhaging funds in the lead up and were pretty worried about going under in our first year. However, the art auction, and especially the Hirst sale, has ensured the future of this unique event. However, Hirst painting apart, we did in fact manage to break even… and that remaining money will now go into financing the ongoing Flat Lake Arts Project and contribute to the financing of future Flat Lake’s, with or without institutionalised funding. Furthermore, The Flat Lake will remain a stand-alone, registered committee-run organisation - and although the anomaly of the Hirst sale puts our first year in healthy profit, this money will be implemented within the running and infrastructure of the festival -  with any surplus funds rolled over year after year.

In terms of next year … well, an auction of some kind is certainly on the cards. We’re not sure about another Damien Hirst scenario but we are thinking about an open auction of some kind… and we’re not expecting any donations. We like the idea of presenting an auction of ‘affordable’ art…. and while we consider it a vital revenue source, the Flat Lake commission will be a fraction of the exorbitant fees charged by art galleries…. and, more importantly, will hopefully build a much needed platform on which to help expose emerging contemporary artists.

Finally, all of this would not have been possible without the generosity of Damien Hirst ( and Alan Moloney of course )… or the generosity and good will of every one of you who donated a picture for the auction …

....so, we would like to thank you very, very much.