Last weekend we caught up with artist Teresa Grimaldi (listen below) at the No Ordinary Town exhibition currently showing in the Clayden Gallery at Quay Arts Centre in Newport.
Sandown Rocks
The exhibition is the culmination of a year-long programme of work spearheaded by Boojum&Snark‘s Creative Director, Tracy Mikich called Sandown Rocks.
The exhibition is made up of many elements, including the award-winning Chuffle book, the Sandown Survival residency, The Sandown Tarot (listen to our podcast with writer Anmarie Bowler and artist Tommy Brentnall) and projects exploring the story of All Colours Sam, the Sandown Clown.
Exploring the UFO-folk tale of Sam the Sandown Clown
This summer, Teresa Grimaldi has been engrossed in the story of All Colours Sam, the Sandown Clown.
The Sandown Clown story comes from a 1973 account where two children reported meeting a tall, oddly dressed figure called “All Colours Sam” near Sandown. They described him as part clown, part alien, living in a hut with no windows. Although the tale has since circulated worldwide in UFO and folklore communities, it has remained surprisingly little known on the Island itself until this year.
The No Ordinary Town exhibition not only features a 8-foot statue of Sam the Sandown Clown, but also Teresa’s installation, titled “Windowless Hut,” and the hugely gripping Evidence Board.
As Simon walked around the exhibition with Teresa, she explained how much fun she’d had as part of residency at Boojum and Snark, exploring this UFO-folk tale.
She explained,
“This is a lot of fun, because was it a prank? Was it a deliberate hoax? Were the children telling fibs? Was the Sandown clown, an outsider who couldn’t make friends, dressing up in a strange costume, as part of their personality, but hoping to kind of connect with Sandown, with the wider community?
“What is it about? Outsiderness? Is it about loneliness? Is it about being different?
“So that’s a really interesting layer to to our hypothesis. Was it a dream? Did the seven-year-old girl, Fay just dream it up? Was it like an Alice in Wonderland, down the rabbit hole kind of experience?”
Strange encounters
Teresa went on to explain that when she and ‘Detective Mikich’ went to the investigation area, they had their very own strange encounter,
“We went to the area when Sam was reported to have been seen as part of the investigation. We encountered a few people, some on bikes just hanging around. Also, strangely, really bizarrely, a man in a clown T-shirt showing Mr Do.
“What are the chances? So, you start to think about this happening on many levels. Is it time travelling? Mr Do was in the 1980s, but is there a connection with our Sandown Clown? And why was he walking there? Who else do you see with a clown T-shirt?”
New theories
Teresa also shared some of the theories of who Sam the Sandown Clown might have been,
“As shabby detectives we had a lot of fun with some new links to celebrities who would would have been filming a very famous film back in the day, called That’ll Be The Day with David Essex and Ringo Starr. It was huge at the time.
“So a lot of that was filmed around Sandown, around the Sandown High School in the area. What if that was it! They were filming there. There’s a scene at the beginning of the film where David Essex as a school boy from Sandown High School, because that’s where they filmed the scene, ran out of school.
“He’d had enough, threw his books into the river, into the stream, which could be the same stream, that the children in our Sandown Clown story first saw Sam. In the stream trying to get a book out and communicate with the children!”
Get involved
The exhibition is not just something to look at. Teresa is keen for visitors to get involved and help the story continue evolving. Just pick up one of the briefing forms and fill in an investigation sheet of your own hypothesis.
There is lots to look at and see in the exhibition which runs until 29th November. If you can’t make it along, listen to the podcast below, but if you can make it, why not listen to the podcast whilst you are walking around with Teresa in your ear explaining all the different elements?
Listen to our chat
You can listen to Simon chatting with Teresa Grimaldi by clicking on the play button below. You can pause, jump back 10 seconds, or jump forward 30 seconds. You can also leave it playing on the page whilst using other apps on your phone, or use other browser windows on your tablet or computer.
Visit the exhibition
The exhibition runs until 29th November 2025, open daily from 10am-4pm in the Clayden Gallery.
Sandown Rocks is a year-long project supported by Arts Council England.
Find out more about Boojum and Snark by visiting their website.
