I have been busy all day, much of it on #Letter365 business and I hadn’t the chance to do my piece earlier. This evening we went to the private view of the new show “Theatre of the Soul” at the Bridport Arts Centre and then off for a meal with some new friends. I never really had a major concern that it would come good but I admit to a minor concern especially as it took longer than anticipated to create the envelope. In the end it worked out better than I ever could have hoped. I had to drop the idea I originally had as I knew I could never complete it on time. A chance find (I am always open to serendipity) added a structural element and a reference to modern art and my response to that particular subject.
Sadly, in my haste to make sure it got posted before midnight I forgot the stamp. I forgot the stamp partly because I had forgotten/had no time to buy any first class stamps today. i had intended to use a second class stamp and annotate it with something like “second class post but still first class art”. I forgot that too. So something had to give in my haste but I trust the artwork didn’t suffer.
As it turned out I didn’t begin to make my piece today until I got on the train at Waterloo and although I was settled in well before the train set off, it was inevitable I couldn’t complete the task before we got going. So its creation spanned distance as well as time. That was actually important to the idea which related both to childhood train travel (most memorably in Scotland) and to the history of abstract art.
However I had forgotten to buy any stamps this morning so ended up delivering it by hand when i popped into Bridport to get a takeaway. This proved more complicated than I thought. First because the Thai restaurant I had chosen was closed for a couple of weeks! Then when I got to the Arts Centre there was a film in progress so I couldn’t get in and had to put it through the letterbox, quietly untaping it first where it had been secured to stop it flapping in the strong winds.
Well you or I never expected that, but there again I could be lying! This is what I have written on the envelope:
Message about the contents of No313
I had hoped to expand on last night’s mullings on conceptual art but I have wasted much of my day in preventing hackers from getting into some websites I look after and I need to get ready for bed as I’m going to London for a couple of days.
The thing is, assuming I have done what I have said on the outside, nobody will be able to know what is what. If I have done what I claim I have actually complicated it further as the pieces of paper, if that is what there is inside, are not identical but have been marked so that it would be possible to make an assessment as to which is actually the artwork – only I have already forgotten which is which!
A have also forgotten the last bit of this post which I had written but got lost when I got logged out when the session expired. Oh well.
Some time I just write the first thing that comes into my head. On the envelope I have written about the possibility of there being nothing inside, but of course with this being conceptual art that nothing would constitute the artwork and would therefore be something. Now as it happens (there is a temptation in me to write out the words from the Mothers’ Fillmore East: June 1972 album “Do You Like My New Car?”…”we’ve all come here for one thing tonight…”) as I said, as it happens there is something inside the envelope today, anyone handling the envelope would be able to feel that. So let’s say you were a travelling rock and roll band called the Vanilla Fudge that there is just packing inside the envelope to make it seem like there is a piece of art in there. Does that make the packing the art for the day? I have always said that any packing to protect the artwork will not be exhibited or count as part of the work unless I have a particular reason to include it (for example it may have a further artwork on it or a celebrity autograph or be a £50 note). So just packaging shouldn’t count as the artwork and therefore could be said to be nothing. But what if there was, say, a blank piece of paper which in turn had another piece of paper to protect it in transit? In this case the “nothing” would be the absence of marks (or whatever) on the paper and so that piece of paper could be exhibited and counted as the artwork. The big question is, what if the protective piece of paper was identical to the artwork and also had no marks on it. As I would not be able to distinguish between them which would be the artwork? How could that choice be made? Two identical sheets of paper one of which I had designated as the piece that held the “nothing” that would have been the art for the day but which I have no way of proving when the envelope is opened. Now I thought that Schrödinger’s Cat was tough but I think that if I could be arsed I could prove that art is harder than philosophy or quantum physics (or is it quantum mechanics?) Anyway, while it is still sealed are the contents of that envelope art, nothing, “nothing” or all/none of these? Which could lead to a comparison to Zen problems like the falling of trees and so forth. I reckon conceptual art is also probably more complex and/or simpler than Zen and if I could be arsed I could prove that too! You see there are all sorts of variables in what might be in the envelope and really when it comes to the crunch it is just me saying which if any of the contents is art. I can change the rules, lie, cheat, charm, bamboozle or whatever i choose and the bit that is art is just the bit I say is art, though I could be lying about that too. Maybe in all the envelopes that have what appears to be protective packing it is the apparent packing that is the art and the item that appears to be an artwork is just scrap being used as packing? I wish now I really had put nothing in the envelope/I am so pleased that I really did put nothing in the envelope!
Anyway this took some time, as did the thing/nothing I put in the envelope today. And I didn’t get much else finished today though I have achieved quite a bit really in preparation for my next stint in the studio!
I know the outside looks pretty much the same each day, but inside …inside I had to cry. No, no, no I made a mistake, that’s from John Martyn’s “Make No Mistake”! What I meant to say was that inside these similar envelopes there is an original piece of art and I have never done anything based on the idea I produced today.
As you can see I have written no messages on the outside of the envelope again.
It is my son’s birthday today and I have decided to give him today’s piece. He is an artist himself, a very good one, but I never really know what he thinks of my work so “no pressure”! If he doesn’t like it he can pop it on the pyre with the unsold ones!
After a bit of fiddling about – I left my camera at home basically – I finally got today’s piece in the post tonight. The artwork “felt natural” (as it would listening to John Martyn) though I wish I had not needed to stay at home waiting for a delivery this morning. It would have been nice to have the sunshine in the studio rather than needing to supplement the afternoon overcast light.
You will note there is no mention of Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa today!
I don’t know why I let my brain start comparing pieces qualitatively against each other! Right at the outset I decided that my criteria for inclusion would be that I had to be happy to have the piece on my wall: I would not allow myself to put anything in an envelope in this project which I did not sincerely believe to be of quality. Now it may turn out when they are opened – if they are opened – I may feel differently about them but at the time of sealing them up I need to be happy they pass muster. So there is a qualitative assessment done every day, but whilst I may have been particularly pleased with a piece and even suggested it might be one of the best yet, I never wanted to rank or compare them. So why today do I suddenly, after 10 months, start wondering if today’s is better than yesterday’s? This way madness lies, though with another Beefheart quote on the envelope I’m probably part way there!
I really thought I had made a big mistake with this one! As it progressed it got less and less appealing and closer to appalling. It nearly got binned but I put it to one side and did something else (had some lunch and did a crossword). When I took another look it didn’t seem quite so bad and I decided to at least follow through and complete what I had intended and then reassess it. As I added the final touches it seemed to suddenly be a different piece! It had a glow and an intrigue and I, cynic I am, didn’t trust that reaction. How could I be so dubious one minute then so positive the next? Time to put it out of sight and get on with something else (a large experimental watercolour). Quite a bit later I felt unbiased enough to reappraise the piece I had done for #Letter365 and I found that it was good. In fact I like it very much and nearly didn’t put it in the envelope to be ignored and probably burnt in a few months time.
An unfolding artwork created a piece each day for a year
