At work, in the late 1990s, I would attend several weekly meetings during which the window caught my full attention, Soho Square's gardens murmured in the breeze, and I would... drift away a little. Soon a sharp question about "batches" or "output" or something would be barked in my direction and I would hit the earth with a thump. The remainder of the time I half-listened and half-doodled, hiding my notebook from those traitorous colleagues who might snitch on me and expose my lack of attention to our Great Leader.
For some reason I kept the notebook; I re-found the doodles today, 10 years later, and stuck them together into a collage. I feel I have reclaimed some of my wasted time, or at least condensed a load of stupid shit I went through on to a page. It's a bit like the Surrealist exquisite cadaver game, except with a mysterious leaden weight of boredom crushing your mind into a pancake. I suggest anyone who reads this and works for an honest living does the same, using the stains of spilt coffee, biro marks, a scalpel and some glue, and whatever bizarre images pop into their head whilst they traverse the psychological Himalayas of boredom during a business meeting. We could invent a new, truly democratic art movement.
5 comments:
Do you sell any of your drawings or paintings? I would be thrilled to own something you've done. Even if it's just a little one...
(please!?)
New Year's last whilst holed up in a small, damp cottage in Brittany, livid on French cider we concluded that Exquisite Corpse needed to be renamed 'Hiroshima Switcheroo'. Looking back I appreciate we were in exceptional circumstances and should never have been making notes for future reference.
hey john maybe one day, but not now i don't think. i'm just a sunday painter really and it would be a bit much to charge people for this stuff.
lixi you gotta stop getting drunk in foreign climes and write more about ber-nard, the quantity surveyor who died of an overdose of acid at a suburban barbecue. there must be a second chapter to his story
I've done strange doodles on the sides edges of important notes since I can remember. I can even recall a high school teacher I once had chastising another student for their inattention in class (particularly how they became annoyance by flicking their pen and dropping it to the floor.) Her final word was, "If you can't focus, why don't you just draw all class like SHE does!" I suppose the lesson here is... they already know, but will allow anything that satiates the masses. It’s nice to hear of someone else continuously disappearing from their direct surroundings into a surroundings inspired fantasy world. Perhaps there is hope! p.s. if you might consider doing a random exquisite corpse-esque art exchange via mail with a total stranger, please consider this stranger your prime candidate.
i would do that same, but not drawings... i would write random lines and then use them in my poetry if i decided they were worth keeping.
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