Collage: Avoid Chaos Now! / How talented am I?

 

RTomens, 2021

Avoid Chaos Now! was made this morning. I had a piece of paper with a strip from an old newspaper stuck to it. It's been sitting around for weeks so I thought I should do something with it. First I cut out the text from an advert in another old 'paper, then stuck it down. I started typing over it, first the straight random text lines, then the crosses. The figure was an afterthought. I don't know that it needed it but I printed it on anyway. The whole finished work is print rather than print on the original. That would have required a resizing of the figure, which wouldn't have been unsurmountable but I didn't feel like gambling on getting either the size or the placement right. So I scanned the original, printed that then printed the figure over it.

*

"Do you realise how talented you are?"

What, me?

I'm bagging a print of my art which the girl asking the question has just bought in Black Gull Books. She's from Nashville. I try to tell her how...romantic that sounds, the very word conjuring up...something...a notion of Country music...legendary figures in Stetsons...America...real America as I imagine from mythological imagery, part fantasy concocted from ignorance and cultural idealism. The reality, she informs me as we discuss the relative merits of London and Nashville, is that the architecture there is mostly boring, whereas London's is anything but. The grass is always greener. And she may not even like Country music.

I suppose it's what's known as a rhetorical question; one that I've never been asked regarding my art. Any sale is a compliment, but this one, spoken to my face, is something else. How can it be answered? "Yes!" Of course not. I just thanked her. She was with an American friend, who also bought some of my Art. They both looked stunned when asking who the artist was. I don't suppose they expected The Bookseller to also be The Artist. That, or they couldn't believe they were in the presence of such a Talent (ha-ha!).