Drawing/collage: Single 5590

 

RTomens, 2021

Ticket to ride? In 1929, no less! Found the ticket in a book...but which one I can't really recall...I should make a note of such things but in the excitement of finding ephemera and photographing it I forget where it came from and being a good bookseller, by then I have placed the book where it belongs. The ticket was in perfect condition...uncreased, not soiled...which, when you think it's nearly a century old, is incredible. How could it sit in a book for that long...and how many hands has the book passed through? Now thinking about that, very few, otherwise the ticket would have been thrown away. Actually, I think the ticket was put in the book (which was old, that much I do remember) and put on a shelf where it sat until...the owner died and our shop was called to a house clearance? Probably. I've yet to go on a house clearance job but I suspect it would be harrowing...sad...you know? To handle someone's possessions, their books, which they have accumulated over decades.

I do sometimes wonder what will happen to my books when I'm 'called'. Up There is shall be getting drunk with Dieter Roth and Eduardo Paolozzi, of course. We might even collaborate on some art, assuming we're allowed the materials. I mean, is Up There like the mythical desert island where you're only allowed to take a few things? If so, what would Dieter take? A coloured pen set and a massive roll of paper which, tragically, must run out at some point...? What would Paolozzi take?  A printer? Scrap metal? Hope he didn't forget the soldering iron...

Before I 'go' my books will have found a damned good home, I hope. Hold on, these thoughts of my demise are too gloomy...

I suppose my art will live on in the virtual domain! There's a thought. Someone discovering it years after I'm gone...I really should write my own Wiki entry just so the people of the future can find out who I was. But what would I say? Writing a brief bio as requested by those wishing to show my art is hard enough. I can't do a 'professional' CV because...well, I don't have a list of impressive colleges that I've attended, or another recording all the impressive exhibitions I've been it...poor me....I haven't got much of a leg(acy) to stand on!

The next time I get a bus somewhere outside of London (I don't have to pay for travel in town) perhaps I'll stick it in a book and put that book somewhere safe, never to be sold or given away. Trouble is, the ticket will never be as handsome, or sturdy, as the one in this drawing.