The last few days have been a carousel of triumph and tragedy — which is to say, a perfectly average week for all of us misunderstood geniuses.
First, the high: my latest piece, Inflation in Pastel, was declared “a poignant critique of fiscal despair” by a blogger who runs an Etsy shop selling ironic tea towels. The low: the same blogger suggested it “would look great in the downstairs loo.” Still, exposure is exposure.
Arabella and I took a restorative trip to Brighton. She claimed it was to “relax”; but I can’t stop thinking of work all the time. Case in point, I now want to make a full-size replica of the pier out of…but I am getting ahead of myself. In Brighton I’d brought along my freshly printed Cryptocurrency & Cabbages (a limited-run print of a Bitcoin symbol weeping into coleslaw) to photograph against the pier. Unfortunately, on the way back through Victoria Station, I set it down for — and I cannot stress this enough — a single moment while adjusting my scarf.
When I tried to pick it up again, after this veritable moment, it was gone.
Gone.
Somewhere out there is a man who thinks he’s got a weird menu poster from a failing vegan café. With a good auctioneer that’s £850,000 worth of visual philosophy now roaming the streets.
On the upside, Brighton was inspirational. I saw a man wearing three berets at once, a child trying to surf on a baguette, and a seagull that had learned to open crisp packets. I may call my next series Urban Majesty.
Speaking of which, I’m flirting with a bold new direction in my sculptural work. Specifically, moulded gold. Imagine: a series of solid gold pieces shaped like British cultural icons — a cup of builder’s tea, a bus stop sign, the haunting stare of a Greggs sausage roll. Price point? They’d have to be £500,000 each just to cover the cost of the gold. And my great dream, recreating a life-size Brighton Pier out of gold will cost even more. I don’t know whether Stevenson at Pimlico Wilde will agree to fund it.
Arabella says I should maybe try clay first. I told her clay is for pottery classes and heartbreak, not for a man who once moved the Berlin art scene to near tears (one man, specifically, and I was drunk, but still).
Tomorrow I’ll look for a gold supplier. I suspect Hatton Garden will welcome me like a prodigal son.
In fluctuating fortune,
Hedge
digital artist, part-time coastal philosopher, full-time victim of the petty crime-industrial complex
