Visiting artists come in many guises; talking artists were a wonder to a child. These artists began by talking on the telephone. The child already acts as the telephonist; diverting calls; small master of the procrastinating deadline; the mysterious unavailability of the artist to talk today; he is talking bills, school fees, Welsh gossip, Senior Service supplies, off licence invoices; he’s not at home for talking artists today; call again please.
If summoned by telephone to the house, the talking artist would begin to talk about creativity, it’s superiority and manifesto for an excused reality. The wonder that unfurled before the child, the wonder of a talking artist, the words that can spark the imagination, making a child integral to the completion of the imagined work; left with the belief that the work was complete, available, an object.
Judgment would fall upon the talking artist
“Sorry, you think you’re doing it. Thinking is sweet and addictive but like honey, it’s happy in a jar and notoriously difficult to extract and spread about. Thinking is not doing.”
However, look into the future of art school dogma and Conceptualism is the talking artist’s good fairy;
‘Don’t worry about the technicalities of getting a thought out of the jar; if it’s a mess it shows you’ve given it a lot of thought’.
By this time the telephonist diverts all calls to Muswell Hill
‘Part of the act of creating is in discovering your own kind. They are everywhere, but don’t look for them in the wrong places’ (Henry Miller)
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