ARTISTS TALKING

# 11 [24 August 2009]

This week has been strange I did a bin-raid with Jamie on Wednesday very early in the morning at a place where I found out my father lived in 2003 in a little village near Cambridge. It was going to be some stupid Sophie Calle wannabe art project but it didn't go to plan as he was actually in the garden. I hadn't seen him for 18 years and had been told that he had killed himself the bin raid was to find out. I knocked on the door and he answered in his underpants and showed me in to a tsunami of crap: papers, chairs upside-down, food, like a weird badgers set! my dreams of being adopted had to be abandoned at this point, the genetic fingerprint all too evident as he sat in a pile of crosswords in his underwear with a boiled egg on his lap. I taped it all but I was an idiot really doing it- although the old snake had definitely lost his fangs. I have slept for the rest of the week-think it overwhelmed me didn't think I would ever see him again. I don't
know how the hell you handled your father dying-I am in admiration. How do you feel? I hope you are ok-you seemed brilliant last time I saw you.

Anyway...I wondered if you are free any of the weekend of the 21st/22nd/23rd June but you might be looking after Poppy or knackered after Manchester- would 20th July time be better for you? if you really busy could: wave to me across the street/have a drink/go to the archive/car boot whatever you fancy. Ps you and Paul are always welcome in Suffolk. (ha ha that sounds like a threat doesn't it!)
Bye bye Ells
Annabel xx

# 12 [25 August 2009]

I got the Owl and the Pussycat card in 1979. I told my mother I was going to keep it for the rest of my life.

August 4th. 1979

To Annabel with all our love on your 4th birthday, from Mummy, Daddy, Harriet, Liz & Caro.

August 4th. 2008

To Annabel with love and best wishes for a very happy Birthday. Father.

It was so lovely to see you: I hope that my surprise and nervousness did not appear as being unwelcoming.

I would so like to meet under more propitious circumstances. Maybe I could take you out to lunch in Cambridge or the Orford Oysterage.

# 13 [27 August 2009]

A few years ago Alex Michon interviewed me for Arty and asked me about success.I told her if i thought i was going to live another five years i would feel a dreadful failure but if  I was going to live to over 100 I would feel quite good.

My plan is to live to 100 and to die on my birthday to the sound of swifts; even if this means suicide. It seems very neat to me and confounds Thomas Hardy's doom-laden reflection on the source of human misery: knowing your date of birth but not your date of death.

These people managed to die on their birthdays:

* Ingrid Bergman - Aug. 29, 1915-1982

* George Washington Carver - Jan. 5 1864-1903

* Elizabeth of York - Feb. 11, 1466-1503

* Betty Friedan - Feb 4. 1921-2006

* Francesco Petrarch - July 20, 1304-74

* Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. - Aug. 17, 1914-1988

* William Shakespeare - April 23, 1564-1616

These people were willing themselves to death but their bodies weren't cooperating. They died within a week of their birthdays:

 St. Francis of Assisi,Louis XIV, Sam Adams, Julia Child, Perry Como, Gary Cooper, Erich Fromm, Marvin Gaye, Estelle Getty, Andy Gibb, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Frida Kahlo, C.S. Lewis, Ezra Pound, John Ritter, Auguste Rodin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dinah Shore, Gene Siskel, James Whistler, Ludwig Wittgenstein

# 14 [28 August 2009]

I watched Grizzly man last night and after hearing Werner say he thinks nature is made of "chaos, hostility and murder. I ussually like to watch 'Otters holding hands' on youtube but this morning my beloved reminded me that terry nutkins lost his fingers to otters.

Here are some other facts and quotes that interest me about Werner Herzog:

He once went on foot to Paris from Munich to see a dying friend.

"Were I to become impoverished, it wouldn’t surprise or frighten me. I’ve never cared about possessions.”

Herzog means duke in German, “like Duke Ellington. My nom de guerre.”

"The lack of a father figure, says Herzog with a hearty laugh, was, in fact, a blessing. “I thank God on my knees that there was no commander around telling us what to do.” Fatherlessness also has symbolic resonance for an artist born at the end of the war, a child of a “lost generation”, as Herzog puts it. “My big brother and I were men at 13,” he says, “we could have raised families.

"Well, I recently saw a film celebrating the life of Katharine Hepburn, whom I actually like as an actress. It was some kind of homage to her but unfortunately it turns out that she has these vanilla ice-cream emotions. At the end she is sitting on a rock by the ocean and someone off-camera asks her, 'Ms Hepburn, what would you like to pass on to the young generation?' She swallows, tears are welling, she takes a lot of time as if she were thinking very deeply about it all, then she looks straight into the camera and says, 'Listen to the Song of Life.' And the film ends.

I was cringing it hurt so much. I still smart just thinking about it. And hearing this was such a blow that I even wrote it into the Minnesota Declaration, Article Ten, which I repeat here and now for you, Paul. I look you right in the eye and say, 'Don't you ever listen to the Song of Life.'"

# 15 [28 August 2009]

I don't know of any such thing, sorry.


On 28 Aug 2009, at 08:50, annabel dover wrote:

> Dear Sir/Madam,
> I am currently engaged in a PhD the subject of which is emotional attachment to objects. When I was eight years old I visited Arreton Manor and one object in particular had a profound affect on me: a piece of mourning jewellery housing the hair of a beloved daughter who had died of a chill caught early in the morning on a bowling green. Did I imagine this or do you really have such an artefact?
> All the very best
> Annabel Dover
>

# 16 [29 August 2009]

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me”.

"We were not far from the house now, I saw the drive broaden to the sweep I had expected, and with the blood-red wall still flanking on either side, we turned the last corner, and so came to Manderley.  Yes, there it was, the Manderley I had expected, the Manderley of my picture post-card long ago.  A thing of grace and beauty, exquisite and faultless, lovelier even than I had ever dreamed, built in its hollow of smooth grassland and mossy lawns, the terraces sloping to the gardens, and the gardens to the sea. 

As we drove up to the wide stone steps and stopped before the open door, I saw through one of the mullioned windows that the hall was full of people."

Rebecca Daphne du Maurier

"Laying on the bed resting, Janis said she could feel the 'busy' energy in the house from over the centuries, maids and servants walking about - that type of thing

It wasnt till the next morning that Janis let me know of her 'experiences'...She had experienced an intense burning sensation in one of her arms - (the one she had out of the covers) - it lasted a good few minutes, afterwards it was fine again ."

Arreton Manor  Haunted Britain.

# 17 [29 August 2009]

"I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool."

George Fortescue Maximilian 'Maxim' de Winter

in Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

It's interesting that the hero of the book has four names and 12 syllables and the heroine has no name.

The monogrammed 'R's' we see on the napkin we assume are for Rebecca.

The ghost has one name that is everywhere. It is three syllables and ends in the letter 'a'. this scientists believe makes a woman more popular and more likely to marry: Amanda, Jessica, Belinda, Angela,Melissa,Odetta, Helena, Teresa,Marissa, Jennifer etc.

Did Makita think about this before they branded their tools I wonder.

# 18 [31 August 2009]

Dear Ben
As you know I am interested in a person’s relationship to their objects and it’s the subject of my PhD. I want to make a book and I wondered if it would be possible for you to make a small hair cutting and put it under Sellotape and stick to a piece of paper (any kind) and to write a few words about an object-any: imaginary, one you would like, one you had or have lost, a childhood one, one you have now, one someone else you know has/had and you envied/hated-anything at all. Enclosed is a description by Roger Cardinal of his. Yours doesn’t have to be very long at all one sentence or even just the name of the object is absolutely fine and a few words fine too. It will be anonymous. I would very much like it to be handwritten.

So to recap…

1. A cutting of hair stuck with Sellotape onto a piece of paper.
2. A handwritten bit of writing/notes whatever you want no more than an A4 and can be considerably less

Thank you very much indeed
I really appreciate it
Annabel xx

The Studio
23 The Street
Melton
Woodbridge
Suffolk IP12 1PL

07545 898 948

www.annabeldover.com

# 19 [1 September 2009]

Dear Megan,
I am a Fine Art PhD student in the UK. I know that the
auction of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's personal
effects was held at Sotheby's. I am trying to locate a
picture of The Duke of Windsor's socks (preferably in
his sock drawer!) or a picture of his Chimney sweep
doll.Strange requests I know. No doubt you have had
stranger ones.

All the very best,

Annabel Dover

# 20 [5 September 2009]

Annabel Dover wrote:
 Dear Sir/ Madam
 I was in the Fitwilliam museum yesterday and was looking at your big  owl. He is a punchbowl cracked by an earthquake in San Fransisco- is  that right?Please can you tell me more about it?
 All the very best
 Annabel Dover

Dear Annabel Dover,

It is not correct that this punchbowl was cracked an earthquake in San Francisco, and I hope that you weren't told this by a member of the Museum's staff. If yes, please let me know and I will make sure that they are given the true story.

This owl was made by Wallace Martin in 1903, and it remained in his studio until after his death in 1923, probably because of the crack. It was sold by Sotheby's, in London on 24 October, 1924, 'The whole remaining stock of finished pieces of the Martin factory, the property of R.W. Martin Esq. (deceased). Sold by order of the administrator', lot 68; and was bought by the ceramics dealer, Cyril Andrade for Dr Glaisher for £25.

The incorrect story about our owl seems to have come about because Wallace Martin is said to have made a punch bowl in the shape of an giant owl in 1893 for the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, a literary club founded in 1872 which has an owl as its emblem, and still exists. His first attempt is said to have been cracked, and another was made and sent (at least that is the story as printed). It is thought that this owl perished in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. A club member whom I met, when he came here on a summer school in the 1980s, tried to find out more about it, but was unable to trace a record of its purchase. There are at least two other large owls known, but not exactly like the Fitzwilliam's. As our owl very clearly has the date 1903 on it, it clearly is not the one mentioned.

Yours sincerely,

Julia Poole

Keeper
Department of Applied Art
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Cambridge, CB2 1RB