Another slightly out of date post, written on the 1st Dec.
For the first time I was free from cleaning up a messy kitchen and had the time in my hotel room to watch the Satchi reality show. The much aligned reality TV format spans a vast expanse from downright criminal at times to tender and inspirational. Perhaps it is because we are artists but this to me was just tediously boring. Were there some canvases in sight it would have been preferable to watch the paint dry on them than sit through that again.
It reminded me of an episode in college when a tutor had set up a fake comission with a local business where we had to create a scaled maquette of a proposed public sculpture. We would then be paid for our proposal ( a few pounds out of the tutors own pocket) and present at a formal meeting with the company. Now it was always my routine to add 2 days either end of the end of term hoildays – (I felt it only right due to the time lost travelling back to Belfast) although this would mean, in this case, I couldn’t make the presentation.
I felt it would have been thoughtless to add to the tutors inevitable stress by telling him this in advance so I waited till the end of the day before. In the end I didn’t think such language was possible from such a reserved man. It reminded me of an ‘o’ level domestic science teacher who threatened to leave teaching rather than have me for another year after it took me three terms to remeber to bring the zip in to finish my ‘A’ line skirt. The French teacher, the Maths and the games teacher could also be added to the list I have frustrated and infuriated. As far as the commission maquettes went, the money found it’s way quickly to the pub and the maquettes, as we discovered, just as quickly to the skip at the back of college.
Returning to the programme, Satchi, who doesn’t appear in person but speaks through a royal messenger, after demanding in the brief that the piece engaged the general public, chose the one which had the least public support. If anything though the show encouraged me to have faith in what I do and don’t pay too much attention to the, at times, totally questionable, critical input around you.
