Letter to my mum

Hi Mum
I'm fine, how are you and dad? We went to the studio today. I rescued a cleaning lady who had shut herself out of her client's house. A palette knife is an excellent tool for opening window locks. The pills still feel quite strong but I think they are finally starting to have an effect (at home at least) but we are both turning into recluses and only sneak out in disguise. Annabel is crazily painting minerals for our show which is coming up really soon. Luckily I had everything ready ages ago. Here is the invite, my title was too long so it is in the background. Hopefully we will be feeling more sociable at the PV.
Talk soon
Your son Alex x

Short Update with fluff

 

I have completed another fluff drawing. This one (though smaller than the others) was made from the leavings of two t-shirts. It took about a minute to complete which is my record to date. Tomorrow I plan to wear a new red t-shirt. I have high hopes that it will produce some exciting fluff.  The flat is nearly packed and much of our unwanted possessions have been donated to the charity shop below. Unfortunately on my final trip down (with an old mirror) I entered to find one of the ladies carefully removing a mouldy bird feeder (with fat balls) from a bag which Miss Dover had brought down earlier. Backtracking quickly, still holding the mirror I returned with sheepish mien to my lair. The lair is nearly packed up though, as yet, we have failed to retain the services of a van driver for the move and neither of us are feeling particularly strong at the moment. 

No news from the Arts Council yet though I do notice, as I sit at my laptop, that the spooks at Greenhayes Data centre have been rooting about my website again. My suggestion that I refocus my project on the Northwest region did not go down well in certain spheres (the northwest) and I now fear reprisals.

Email sent today at 15:23

Programme: Grants for the Arts
Name of Applicant: Alex Pearl
Reference Number: 15884589
Name of Activity: Operation Pusscat


Dear Mr Gauld
I am writing for additional feedback on my failed Grants for the Arts application. It was rejected on the grounds that I was asking for too much money. While it would be impossible to deliver a scheme on the scale of "Operation Pusscat" at such a reduced budget I was wondering if the arts council would be interested in the slaughter of a lesser number of artists. For example I believe I could deliver the Gala event Hosted by Michael Aspel (or perhaps Jim Bowen) for £100,000. This would result in the removal of at least 100 top British artists. Or alternatively I could probably get rid of 1000+ lesser Northwest region artists for a similar price. I propose that either project could be called "Operation Kitty".
Please tell me what you think
Yours sincerely
Alex Pearl

The Letter

I have been outside! Miss Dover and I visited our new lodgings on Anglesea road. Situated at the smart end of town, I believe we will find it a very different experience to our current situation. However, the house is not quite ready yet as it's owners are still battling with the geological scale of things left by it's previous inhabitant. At home the lair too looks as if it has been ransacked and I have lost some of my will to tackle it. Yesterday's letter from the Arts Council still lies unopened by my laptop. I cannot put it off any longer.


Well I am not surprised but to be rejected because I asked for too much money seems weasely. At no point did the online application software inform me that £2,000,000 was too much to ask for. How could I be expected to deliver such an ambitious scheme for under £100,000? The disposal of the bodies alone would cost more than that. I see my next port of call is feedback from a Mr Gauld. I intend to prepare an email immediately.

Writing under the influence

The letters shift treacherously in front of my eyes. Here, in the last days of my residence in the eyrie that is my lair, I am trying to write an article for Garageland. The theme of the magazine is to be family and I am trying to hold (like water in my hands) a number of ideas. These include the formation of family at The Foundling Hospital in the eighteenth century. The idea of a constructed artistic family created by Hogarth and other artists. (that lead to the formation of the Royal Academy) My memories of Oliver! A sixties revisiting of a Dickensian discourse on family (with songs).
Artists' communes, The romance of wanting to be an orphan. And... The way in which contemporary artists create families through social exchange. I think what I mean by this is that I've often noticed that artists projects often encourage (often temporary) families to come together through some sort of artistic interaction. They seem to me like orphans finding or constructing a family around them. Hmmm. HELP!

Mossad

The fog of insanity descends upon me. Unhappy with my progress, Doctor M-S has signed me off work for a further two weeks and doubled the dose of my medication. I am preparing myself now for another week of recurring side effects. Happy in my lair, however, I am determined to keep active, not with my sniper rifle or endless twitter watching, but with constructive activity. At the moment I am packing for the move to a new abode, a house on the other side of town. The simple act of sorting and boxing is a relaxing and therapeutic pursuit, though I find myself getting distressed at the amount of stuff Miss Dover and I have accumulated during our 9 month sojourn in The Unicorn and am only able to do a little before returning to the sofa for  lie down. There are other things to keep me distracted. I have the show at TAP to prepare for and have been asked to write a piece for the upcoming "Family" edition of Garageland and, next week, Monika Bobinska will be visiting my studio to select some things for the London Art Fair in January. At this moment I don't really feel like doing any of this and Miss Dover keeps asking "where's the ...." and unpacking my boxes. As she potters round, scattering my good work to the four corners of the flat I have been checking Statcounter for Arts Council activity. Apart from unexpected visitors from Moscow and Israel their has been one other unusual visit: a twenty hour stay by the Greenheys data centre in Salford. Is that the Arts Council? have they put the KGB and Mossad onto me?

We still haven't filmed the tumbleweed so it sits incongruously in our studio waiting to be set free.

Cooking the Books

Still trapped in my lair, I have finally submitted my Arts Council application. This was not easily achieved as it was repeatedly thrown back at me with various cryptic messages involving match funding and support in kind. In the end I was forced to up the artists' entrance fee to £25 in order to gain the requisite 10% match funding. But this has a ghoulish Halloween symmetry now, as effectively they will be paying not only for the disposal of their own bodies but also for their tea and biscuits. Also, and more seriously I had to lower my fee again (bloody typical) to a still respectable £88500. My emotions are mixed, I hope I have answered all the questions correctly, and I hope the application is taken seriously. I am afraid most of all that I may become a pariah but more that I will be accused of having done a bad job. A few extra paragraphs were shoehorned in just before submission, they are listed below.

The financial planning for this enterprise has been mentioned in previous sections. These figures will have to be adapted according to take up in various centres. As such I have worked on a system of assumptions based on the unit costs of general organisation (advertising, Mr Aspel's fee, PA etc.), venue hire, body disposal and purchase of nerve agent. This system allows for great flexibility in dealing with greater or lesser numbers at each venue. In addition to this the fictitious prize can be dipped into as a contingency fund if necessary.

As each artist will be bringing some sort of artwork with them to each event I envision being able to have some sort of garage sale afterwards which may raise more funds. However at the time of writing I am not sure it will be worth the effort of hiring extra transport and staff to remove the work, so instead I am considering gifting it to the nation.

Long term, the effect on my financial position will be huge, especially if I abscond with the 1 million in gold. In fact I have calculated that the amount will be sufficient for me to give up work entirely and become a full time artist for the rest of my life.

Clearly the evaluation for this project will largely be based on a body count. This quantitative data will also be backed up with a qualitative assessment which will look at the amount of news generated by the project, the relative amounts of Arts Funding freed up for the survivors and my resulting position in the art world. 

As is the case in all plans for world domination, during the project there will only be a little time for adaptation as all events will be occurring simultaneously. I do hope, however, to be able to keep in contact remotely with all venues through my network of interns and student volunteers. I am sure they can be persuaded to use their own mobiles for this purpose.
 
If the project is as successful as I hope I shall look to take it international with a funding application to the British Council.