On my way London … and other parts of the UK. My flight bords in 30 minutes. I haven’t been in the UK since 2019, and not in England since 2018 … I should have been there in spring 2020 to celebrate my mother’s 80th but Covid 19 came … I should have been there last summer but then staff shortages and chaos at Heathrow came. I feel apprehensive – friends and family have repeatedly mentioned that things have changed in the UK. I am already very aware of this – I can’t … or rather have been strongly advised not to … put anything through my business account – no exhibition tickets, no books or catalogues, no materials, nothing. Doing so would in the eyes of the Swedish tax authority (who have very big and wide eyes) mean that I have traded with a ’third country’ that is not the first country, Sweden, nor a second country, anywhere in Europe or Scandinavia, but a third country – anywhere in the rest of the world. Dealing with a third country requires registering certified accounts with the tax office every quarter, the cost of this alone would wipe out any modest profit that I might make on my practice … in fact it would put in a deficit (according to the accountant who does my annual non-certified accounts). It might seem like a small thing … the price of entry to a show at Tate of the V&A (hardly ’small’ in themselves), a book or two, and maybe some glitter or some fabric … but it means that I am forced to travel to Britain, which will always be my place or origin, as a tourist rather than as a professional artist. And that irks me.
Of course I will go to shows, I will meet my artist friends, I will buy books and materials, I will do all the things that I usually do and no-one will see any difference … not unless they look very closely when I pay … I will be using my personal bankcard, not my business account card.
I am going to miss going to my studio … which after a hectic couple of months is feeling more and more like my happy place.
