Alex Pearl is not in the Antarctic

I received a book from The Conversational Library this morning. It came with a letter from the Librarians, Townley & Bradby http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=12215

which explained the terms of the loan and said a little about their feelings about the book. Its such a lovely letter I've copied it out.

Dear Alex

Here's that Bedwyr Williams book which we promissed to hand over. We've probably mentioned it to you four or five times over the last few months; in fact, back in March when all 3 of us visited Store Gallery, did I actually restrain your arm as you went to buy a copy? Maybe not. Memory is a shifty beast, as any copper knows.

It's interesting that the thought of parting with it make the book more valuable, and makes one read it in a nervous way, dipping into it greedily, trying to retain a few of Bedwyr's bon mots even as they melt away like boiled sweets.

I say 'parting with the book' because we're lending it to you under the terms of the newly inaugurated Conversational Library. The terms are:

please keep it for a length of time in some way proportional to your pleasure in receiving or reading it.

keep it or dispose of it in any way you choose

we won't ask for it back, but if someone else who's also received an item from the library requests the book, we'll ask you to post it on to them (if you've still got it that is).

As the keeper of an item from the Conversational Library, we'll send you regular updates on other items in the collection. We want to share books & written stuff that we've found interesting. And we like the thought that this book might extend the conversation we were having about the apparent flatness and lifelessness of Bedwyr's stuff in the gallery. But the ethos of the Conversational Library is informed as much by self centred practicality as it is by generosity: we've got more books than we can fit on our shelves, so we're hoping to disseminate then across the shelves of our friends as a form of external storage.

We were doing a bit of aforementioned nervous browsing as we wrapped the book up for you. Anna said she liked the book a lot more than the Store solo show. She thought the image+text format presented his work more favourably. For one thing, image and text are given fairly equal weighting, whereas in the gallery, the objects or images always have more presence than the little text panels. For another, his wry humour, the ironic detachment which allows him to to introduce issues (death of the Welsh language, school bullying etc) and then float away from them, come over better in the intimacy of a book.

ButwaddaUrekon?

Hope to see you soon

Anna and Lawrence

I spent the morning avidly reading the book (except for the essay at the end, I'm saving that) and I'll post my response tomorrow.

Well I made it to the studio, and it was sunny. Unfortunately I had lent my camera to a degree student and although she had promised to drop it off at the studio she hadn't so I was left looking at twinkling but with no means of recording it. I did make some more tracings and had a nice chat with Bryony who is trying to get her work back on track and avoid becoming an "artist in the community" or at least the sort of "artist in the community" who is just required to entertain. I'm sure I wasn't much help but I did get a present of 3 slide viewers which I immediately converted into little stargazing sculptures.

Later I went to a private view at Peppermint Shed which is a small informal gallery just outside Ipswich. Richard Scott was showing his lovely understated paintings. I have been asked to show some video work there next spring and I was scouting out the space. Like many people I'm always having a good moan about the lack of spaces to show in East Anglia (too close to London blah blah blah) so I'm quite looking forward to showing my stuff in a sleepy village. I might find myself alone at the private view drinking all the wine.

I am failing to get organised at the moment. I have made a celestial machine at the studio which, on a sunny day, creates twinkling stars and I want to make a film from it but I have completely failed to get to the studio on a sunny day. Pissing rain? yes, hail? I kid you not, sun? no. Oh well I'm going to try again tomorrow. I'm also planning to meet up with fellow artist Bryony Graham, who wants to talk to me about work. When people say this to me I get a confused look on my face which rapidly spreads to my brain. I know now I will have trouble thinking of anything to say. I also got the Flyer for Sizemology today, its great. Otherwise I have this feeling that things are slowing, a sort of creeping dread which is mostly in my head.

I have also been asked to write something about one of the other blogs on this site. A simple request that has caused a stupid degree of angst. Which should I choose? What are my criteria? anyway I think I've decided.

I am home, up to date and ready to start thinking about exactly what I am going to do. As I am without funding I am going to have to be sensible about my approach, my dreams of hiring billboards across the country might have to be shelved. Even placing adverts in magazines such as AN becomes prohibitively expensive without support. I have decided to produce a postcard. There is no news on the Antarctic Survey site as to who the real artists will be this year so I am satisfying myself at the moment by downloading the "picture of the day" and tracing it.

In other news I am having some of my work screened in Liverpool towards the end of the month on the BBC big screen. Sizemology has been curated by Bren O'Callaghan and includes work by Pippilotti Rist and Hiraki Sawa. On the imaginary poster I am way down the billing, like some music hall performer showing off his two headed chickens.

Barricaded the door to my room last night. I was unable to air the room because the window opened straight onto the road. All night shouting and stamping and cigarette smoke filtered down from above. I left as early as I could the following morning to drink coffee on Bethnal Green road and plan the day ahead. I have a blister on the sole of my foot from yesterday's adventures so I may have to take it easy. I decided on the usual suspects at Tate Modern before Danielle Arnaud and Rokeby.

I bought two books before my trip: Heart of Darkness and The Picture of Dorian Gray. As I am obsessed with avoiding the unknown and worried about my advancing age they seemed a good choice. I'm not being erudite rather they were part of the new Penguin Popular Classics series and at £2 looked just the part for the bachelor artist about town.

I so enjoyed the show at Rokeby that I wrote a sort of review and published it on Interface without even thinking about it, probably a bad move but what the hell.