The Thin Red Line
Catherine gave a briefing for the volunteers last night. These people will be the last line of defence between the visitors and our work. They all seemed really enthusiastic and asked lots of questions. This made it hard to retain suitably ironic artistic detachment. Some questions were directed at us artists and luckily Emily Russell immediately bounced into action putting the rest of us to shame. I wanted to explain that I had become really interested in the relationship between self publicity and charity in eighteenth century philanthropy and why I was pleased with the way that my works had fallen short of those of Coram, Hogarth and Handel. Instead I made a joke about giving my picture to the Museum whether they wanted it or not.
Talking to everyone else over a beer it seems that there really might be a curse of Coram. Everybody seems to be working to the wire. Faulty work has had to be sent back, printers have cocked up colours and one artist is due to be delivered of twins during the installation week (this just seems bad planning to me). These various tales of woe made me feel great and I tripped lightly home.
One thing troubles me, Catherine seems convinced that children will like my opera, I think they will be bored stupid by it.
