Poor Little Rich Girl

I always knew there would be some sort of trouble over the enamels for Great Western Street. It’s a perfectly correct saying that you can’t please all of the people all of the time and I never had any expectations of being a universal success. What I hadn’t expected was that my local newspaper would rocket me to dubious fame for charging the best part of half a million for my artwork. Oh Bucks Press, I wish it were true…

It’s a pity the journalists didn’t come and ask me, but I’m guessing they thought I was away on my yacht playing drinking games with Damien and Tracy. I could have given them the straight truth: I came pretty cheap (less than one of the street’s several bus shelters) and we worked out a way of producing the landscapes in a fantastically cost effective manner. To forget the aesthetics for a moment, I cost a lot less than a team of blokes power washing graffiti off blank white enamel every few weeks. This wasn’t art for art’s sake: it was a witty and engaging exercise in cladding a public space and I’m more than happy to stand by the superb practicality of the product and my added je ne sais quoi.

There have been lots and lots of ‘why oh why’ angry letters as a result of the article; understandable given the misunderstanding over cost and the implication that I’d whipped bread from the mouths of local orphans and shelter from the aged. My favourite was a lady who said ‘I honestly thought it was a temporary hoarding’. Now I said I’d be happy to do it all again like a shot, but even I wouldn’t throw quite so much energy into something so ephemeral. Though I would be enchanted to paint a landscape onto a hoarding in real time so the passersby could see an artist at work – anybody need one doing?