What’s the worst thing that
could happen to you?
Leaving the loo with your skirt caught up in the top of
your tights? (Once saw that happen to some poor soul in the very busy foyer of
New Scotland Yard.) Finding a clump of hair in your breakfast mushrooms on the
train? (Sure did, on the Pullman up to Preston. Ask Piers Rutterford. He was
there.) Driving off with your purse on the roof of your car? (Did that once,
from Safeway at Camberwell Green to home on Camberwell Grove – just like in the
Nat West ad – and yes, people at bus stops were shouting and pointing at me and
miraculously it was still sitting there when I got home.) Or phoning your
(then) paramour, wonder why he’s out of breath, and then twig that he’s in the
middle of sha*ging someone else? (Yep, it was a fair while ago, but another box
ticked nevertheless.)
What’s the worst thing that
could happen to you if you’re a designer, photographer, writer or a painter –
indeed any profession where you are defined by your produce? And the answer is…you
lose it. Guess what?
I just ticked another box.
I just ticked another box.
Any designer will tell you
that you collect a huge amount of stuff during the course of one year let alone
29. Pieces of print, direct mail, posters, invitations, packaging – and that’s
just the finished ‘live’ stuff. Add to
that the roughs, mock-ups and the job bags pregnant with the ones that got
away. If you’re similarly aged, then there will be a lot of paper from the
pre-digital years. You like me will be in possession of your very own Museum of Was. Then there are the disks,
floppy, Zip and so on. Where do you put it all?
Some years ago I struck-up a
deal with a chap who owned a number of storage units in South London and I
bedded it down in there, with Clever Dog as a comforter. I made visits now
and then to retrieve things or to replace them and generally show my face. The
last time I showed my face was about 6 months ago, but last week I decided to
show it again only to discover that the chap had sadly died and that his units
had been cleared out!
When I heard that I got that
strange taste in my mouth, the one you get when you trip up on a flagstone or
almost miscalculate the kerb and fall flat on your face – adrenaline – a whole keg
of it. My archive!!!!
A little detective work revealed that this man had no family
and there was no paperwork since it was a personal agreement, so the contents
had either been sold or dumped.
Twenty nine years-worth of
work, seven years of college projects, award certificates, mementoes of people
and companies past, photographs (professional and personal) and 35m films and
disks…all gone. All that remains is an A4 book of digital prints I had at home.
It’s a bit like trying to
prove your identity when your passport is lost or stolen, because those pieces
of paper, plastic and celluloid defined me. They provided the evidence to support
the litany of activity presented on my CV. And each project was infused with
memories of my working and personal life and laminated in Letraset, Cannon
colour copies, rubylith, acetate, rendering, axonometric drawings, tracing
paper and the rest.
Product + Personality.
Only one remaining.
So what now?
Start again. What else?
New balls please.
