On being dumped...

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.

 

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.