I positioned The Woman in the hope of looking like something on the front of the One Step Beyond album cover to those old enough to know. It somehow fitted the work as well and that’s how the book cover came about. Some people have thought it mad, but I never did at the time and still don’t to be honest. Thinking about it though I may have been a bit mad going to Oxford on the train with The Woman to meet John who had responded to my post on Gumtree. I’m not sure I would do that now, but anyway it happened and two of the photographs in my art work came from that day as well as a couple of surprises over time.
My Gumtree post had asked for people to create a vagina for the Woman who had no Vagina. I had said that we live in a world of “genital reconstruction, hard core porn and airbrushing”. The idea behind this is that the vagina has been taken away and we are looking at the one that society has created. Anyone who wanted to respond was invited to do so through an art form which could have been poetry, music or any other art form. A few people responded with poetry, art and video and John wanted a fake vagina to be photographed with The Woman because he felt this would be ironic. So off we went.
It was a funny old day. I met John at Oxford train station. He was well dressed and polite and we walked along the road and he gave me a little holdall which had his Fleshlight in it. There was what could be considered an “awkward moment” when I asked whether it was clean. He looked slightly upset and I asked whether he wanted to walk around with me for the photography and he said that he didn’t as he worked at a university there and said that he may be seen by people. So off I went to do my photography.
I saw a canal and thought that would be interesting and I put the Woman on one of those things that are by canals. Before I could do this I had to wait for a family who were nearby to go away and I hurriedly got the photograph known as “Up the Cut”. I then packed everything up as quickly as I could and carried on walking around the city. What a stunning city it is as well. I turned a corner and saw loads of pushbikes parked up and thought this would be perfect for the “Bike” photograph. Those two photographs became part of the 11 images that are each displayed as 3”x4” photographs on A3 card. This is what I show with The Woman and ask people to write comments responding to the images and, as you would expect, people have commented about other people’s comments too. To me it was a bit like a travelling Youtube and it was the online commenting that has been so popular over the last 10 years that I attempted to bring into the work. I like how this changes the work each time that it is shown and that it is the people involved that make the work, not me.
Going back to John, we stayed in touch for several months and occasionally would chat on the phone. At one point he was going to come and visit me. At that point I thought I should do a bit of googling. He had, possibly accidentally, used two email addresses and when I searched on them I found someone posting on Gumtree selling dud notes and also someone calling him a scammer for misleading lesbians who were interested in buying sperm. I decided not to meet him after all. A couple of years later I saw a photograph of him where he had attracted the attention of an undercover journalist. He might have been selling sperm or tricking women or something. Anyway, I found good use for my images “Fake” and “Filth” which have been used in the book. I sent him a text once asking whether he was more “copper or criminal” and he said definitely “criminal”.
So there you go. That was kind of how it all started. After me creating The Woman and doing the other photography, of course. The art work has been interesting and The Woman has met some interesting people along the way. If you want to know more you can read the book in the words of The Woman as she covers what she thinks my motivation may have been.
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Do I remind you of Madness?
Bike
