Royal College of Art · 2003
Passport Drawings
A portrait for a story.
I made a cardboard photobooth and spent a week drawing portraits in exchange for stories. The sitters took their drawings away; I kept their stories and, when there was time, made a quick second portrait as a record for myself.
At the 2003 RCA Interim Show, I retold the stories in a 90-minute theatre performance. Afterwards, one person told me it was the funniest, maddest thing they’d ever seen. These scans and photographs are what survives of the exchange.
From the booth
Stories people left behind
A meeting with Andy Warhol, a joke, the beginning of a tale, and a moment of quiet. Here are four of the contributions.
The reading text follows the handwriting, with lightly regularised spacing and punctuation. Open a scan to see the original page.
01 / 04
The Day I met Andy Warhol
By Holly Johnson, as written on the original
One very stoned day a friend of mine (called Ron Beecock) and me decided that the best conceptual art piece we could do was to meet Andy Warhol in the FLESH. So I formed a band called Frankie Goes - INSTEAD OF DOING A FOUNDATION COURSE.
The meeting took place several years later after the band appeared in Interview magazine. We were visiting New York and a meeting was arranged in the factory while A.W. was meeting/working with J.M. Basquiat on a series of paintings.
HJ: “How do I get on the cover of Interview Andy?”
AW: “You HAVE TO SLEEP WITH THE PUBLISHER”
HJ: “Who’s the publisher Andy”
AW: “I AM”
02 / 04
A visitor’s joke
From the handwritten contributions
What do you call a potato with a coat?
A jacket potato.
03 / 04
Peter the Painter - A Painterly Tale
Signed Lucy
This is a true story. Not that the knowledge improves the tale, for all tales are true, after a fashion, but perhaps, the telling of it is altered.
Walter was a boy who painted. That’s how he was known: Walter was the boy who painted. He came from a poor family, who couldn’t afford to buy him materials, so he “borrowed” chalk from school and drew his pictures on the pavement. Often, he would skip school and spend all day drawing on the street.
“You’ll get yourself into terrible hot water,” his mother told him. “Terrible hot water.”
[Lights out. (14/10/03) To be continued…]
04 / 04
It was nice to sit still
An unsigned note
Thank you,
It was nice to sit still.
The other half of the exchange
The portraits
The sitters took the first portrait away. If I had a little time left, I sometimes made a very quick second charcoal portrait to keep a record for myself. With biro, I could use carbon paper; charcoal did not allow that. I may have more carbon copies somewhere.
This was 2003, before photographing every sketch on a phone became routine. These drawings are the records I managed to keep. The surviving material does not establish which story belongs to which portrait.
