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I was never a big one for art. I was competent to good at most things at school, but in sport, woodwork and art I was weak. And being weak at those things made me generally less willing to try hard, like all the other human beings. I had artistic grandparents who I think were disappointed by my cack-handed inability to make a pencil or crayon or brush do what I wanted it to. Occasionally when I really took my time and concentrated I could do something that wasn’t totally embarrassing - but it wasn’t any good. What did it matter? Art wasn’t a proper subject. I could use the time to try and work on my comedy act and try to come up with jokes to cover my ineptitude (whereas, ironically, with the subjects I was good at I could also lark around because I generally found the work easy).
Our art teacher had made us all gather all the art we’d created over the four years at school and took it home in a big sleeve that we had made out of cardboard and decorated with crayons. Even my folder looked awful. I guess she thought we might keep that for our whole lives and look back at what we’d done, laugh and remember. But the minute I got home, I took every piece of art I had created and burnt them in the back garden. It made me feel good to destroy my failure and I guess I was too young to feel like a Nazi destroying works of art that I deemed unacceptable. It was obvious why I was doing it and though I slightly regret my impetuousness now, I can’t hand on heart say that I’d really want to look at those awful drawings and paintings again. Then again my stories and writing were also terrible (though were good enough at the time to feel like they were worth keeping) and I am delighted that I still have those.
It’s not like I am now good at art - have a look at the T shirts I am creating, if anything I have got worse- but I really enjoy doing these. I often start without any real idea of what I am going to do and bowl into the designs with no planning or roughing out (what do you mean you can tell?) and I let the muse take over me. And as horrific as the results are, they are genuine self-expression and I like doing them. Today I was working with new pens that deposit big splodges of fabric paint, giving a three dimensional effect (a bit like the Marquis of Bath’s technique as it goes) but also the danger of accidental smears. I am if you will, a kind of Jackson Bollock. I hope one day my mixture of faux-naif and actual-naif will make be heralded for its daring use of colour, dimension and swearing. I should at least be applauded for my commitment to never giving up and starting again.If I make an error it gets incorporated. And makes the art better. I am thinking of giving up comedy and taking on art full time. And I hope the investments of tens of pounds that some of you are making will, over the years, almost double in value. If you end up with an original Richard Herring then for God’s sake don’t wear it. Hang it on the wall. Although they only take me about 6 minutes to create I am just one man and I have started with art late in life and so there will not to too many of these masterpieces.
Get bidding now. These snooker ones are two of my favourites (combining as they do, two of my art forms). There’s also some scripts, old photos and bits of Histor (that’s the final stunt wing, although I did manage to find one of his actual wings today, which got broken off by the idiots who took him and put him on children’s TV, but I don’t think I will be selling that - it’s a part of him).
And talking of stupid art projects, I don’t know who is more stupid:
the people who will try and kill you for drawing a picture of a semi-fictional magic man or the people who decide to have a competition to draw him as some kind of stand for self-expression. I mean I am all for freedom of speech and for questioning religion but it strikes me that drawing a picture of the Prophet Muhammed is not something that any of these people would even think of doing, let alone want to do. Is it freedom of expression if you’re only doing something because you know it will piss some other people off? Maybe it is. But you're still a bit of a dick if you push that point. You're stopping me doing something I would never have contemplated doing otherwise and now you must pay... Don't get me wrong, you're also clearly a dick if you try to kill people for drawing pictures and a double dick if you try to do that but only succeed in killing yourself. But it seems like everyone's a dick in this situation.
And yet it might be the solution to the problem. If the kinds of idiot who think this is worth making a stand over and the kind of idiots who think you must die for doing a drawing can keep on arranging events like this then eventually they will wipe each other out and the rest of us can get on with being mildly annoyed or ambivalent about the pictures.
