Richard Butchins's Blog: Angels stand corrected... - Posts Tagged "art"

I arrived in Los Angeles after a gruelling 11 hour flight. Gruelling mainly because of a toddler wailing as if undergoing anaesthesia free surgery for most of the time. The child's parents looked fit to drop, or kill by the end of the flight - I certainly was.

I then had a long wait at immigration, the American Homeland Security people seem convinced that everyone want's to come and live in the USA. I love it here but it has a few things that would put me off wanting to live here (unless I was very rich - then everywhere's great) and lack of socialised healthcare is one of them, but the weather in southern California is ace.

I am in LA for a few days before going to Oregon to meet up with the sister of the person I am making this video art installation/film about; to collect her own footage and writings that will form the basis of the work. It's a sad journey but a necessary one.

I will write more about the project later.

LAX to Portland – In the airport, a stentorious voice emits from invisible speakers honouring US Military personal for their service it’s all a bit Brave New World meets 1984. There’s WiFi everywhere and nowhere, in the ether, in the somewhere else.

I am travelling around the USA to find out about the life of a woman, a woman who died in strange circumstances last year. She was a gifted singer and musician as well as a fine writer. I decided to create a memorial to her, a piece of art of which she would approve – which will be difficult because as she herself said: “I can’t consider anything finished unless it is perfect and nothing is perfect.” You see the other thing about this woman, that informed everything she was and did, is that she had Aspergers, she was a high functioning autistic woman, a savant if you will, one that had a way with words. She made a list, a list of traits – I suggested she do this, thinking there would be maybe 20 things at most but she came back with 213 things.

Here are some of them:

122. I started keeping a journal as a child in order to remember how terrible it was to be a child.

148. I have taken a vow of silence and was put on voice rest and it was like a dream vacation to not have to speak.

181. People often think that I am rude when I am, in fact, obsessed with being polite and friendly

195. I cannot, under any circumstances, do two things at once.


What surprises and saddens me is that there’s no mention of her “service” over the Public Address system.

Sometimes you have to claim small victories out of bigger defeats. After having all the filming kit and the footage stolen of me at gunpoint in Oakland. I received an call from my assistant to say that the camera bag had been discovered in a recycling bin ( environmentally conscious hoodlums - going green....). I got the footage back which was a big thing it has stopped the whole trip from being a very expensive wipe out. Inga my assistant got her i.d. back as well. Camera and money was gone but as I say sometimes you have to celebrate the smaller victories