thedeadartist

SOLD

2007-07-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

The painting has a buyer. It has been sold. Sorting out the bits and pieces at the moment. Update soon.

A Deathly Silence

2007-05-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry. There’s been a deathly silence around here but as I’ve already explained it’s difficult getting onto the only computer we have over here.

Things are moving rather slowly at the bit. Negotiations are still, unfortunately, underway with “the buyer” but it’s taking longer than I thought. I will be updating the list of linkers later this afternoon, but in the mean time I’d thought I’d share a link with you that is, well, not exactly positive.

How we sell the Mountain Rescue Painting

2007-05-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

What is something worth? Obviously some things have more value than others but in a society where most people have everything and the rest have little or nothing at all, how do you accurately define the value of things. What has value? What is important or has “authority”.

For some it’s their car, for others it’s their diamond watch. Then there are those who cherish time with their family and then there are those among us who can’t leave home without their Louis Vuitton handbag. Then there are people who dream of clean water and a safe place to sleep.

So what, in all honesty, is a work of art, a painting, worth? What is its value? Now, before you all scramble to Walter Benjamin and dig out that old text of his, I would like to propose something a little different. The Mountain Rescue painting is, to me, priceless as priceless as the Mountain Rescue of Glencoe was to Paul and his mate on the worst Sunday of their life’s. But, I suppose, that doesn’t ring your value system bell because you were not painting the painting with me and neither were you stuck on that bloody mountain thinking you were about to die.

But you can now be part of the “value” of the painting and indeed some of you already are for you have already created value by talking about the painting, Paul and linking to this site. Herein lays the basic model for valuing the painting. If you wish to call this a blog project you may.

The Model.
There will be no auction. None. It will not be sold at Sotheby’s nor will it be sold on Ebay but the painting will be sold, of that you can be sure. There will be only one buyer and one buyer only. The person that agrees to buy the painting enters into a challenge; a battle of wits and yes it is a gamble but one well worth taking. The person who agrees to buy the painting (and remember ALL of the money goes to the Glencoe Mountain Rescue) agrees to buy the painting at value on the 1st July 2007.

How we calculate the value.
There is a rather clever little algorithm that calculates what your blog is worth (the web page you are reading is called a blog) and it’s based on how Technorati rates your site. Technorati does this by tracking how many other blogs (multiple links from a single blog don’t count) link to your’s and Dave Carlson has come up with a widget that tells you what your blog is worth. So apparently this blog is worth $10,726.26 (US Dollars). That’s $10K of link love and conversation. But is the painting worth $10K? Maybe, maybe not. But that would be too easy, way too easy and people we want a challenge don’t we? And here’s how we do it:

We take the value of the blog on the 1st of July 2007 and divide it by the date of the Mountain Rescue; the 4th of March 2007 = 43.07. So that means, that of today (11th May 2007) the value of the painting is $249.04 (US Dollars) and that’s what the buyer would have to pay. The more conversation, the more discussion the more links to this blog means that the value of the painting goes up. Simple really. If we had as many links as Seth Godin the painting would be worth $105,594.01 (US Dollars), which would be kind of useful.

The rules.

There is no auction but a single buyer

The buyer agrees to buy the painting at the value, based on the model described above, on the 1st of July 2007.

Every single blog or person registered as a “linker” by Technorati will be documented in a certificate that remains with the painting for all time. Without the certificate the painting looses its value and is worth nothing.
Marcus Brown (The Dead Artist) and Paul Colman receive absolutely no money as a result of the selling of the painting.

The final payment (value) is paid in full to the Mountain Rescue organisation of Glencoe.
The blog “the dead artist” ceases to exist as of the 1st of August 2007.

The Buyer,
Negotiations are underway as to who the buyer will be and I hope to make an announcement some time next week and believe me, if we pull this off it will be amazing and very, very exciting.

Of course, if you are up to the challenge you can always get in touch but remember it’s a huge risk. But it’s a risk for a good cause.

How does that sound? Now, be good boys and girls and talk about it, link it and drive the value up.

Background Info: Ready for the mountains.

2007-05-09T02:48:00.000-07:00

This is Paul Colman the day before he headed up to the snow and height of Scotland. As you can see he’s all kitted up to go climbing with a friend (and not Skiing as mentioned in the BBC interview). Two days later this happened this happened to him; “The Worst Sunday I’ve ever had”. If you haven’t read it yet then do, it’s why we’re doing all of this stuff.

So here an updated list of people who have helped to raise the value of the painting:

Many thanks to you all (again, if I've missed you let me know). Click here to find out how you can help raise the value of the painting.

[If you do link here, after reading this, please leave a little note in the comment section so that I can update. Thank you.]

The BBC Radio 5 Live Interview and Major Announcements

2007-05-08T01:29:00.000-07:00

Our IT department is rubbish but the guys over at the BBC aren’t. They managed to set up a satellite link to our side of the void and I had a jolly nice chat to Chris on Five Live’s Pod’s and Blogs programme. You can read the show notes here and listen to the interview here (The Dead Artist pops up around 44 minutes into the show – and there’s even a surprise guest). If you’re new here maybe you should read this first and then maybe this.

There is rather a lot going on behind the scenes at the moment, and I am planning to make a major announcement as to how The Mountain Rescue Painting will finally be sold sometime towards the end of this week. It is very exciting. Very, very exciting.

Remember, we're selling the painting to raise money for charity. If you want to know how to help read this. If you've already helped, and you've not been listed let me know.

Raising the value.

2007-05-06T05:49:00.000-07:00

If you look on the right hand side, there underneath the picture of the Mountain Rescue Painting you find a list of people who've helped to raise the value of the painting. If you've helped, and you're not on the list let me know. Keep your eye on it, it should grow and grow and grow. Here's who has helped out so far:

Planning Liberation Front

Click here to find out how you can help raise the value of the painting.

[If you do link here, after reading this, please leave a little note in the comment section so that I can update. Thank you.]

Meeting God, Interviews with the BBC and raising money.

2007-05-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before, Jackson Pollock hogs the only computer we’ve got over here and this means that I don’t get to post very often. But this doesn’t mean up not up to stuff like meeting interesting ghosts and things. So, here are a few things you can expect to see over the next couple of days.

I will be meeting God over the weekend, Sunday in fact. She’ll be popping into our garret for a quick chat and has agreed to answer any questions you may have. So put your thinking caps on and post a question in the comments section.

The BBC is amazing and managed to get a satellite link to “our side of the fence” and I had a rather nice chat to someone from BBC Radio 5. There will be an update on Monday about this.

I will be announcing details of how we intend to sell the painting next week. It’s a little bit complex, but should work and there are things that you can do now to help our cause (if you’ve not been here before we’re trying to raise money for charity and you should maybe read this).

I can tell you this much; the Mountain Rescue Painting (based on the model I’ll present next week) is currently valued at $78, which is obviously not enough. You can increase its value by linking to this blog. You can either write a post about The Dead Artist (you may use any of the artwork, videos or texts and posting the painting itself would be just brilliant), or simply put a link in your blog roll. Lot’s of links means lots of cash for Mountain Rescue and that’s the point of what we’re doing. And why I’m dead. Please make the darkness worth while.

So remember, questions for God (and be polite she’s a lady) and links.

P.S. Does anyone have any good press contacts? If you do can you either contact them or send me an email at theotherside [at] brown-mpm [dot] de and I'll get in touch. Thanks!

UPDATE: We've got a cool magazine over here, called "Dead Ringer", and look who's hit the cover! (Vincent Van Gogh is really, really jealous about this. Ha!)

How it all began.

2007-05-02T04:52:00.000-07:00

Being dead has some advantages, like having rather a lot of time on your hands to think about stuff. I was just thinking about how all this stuff with the mountain rescue painting started and found the following post in the bottom of my suitcase.

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I’m having a little holiday. It’s nice being at home; drinking tea, doing the washing (darling I’ve got the machine on – I’m doing whites) and thinking about stuff. It’s Eva’s birthday tomorrow and we may go to Lake Garde in Italy which is about 4 hours away in the car.

Anyway.

Thinking about stuff is always good. And in between cups of tea I remembered that I used to be an artist. Like, a proper one, with a gallerist and exhibitions and stuff. It’s a while ago now since I stopped doing all that, and I stopped because I had children to feed and I got bored of the people. Bizarrely I ended up in advertising – make of that what you will. Last year, when I had some time on my hands, I started painting again just for fun and to keep my eye in. Tidying up the living room I found one of the paintings behind the sofa and I thought I’d share some of my stuff with you lot.

Of all the things I’ve posted, this one scare me a little. They are quite personal little paintings that only a handful of people have seen. So, deep breath and here we go.

Looking at them this morning I suddenly remembered how much I love painting. When I first started out I wanted every single piece of work to be loaded with meaning and very important. These however are very personal and have no hidden meaning, polemic or whatnot. They are just paintings – for paintings sake, which is not particularly fashionable now, but since I don’t really give a shit about that anymore I think that makes them much stronger.I haven’t painted for about 8 months, which, regardless of what any of you may think, I think is a shame. I love the battle with the three colours I use (red, yellow and blue) and the two tones (black and white) the pressure of the brush on the canvas and the general state of happiness I stumble into when I’m painting. So I had a thought.

I used to write on “let’s see what happens” but I haven’t for ages, and I’m a tad ashamed to go back. I would have have written this post on that blog but I seem to have lost passwords etc, which is crap excuse, but it’s all I’ve got. Let’s see what happens was started, as you may know, by Paul Colman, who had a bit of an argument with a mountain and some snow and was saved by the Mountain Rescue in a helicopter. Which was rather considerate of them. Now Paul mentions that, at some point, he would like to raise some money for the mountain rescue so here’s my idea.

I pledge to paint at least once a week.

I document the progress (like Rolf Harris - "can you see what it is yet?").

When the picture is finished there is some kind of auction

The money goes to the Mountain Rescue.

Paul is that ok with you? Can I come back to “Let’s see what happens?” Would that be interesting? Would anybody buy this kind of stuff?

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So that's how it all started. Shame I never finished them - but good that the mountain rescue painting got done.

Francis Bacon is a nutter. And likes his cheese.

2007-04-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

Francis in my kitchen.

Being dead is a funny old thing; it’s like being alive but everything is purple, the rent is cheap, the hours are good and you get to meet some people you had always admired but could never meet because, well, they were dead.

Like Francis Bacon. I’d always admired him but he was dead and famous and stuff and so the chances of meeting him and having a good chat were always very slim.

Well, that’s all changed now because I’m dead too and I get to live on the creative square (I’ll explain how the afterlife works soon, but it’s basically like a chess board over here), and Francis happens to be my next door neighbour. Which is cool.

So Francis popped over the other night to see if I had any cheese. It turns out (and I’ve been told this by Edvard) that Francis is potty about cheese. Mad for it he is. And he’d run out and came over to see if I had any.

I had stilton.

There is something you should know about Francis, he’s a bit of a nutter – a bloody good painter but a nutter none the less. Honestly, he was going on and on about cheese and laundry and the price of soup. I wanted to get his opinion on my painting but he wasn’t having any of it and merely mumbled, “dead is a jolly good thing to be if you want to get an excellent price for a piece of work” and went back over to his flat. “And you my dear boy, are dead as dead can be”.

Then he closed the door, and both he and my stilton were gone.

The bloody nutter.

There is a Starbucks on the other side.

2007-04-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

This was my only painting. It’s the only one I ever managed to finish before I died. That’s right I’m dead; I’ve gone for good and nothing else will follow. Sorry if we didn’t get a chance to say a proper good-bye but it was as much a surprise for me as it may have been for you.

It’s the only painting of mine on your side of something they jokingly call over here “the fence” so look after the bloody thing. I’m working on a couple of new paintings over here and if Edvard Munch will leave me alone long enough to be getting on with them they may actually be quite good. He’s a real pain in the arse is old Edvard and wants me show him how to twitter and blog and other bits and pieces.

We’ve only got one computer and Jackson Pollock hogs it all the time the drunken, miserable, son of a bitch so I might not be posting that much but I’ll do my best. If I spot God I’ll let you know, but Da Vinci has been here for bloody years and says he’s never met the girl.

Anyway, got to shoot, I’m meeting David Ogilvy at Starbucks. He’s pretty pissed about something I wrote a while back and has been hunting me down ever since I pegged it. Yup, they’ve even got Starbucks over here; over here on our side of the fence. I just hope I can smoke in there.