When the webmistress of the Stuckist site (www.stuckism.com) and a Stuckist in her own right, Ella Guru, bumped yesterday into Nick Serota at Waitrose in Holloway, she was struck by two things. First, she found him to be incredibly skinny, almost emaciated. She remembered my mentioning his bony shoulders in my recent piece about hugging him at the opening of the Turner Prize Show in Tate Britain. Second, when she approached him and introduced herself as a Stuckist, she found him incredibly friendly. Like I had done at the Tate, she mentioned to him how much he looked like his portrait by Charles Thomson. Just as before, he said earnestly that he had to see it. In fact, Nick told Ella that he was planning to visit the Real Turner Prize Show in Pure Gallery that very day. He even asked her how he should recognize her paintings at the show. When she sent me her account of the meeting this morning, which she took from her diary, I immediately replied that Nick was truly a nice guy and no mistake. The funny thing about my reaction is that I take a personal satisfaction from any praise of the Tate’s director as though I am his, well, maker.

Addendum I (October 31, 2000)

Ella wrote to me today in response to the last addendum to “On Hectoring,” which I circulated to the “Let’s Make Art!” list this morning. She wanted to know who Andrew Brighton was and whether or not I knew him personally. But then she added that she wondered how Billy Childish would see my piece about her “laughing with Satan” in a supermarket. I responded that Andrew was responsible for education at Tate Modern and that I knew him rather well from several art events, but then I turned to her other, more important, concern:

Do not worry about Billy’s reaction to your encounter with Nick. Billy is playing his part well. And he is playing it from the heart, which is why I love the guy. Most of us cannot pull it off, no matter how much we try. It is difficult for most of us to be sure about boundaries between principles and play, between play and complicity, between complicity and travesty. The Billy versus Tracey thing, including the upcoming show at Pure Gallery, is important because it deals with the departure from principles, from the heart. This is where Billy has managed to survive the temptations that are destroying Tracey. And the temptations are many.

The upcoming show at Pure Gallery, where the Real Turner Prize is currently on show, will open on November 7. It will feature photographs of Billy and Tracey from the 1980s, when they used to live together. I have seen only one of them, which I received together with the invitation to the event. It shows Tracey kneeling on a bed in the foreground and Billy standing behind the bed. She is heavily made up and dressed like a tramp, but she is still fresh, open, plump, full of life. Billy looks pretty much like he does today, plus a few wrinkles and minus his now obligatory hat. Yes, one can easily imagine them very much in love.

Addendum II (November 2, 2000)

Billy Childish responded almost immediately to my addendum, as he nearly always does. His words really touched me. I first thought of sharing them with everyone on the “Let’s Make Art!” list, but then I decided against it. I can think of two reasons for my hesitation. On the one hand, I was afraid the quick succession of too many of my electronic postcards would annoy some people on the list. As it is, many of those who have asked me to remove their names from it have complained about not being able to digest everything I was sending around. “Too much traffic,” was a common complaint. On the other hand, I was worried that Billy’s words would sound a bit too close to the script, as it were. It took me a couple of days to make up my mind. In the end, I realized I was being silly.

Billy begins by saying that he does not think of Nick as Satan, but that the name fits. By the way, Charles Thomson wrote about this connection, as well. As for myself, this was the first time I heard that the devil was called Nick. This is something peculiar to the British isles, I suppose. At any rate, Billy quickly proceeds to his relationship with Tracey: “I pray for Tracey with love, and I pray for us all with love.” And then he concludes: “All will be well, for we are, after all, one.” For some reason, I was truly touched by these words. Few people would have the guts to use such language today. Besides, he wrote these words without hesitation, without thinking, without wasting any time. As he would put it, he wrote them from the heart.

As I already said, or perhaps confessed, at first I did not have the guts to share these words with others, let alone utter them myself. That was perhaps the greatest surprise in all this. To me, at least, but perhaps not to Billy. There is a genuine prophet in him, and I find myself listening to him ever more attentively. His words to me a couple of weeks back, “your sarcasm will get you,” still ring in my ears.