Interview with Emma Anderson and Martin Vincent
published in GRR! No 52 December 1991

This was originally broadcasted on 6 November 1991 on BBC Radio 5's programme Hit of the North. This is the first half of the original interview. It was conducted at Oblong, Edward's gallery, on October 3 1991, at around 3.30 pm

Edward Barton: I really hate doing interviews.

Emma Anderson: Do you really hate it? Why?

EB: Why? Because I have to think about what I do instead of doing it. And People presume that the thinking comes before the doing. The thinking's just thrown o at the end of the doing, or the thinking's just deciding…
Consciously thinking means hauling to the surface of your mind things you were thinking about, but had never had never bothered realising… and the work is in the middle. So you do it all, having thought about it without realising you've thought about it, you do it all , and it's done, and some blighter asks you to think about it. It's very difficult.

EA: Well I'm going to have to be the blighter. Why did you open this gallery ?

EB: I wanted to help the world.

EA: And also get some stuff out of your house?

EB: The house was full.

EA: What came from the house?

EB: Erm… nearly everything was in the house, even if only for a short period.
Some of it was in the house a very long time. But a lot of the things happened, if not by accident then very haphazardly. There was a tree in the house… No, we wanted a tree in the house, my brother and I - very difficult to find in inner city Manchester without tearing out council planned ones by the roots. We found one thrown away in Salford, and the dummies were just added fairly thoughtlessly, until the tree's just full of dummies. A couple of people have brought some new dummies in for me, that they found outside. I wasn't sure about that, but I put them on because I'm a kindly fellow.

EA: What about the teddies ?

EB: Well, they were like the dummies. I lived with my brother, in Hulme, and we spent most of our money on the cleaner and the cook, and it didn't leave much money to buy ornaments for the house. So, whilst the cleaner was cleaning and the cook was cooking, we went out to find things to decorate the house, to give ourselves that good house feeling that people need, very understandably. And we found dummies discarded, bears discarded, small children's shoes discarded ( we found bigger shoes, but they didn't mean much to us), and we put them in the house, and we were happy for a bit.

EA: Did you display the bears in this, sort off, cupboard, at home, or have you put them together like that just for the gallery here?

EB: No, that's borrowed from the living room.

EA: So what did your living room look like?

EB: Very posh. Without being expensive. Full of things my brother and I found emotionally useful. We did have small arguments, but on the whole we tend to agreed that anything made of wood or covered in hair is emotionally useful. The really were not designed, we just brought things home and put them together. They had much less explicit meaning at home, putting them in this parody of an art gallery positively charges them with meaning. None of which they deserve. Whereas… I don't want to finish that sentence, I don't know where it would have gone…

EA: Some of the works are lyrics from your songs painted on canvas, is that right?

EB: When they're sung they're lyrics from my songs, when they're on canvas they're songs on canvas, They're the words to something, whether they're sung or on the canvas… they're the words I use.

EA: And are they all stories, are they autobiographical?

EB: Erm… I've scored a few goals. Not directly autobiographical. I always find it mildly embarrassing to pretend to be somebody else, I don't know how those novelists who pretend to… how do chaps pretend to be women? And how do black men pretend to be white men? And how do people pretend to be animals in books? I've always admired that ability. I can't do it.

EA: So what have you written about? What's this one over here, far across the gallery?

EB: Oh I you want that explaining, I can explain it really easily.

(Sings)

By the sea I found a plank
By the sea I found a plank

Plank

Far from the sea I took my plank
Far from the sea I took my plank

Plank

Oooh

Plank

In the night the sea came over the hill
In the night the sea came over the hill

Sea came over the hill in the night
Took the plank back

I'm learning to sleep on a plank in the sea Oh I'm learning to sleep on a plank in the sea Oh I'm learning to sleep on a plank in the sea

Now you comprehend it fully don't you?

EA: yes. Its very visual. I can imagine you floating on the waves on your plank.

Martin Vincent: So these are paintings you can sing?

EB: Are there any you can't?

There's a chap, he was near the shore and he discovered a particularly good plank. Said plank a few times in exultation- probably in exultation - probably in exultation, I don't want to load it with meaning. But he definitely took the plank away from the sea, over the hill, actually. But, in the night, the sea, ever vengeful, or some lurid description of that sort, took the plank back. But he's an optimistic fellow. Now he's learning to sleep on a plank in the sea. He's compromised with the sea.I used to have a list with Miserable and Exultant, two columns. And all the old songs, I used to really gloomily put them in the Miserable column. But as I get older they do seem to becoming more cheerful. That ends the very contentedly I'm sure.

EA: What about chickens and chairs? You've got a sculpture, well it's not really a sculpture, it's a whole load of chairs cut in half, and then you've got a song about…

EB: Ooh tell me why it isn't a Sculpture.

EA: Ah!

EA: I was hedging my bets.

EB: well this sculpture is about… Its called 'kept to Remind, Halved to Halt Use, Stacked to save Space'. The chairs are kept to remind, sticky with emotion. They're halved to halt use, because he doesn't want the memories tarnished by the wearing out process caused by unwanted bottoms of people who aren't associated with the memories he kept the chair for originality. And they're stacked to save space, because there's not enough room to keep them in a long line.

EA: And the truncheons. You found lots of the other things, did you find the truncheons?

EB:

EA: Are you going to admit where you got them?

EB:

EA: (Laughing) Are they a source of embarrassment?

EB:

(The tape is switched off for a few minutes.)

MV: How about this dog?

EB: Dog?

MV: Yes, where did the dog come from?

EB: Ah yes, it's much more interesting to know where things came from than what they are. And its much easier to tell you. I can just splash a small anecdote.
There was a lady, most fond of her dog. The dog died. The lady, overcoming her distress, decided on a practical solution to her loneliness. She went to the taxidermist and asked to have the dog stuffed. The taxidermist quoted her an exorbitant price. She said 'that's at least a half too much of which I wish to pay. So I'll just have the dog stuffed please, I never liked the back of the dog particularly anyway.' I don't think this pleased him. But he was too flustered by her solution to alter his price. So he kept the front half of the dog. She was delighted, the dog wasn't under her feet, the back end, which was a nuisance, was no longer in the house. But she wasn't lonely because the dog, with approximately the same expression as when it was alive, was now on the wall. She died, I got the dog.

EA: What about the words that you put around the dog on the canvas?

EB: When I was young I was too lazy to remove myself from my bed to go to the toilet and excrete in a civilised fashion. I merely put my penis or my buttocks out of the bed, depending on what I was going to excrete, and splashed or plopped onto the floor. Every morning, unbeknownst to me, the dog had his face rubbed in them. Because my parents imagined that it was a dog-like thing to do, rather than a human act.
The whole piece is derived from that. A man apologises to dogs for the foul deed he allowed by remaining quiet concerning his guilt, to happen to a dog now dead. He's as kind as he can be to all dogs: he gives them carpets, toothpaste, whatever they need; asks if they want to bite him.

EA: Can you tell me the story about your beard then, that's in the other picture.

EB: The story?

EA: A story.

EB: A story. Any story about my beard.

EA: Well, how come it's now in a box at the bottom of the gallery?

EB: 'We your songs have come to you who made us.' One day my songs arrived. And they said, ' Edward, everyone says we're weird because you've got a beard. Everyone says we're wrong because your beard is long. Everybody mocks us and goes, because your long beard grows.
I was Edward Barton the songwriter. Then I became Edward Barton the bearded songwriter. Then I became Edward Barton the beard. Then I just became the Beard - 'Have you seen the beard that walks around Manchester?' And the songs, completely displaced, they have no position whatsoever. And of course it's important to the songs that they are seen, heard, do good and have good done to them. As everybody wishes: that they rub themselves up against the world and get rubbed back, and mutual warmth is enjoyed by everybody - songs, listeners, listeners, songs.
They said 'please get rid of it, Edward. Please take the beard away.' And I replied: 'Where will I put my tears when I shave off my beard?' I haven't got a beard anymore.

It's over. It's finished now. That's a beard story.