Dear Ned,

I’m such a fan of yours that I feel compelled to write you about my problem. I find myself in a peculiar situation, which troubles me greatly and from which I see no escape. This peculiar situation has cost me my job and my privacy, and brought me unwanted attention from worldwide media. Although I am now considerably richer than before, I pine relentlessly for my former life in which I was a lowly-paid administrative assistant civil servant of the 14^th grade (an entry level slash typing pool type of situation), whom nobody knew or indeed wanted to. But now I find myself hounded by the media who pursue me from dawn to dusk, recording the most mundane events of my daily life (the other day I found a YouTube video of me taking the garbage out! – 227, 357 hits in three hours) and go to great lengths to secure personal items, such as my toenail clippings, to hawk on eBay. Only someone like you, dear Ned, who has undoubtedly suffered similar indignities, can understand the anguish I am going through. I sincerely hope you will be able to help.

All this palaver started when I’ve inadvertently entered an arts competition. You see, I used to have an insignificant administrative post at a famous cultural institute in my hometown – I won’t tell you where it is but if I told you the name of this institution you would recognize it immediately – and up until recently was quite happy there, performing my duties diligently and with the sort of enthusiasm one can expect from an eighteen-year-old high school dropout. The tasks I was charged with were very simple, reflecting my age and the entry level position I was in. All I had to do was register people for various courses and events the institute has to offer. There never was much interest as we live in a coastal town where the beaches are close and the weather is good, and where most people like to drink beer and barbecue on the weekends, so really, I mostly had bugger all to do. I napped a lot or else watched YouTube surfing videos. On the odd occasion where there was an inquiry, I dealt with it as I’d been conditioned to do – I sent them to a link on our website or else I promised to send them info in the mail, a promise I hardly ever fulfilled as I was usually too busy doodling when I was talking to people on the phone so I’d forget to take down their address. As nobody ever complained (attending arty ‘dos’ are the sort of flights of fancy most folks do on the spur of the moment so it’d be easy to forget you’d requested a pamphlet about them), I spent my days aimlessly doodling. Thinking nothing, doing nothing, it was a bloody good way to spend the working day. Or so I thought. Little did I know that it would be these aimless doodles that would prove to be the bane of my existence in the end!

Wouldn’t you know it, dear Ned, but I got quite good with the doodling – nothing fancy, mainly stick figures and smiley faces in pencil or pen or, on the odd occasion when I couldn’t find one in my drawer, a highlighter or a stray crayon I found in the auditorium, depicting simple themes reflecting my interests – stick figures on surf boards, swimming in the ocean, making beer bottle pyramids on the beach, making out with stick figure girls – you name it, I drew it. Then one day I had a particularly long phone conversation with a keen supporter of the arts who was a wee bit deaf, so I managed to cover an entire A5 sheet I had on my desk lying in front of me. I can’t tell you what I had intended to draw originally but by the time I finished the call, the paper was covered with doodles from top to bottom, side to side. My doodles that day tended more to the abstract, reflecting the strong feelings I had experienced during that fateful conversation. I did throw in a couple of solid pieces, such as a clenched fist, and one with the middle finger raised, a bleeding heart with a knife sticking out of it, and a few doodles of a coarser nature featuring bits of human male anatomy locked in other bits of human male anatomy. Looking at the sheet, I found the entire repertoire of human emotions reflected there – from impatience to anger, to rage, to murderous intent – a crescendo of feelings I never would have thought possible to find hidden inside me but there you have it, Ned, it was there, right in front of my stapler, for me to behold. As this was closing time and I had a hot date, I foolishly left the paper there and went home. And that’s where I went wrong.

In the morning, I fronted up for work as per usual, ready for a nap after a big night, only to find the gallery director, the curator and the head of the department assembled around my desk, pondering my doodles with a serious air. Cut a long story short, they entered me in the competition under Contemporary, and I won! I did! I won a shitload of money and a new job – I am now the Artist in Residence in the under 30 category. My days now are considerably busier since I’ve taken up my new post – no amount of pleading with the brass spared me this, even though I owned up I never had any training or indeed interest in the fine arts, the doodling being the result of a boring desk job with little outside stimulation, the brass decided I take up the job if only to avert a scandal which could see the entire panel of judges sacked – and so here I am teaching art to young emerging artists, visiting school assemblies, feigning interest in opening art galleries and other such nonsense, on a daily basis. It’s driving me bonkers, dear Ned. All I want is to get my old job back and keep the prize money. After all, I earned it. 

Yours respectfully,

P. Casso, Artist-in-Residence

Ned’s reply:

Dear P. Casso,

I’ve seen your doodles on YouTube. It’s sh*t so it’s only inevitable you have a great future in the contemporary arts. Bow to your destiny, my friend, and stop complaining. Milk it for all you can; cushy art jobs are hard to come by. 

Respectfully, Ned