From "The Times" newspaper today... (which also features a photo of Bill and a Motorway sign as part of the article)
The Times - August 28, 2002 Bill Drummond on a motorway sign Private Passions The writer and artist confesses why he has been driven to distraction by a particular sign on the M25 Most of us have forgotten the birthday of a loved one at some time or other. Last year, I forgot my girlfriend Sallie’s. To be more precise, I forgot it until late the evening before and, as we live in a rural location, it was too late for what passes for late-night shopping in our area. So what to do? I made my excuses and disappeared into my work room. I constructed a frame, then stretched a canvas. Within an hour I had executed an oil painting. I put the painting into the back of my Land Rover along with my tool box and tied a ladder to the roof rack. I then drove the 19 miles to Junction 20 of the M25 and parked up on the slip road. Over the past 17 years my love affair with a certain motorway sign has blossomed and deepened. Like all great love affairs it lacks rationality. It’s that type of sign that is used on all motorway slip roads to inform the driver that the motorway restrictions are no longer applicable. It’s square, the background is blue, with a stylised motorway bridge in white and a red slash across it. You know the one. I pulled on my overalls, got the ladder off the roof rack, my tool box out of the back of the car and got to work removing the sign from its mooring on the twin posts. I then attached to the posts the still-wet oil painting, using bailer twine and gaffer tape. The painting I’d just done was rather an expressionistic approximation of one of these blue signs. And although I say it myself, I think it looked rather grand up there in the glare of on-coming headlights. I only wish I had had the foresight to bring my camera with me to record it in all its glory. But if I am honest, it did not look as good as the real thing that was now safely stowed away in the back of the Land Rover. Thirty minutes later, I was back home. I removed the Richard Billingham photo of his mother lounging on her settee that we had hanging on our living-room wall and replaced it with the motorway sign. I got my camera and took a picture of it. Then I retired to bed, where Sallie was already asleep. The next morning, our children woke us early with a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday, Mummy", and sometime later Sallie was strangely pleased with her gift from me. It has hung there ever since and there is never a day that it doesn’t in some way reciprocate the love I feel for it. Obviously there is no way that I can try to explain this or even justify it. As for the painting on the motorway, it lasted no longer than a week before it was replaced by a brand spanking new version of what we have hanging on our wall. Did a passing motorist recognise it to be the work of an artist without portfolio? Does it now hang on the living-room wall of a motorway sign replacement engineer? If you work in the accounts department (motorway signs section) for the Ministry of Transport, please send me an invoice for all the costs incurred in the above act of passion, care of the arts editor of this still thundering newspaper, and I will gratefully honour the sum within 30 days of receipt. How to be an Artist by Bill Drummond has just been published by Penkiln- Burn. He also has a series of exhibitions/performances throughout the rest of the year, starting at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol on September 12