NEXT SPRING

26 May 2005

It didn’t start out like this. If you have read the story Roll Over Jenny Holzer that I wrote in spring 2002, you will already know what I was trying to do. If not, this is it.

I’ve made something. I’m proud of what I’ve made. And I’m willing to sell it to you, for a price. What I’ve made is a commitment and, because I’m an artist, what I’ve made is also an artwork. The name of this artwork is ‘The Commitment to Give Away 40 Bunches of Daffodils to Total Strangers Every Spring for the Rest of My Life’. And the price is £5,000.

There’s no point in me going into the whys and wherefores here. If you want to know, read the rest of Roll Over Jenny Holzer.

Now most people I talked to didn’t get what I was selling. They would say ‘Why should I pay you £5,000 for me to give away 40 bunches of daffodils? If I want to be foolish enough to give away 40 bunches of daffodils, I’ll do it of my own accord.’ And I would say, ‘Nah, you just don’t get it. What I’m selling you is the commitment I made…’ But the more I tried to explain and justify it, the less I got it myself. And when I got to the point where I didn’t get it at all, I ditched the whole notion of trying to sell a commitment and wrote some text to use on one of the posters I do instead. It read:

NOTICE

Make a commitment to give away
A bunch of daffodils to 40
Total strangers every spring
For the rest of your life,

If you discover a reason for
Making this commitment, please
Send it to
daffodils@penkilnburn.com

WARNING: Offering bunches of daffodils
To total strangers may prompt them to
Be suspicious of you.
Ignore their suspicions.

Not that I’ve gone out in any big way to promote this giving away of 40 bunches of daffodils – it’s enough for me to know that the invitation has been made. As for me and my commitment, for the past four years I’ve kept it up, although this year I did it as part of a poncey affair for an in-house BBC conference thing. It kind of felt like I was just doing it to show off and not for the real purpose of the thing. I will try harder next spring.