Letter from Donald Friend to Brian Johnstone, 15 July [1963]
From RBHARC 7/3/39 Donald Friend correspondence file 1962-1969
Paddo
15th July [1963]
Dearest Brian
I'm in bed, sick, with flu and the sh.....ts. Your letter cheered a bit, especially the fabulous '10 yet-unsold' list but ...... dear boy for Christ's sake go ahead with the catalogue & don't, don't don't please please ask for more pictures all the time. I told you I'd send any if any came up. I told you dozens of times. And you did get extras (which belonged in other Gallery's shows).
I've completely jigged my Adelaide & Perth shows, which were booked months before Yulgilbar was even heard of, by taking all my time & mind & energies off them for you because you're an old friend and I'm fond of you.
I have just cancelled both those shows because I haven't a chance of making up time & completing them. Which will make my name mud in Perth & Adelaide.
If, which is unlikely because I'm so sick of art I could die, and all because for months & months I've been working ,not for my pleasure & interest, but for Gallery deadlines - If I paint any more I'll bring them with me. A bit of typing can be glued on to say "Black Mood Natur Mort 90gns".
And if, at the party opening, you hear a choked hysterical scream of rage, it will be because some silly c**t or c**tess has smiling asked the ever-so-interesting question, "Do tell me Donald, when is your next show?" and then I'll expect you & Marj to stand by me & help chuck her out into a specially prepared cactus bed.
I am going to book up no more shows for two years. By that time I'll have 100 pictures from which to select one. The proper way. The deadline is OK for the Galleries but a killer for painters. Just look around at the, filling in canvases quick as winks to be in time.
I feel very sick. Jeff is coming in in the morning to bring me things. I'll be alright by tomorrow anyway.
I will promise no more pictures to anyone ever again. I'm almost crazy with worry about the promises I've been made to make. Now I will break them all & go back to a proper way of working.
No one can say what pictures he can make in months weeks days ahead. You have paper & paints & all that; Can you say next hour you'll be happy? What wind blows an idea into your mind? Will it arrive punctually for the Skinner Gallery, or for the Johnstone Gallery?
In the next five minutes, or five years, or five months will a truck smash thru my fence, your fence, his fence?
No one knows what they can or will do, because no one knows what will happen to them.
Let me work in peace as & how I can work No more bloody dates & catalogues. Otherwise what I do will be worthless & all lost anyway because I will burn it rather than let out a flood of trash. Much love Donald.
Last updated: 10th January 2008
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