Day 1 – Dear Cleo

Dearest Cleo

It was lovely to see you up town on Sunday and great that you had enough patience to be a good girl whilst we took you around the BP Portrait Exhibition and then while I went to look at the Encounter exhibition. I am sure though, that your favourite spot on the day was Waterstones at Charing Cross. After we parted I went to see the Hokusai Exhibition at the British Museum, that my dear was sublime.

Anyway, enough of the small talk, although this post is called day 1, it is actually about day 14, I have spent the last 13 days perfecting my latest creation Butada, this is the feminine form of her father’s name, girls weren’t credited with invention in the old days but the daughter of Butades, the Corinthian maid, invented drawing (Petherbridge p19). History apart, my Butada is a drawing machine, she is a bit Heath Robinson involving plastacine and a sharpie but she works, albeit with a little nudge or two from her creator, the mad scientist Doctor Mickos.

The basic parts were purchased from the internet and were billed as a toy to teach your children basic electronics. It is easier to teach a machine to draw than it is to teach an adult electronics. After much struggle, the kit came without instructions, buying beers for my mates, watching Youtube for hours on end, and enlisting Freya the cat as my trusty assistant Butada was born.

At the flick of a switch on a full moon, with lightening crackling all around, Butada rose from her slumber to draw. Freya was terrified of what she had unwittingly helped to create and disappeared through the cat flap never to be seen for several days.

She had three wheels like Delboy’s van but not so yellow yet had the ability to draw like a demon. The enclosure I had designed for her proved inadequate and I was force to telephone the mill owner to move all flammable material away from the mill as a precaution. Once I had removed the batteries I was able to photograph her in all her glory, this is Butada at rest.