David Beales,
                                                          Flat1, 21 Swanley Lane,
                                                                                   Swanley,
                                                                                         Kent.
                                                                                    BR8 7JE   

Dear I could not find a suitable doodle and felt that as I had spent enough time on that project without coming up with anything that I would concentrate on the interview. I have written a scripted interview to give an idea of what I wanted to say which can be used as is or modified. 
                                                                
                                                               Best Wishes


                                                                               
                                                                        David Beales













Could you explain what Art and Art Therapy means to you and describe your art practice‘ how you go about creating art.

First I would like to talk about the writing as that is my latest project and the one that has already been misunderstood by people that have seen my work.

What has your writing got to do with art.

When I first showed my work with the Crayford centre they arranged for me to have my own exhibition at hall place. Debbie Mayes asked me to write captions explaining my picture as she felt people would not or could not interpret a picture. As I wrote more and more I decided to combine what I had written with my own memories. I decided to write about people who I had known in the past who would not usually be written about as they are the antithesis of today's celebrity culture.
I thought if anyone wanted to know about me they could judge me by the company I kept. Or to put it another way these were written portraits of friends I had lost who I think should be remembered somewhere. 
The captions turned into an idea for a book and I started to research the circumstances surrounding my often ill fated friends to find out what had gone wrong and given the increase in tragedies among young people I though this might help prevent further tragedies. But like any other artist I was just recording what I saw. Often artists are concerned with their own inner landscape but I decided that as there were too few artists who had witnessed the darker side if life in the world of the dual diagnoses patient that it might be better to choose that as a theme. 

Tell me about your  work method.

One way of making a picture is to make sketches of the landscape and then of the figures I want to populate that landscape. In the past I have painted after sketching directly onto the paper. The results are more spontaneous but the more you plan the picture the more articulate the picture becomes. For example with the painting Cotmandene there is an air of paranoia that evolved spontaneously but with the print Liz Brown where I wanted the picture to describe a more specific event I did more preliminary sketches. The prints are composed in a slightly different way to the paintings. I make a sketch which can have a lot of rubbings out. After I scan the sketch into the computer , using Photoshop I can clean up the sketch by adjusting the contrast and brightness eliminating the rubbings out. Then using a stylus and pad I retouch the drawing making sure that each area is enclosed so I can use the paint bucket to colour in. Then the picture is retouched again. With Photoshop it is possible to edit the picture  and add ideas.  One of my prints made in this way was used for the cover of the British Journal of Psychiatry.

I employ a similar method when writing. I make notes then edit them with scissors and tape. The note book pages I have taped together are stuck on a door like the old layout board for a newspaper, then re-edited, making sure the paragraphs are in chronological order and matched for relevance
 The I take the strips of text from the door nd type them into the computer and re-edit if necessary then print out and spell check often taping the pages together sticking them on the door and adding more hand written notes inspired by the text I have read and re-read then adding any new text and edits repeat the procedure until it makes sense and is relevant. Even so the text changes them and i wonder if the different themes should not be in slightly different type. For instance the narrators text is different from the historical observations. I‘m thinking of the text that describes the well known musicians, but the perhaps one  point of the book is to treat the unknown and the famous alike. I was also describing the events that led to the narrator and other characters being admitted to the psychiatric wards
So there were therapeutic and investigative themes but I became interested in the cultural significance of the behaviour of the characters as the relevance emerged as I was writing. It became obvious that the substance abuse was a part of the world of rock music and as the substance abuse increased so diD rock music's link with the art world. Rock musicians wanted to be seen as artists rather than artistes. I remember a time when in my mind at least Art was the antidote to rock music. Rock was Saturday night art galleries were for Sundays.
Then there was the era between Hippy music and punk rock and I describe the metamorphosis. 

Why should anyone be interested in this.  

Because now Rock music is regarded as an art form if not so much the music the actual artwork and fashion which are now collectors items that are seem in galleries and museums. I feel that worthy as this may be that the public are going to get an increasingly white washed version of the history of modern culture as it is rewritten over and over again until like Chinese whispers the original message is completely lost. Like the first world war army message from to a general from the front line; ‘send reinforcements were going to advance’ ended up as ‘send three and forpence were going to dance‘, as it was relayed from messenger to messenger.
And if you rewrite history then you are not going to learn from it. If Rock star biographies and music magazines document drug abuse as acceptable there will be more and more casualties. 

Why should I care  

Because if you allow the war on drugs to escalate you will have a situation where you cannot go out for fear of being mugged by addicts and if you stay in you are prey to burglars and home invaders. It is like that in many parts of 5he world already. In Mexico they are calling in the army because the police cannot deal with the drug gangs. If you [persecute the drug users this will happen.
Before 1968 we had what we called the British system to deak with the drug problem. Addicts were treated as people who were ill not criminals and as such were entitled to to treatment from GPs who could prescribe class A drugs as there were not many addicts this as not really a problem. The aim of treatment was not imprisonment but rehabilitation get the addict back to work even if meant prescribing a maintenance dose. where did that idea go? Well by the late sixties America had already started its war on drugs and probably wanted Britain to adopt a similar approach. The government banned GPs from prescribing class A drugs and set up addiction clinics. Then all hell broke lose and the black market started operating in full swing selling  drugs pushing drugs grooming addicts forcing addicts into prostitution whereas before addicts were a bit of an elite club acquiring habits by misadventure.
The number of addict increased a thousand fold. If the drugs were decriminalised for addicts, only addicts and not the general public, this might undermine the black market leaving the addict free to deal with their problem without being harassed by pushers and the police.
That is a theory that is not in my book but emerges from my book, how practical it would be and whether it would stand up to the corrupt element I do not know I have just given it as an example of how my book could be used.

This and other ideas have emerged from art therapy practise that was meant to serve two functions. One was to keep me from the ‘mates-crime’ element of drug users and street drinkers who victimise and exploit the mentally ill in the community and the other was to find a coping strategy to deal with the harassment I have to endure from the more self righteous members of the community without reacting emotionally and recklessly. Over time the writing  pictures, and some very basic video and sound work have built up into a body of work that I think should be preserved for researchers and students. I have also made a conscious effort to make my work accessible to the general reader and those interested in contemporary and outsider cultue.

The picture often illustrate events and settings in the book. When put together they are not just an illustrated book they are like a story board for a film. So then there is space for the imagination. Now with people being used to instant technology there is a danger that the imagination being excluded from not only art but from everyday life. No-one is interested in dreams or imagination they have been devalued. But though dreams and the imagination can be therapeutic and were the basis of modern psychiatry they are being relegated to symptoms. 
I see my work not only as art but as a research project that I think could be of use to the student as well as the more general audience.
Another theme of my work is re-education, informing to dispel the myths and prejudice that affect the mentally ill especially since the closure of most of the old hospitals. And as a record of life in those old hospitals. 
As the writing is concerned with the personal life of rock celebrities, and as I am ex inmate of the psychiatric wards I am sometimes subjected to disbelief that most people do not have to put up with and at present I am hoping to have my work and its attendant documentation authenticated by a recognised authority.