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

Dear Beth,
                    Thank you for your e-mail and phone call. I am sorry I could not attend the print making workshop as I have had to endure more harassment in the last week. 
I think my pictures would sell more if people understood the work. Some people misinterpret the work that deals with the subject of addiction. Like Hogarth the work contains social comment, in fact one series of my prints is an updated version of his Rakes Progress, reflecting the problems of mental illness and addiction. The trouble is that the public opinion of the mentally ill is often based on ignorance and misinformation. Because of this there is a widespread distrust of the psychiatric patient. This makes it difficult for the patient to communicate let alone re-educate the public. An artist without mental health problems may be able to communicate with the public but cannot speak from experience. 
Some of the pictures are intended to alert patients and the public to the danger that the patient in the community faces on a daily basis. That they are vulnerable to the drug dealers and users and I have put my own observations and experience into this work. But some people misinterpret my work thinking that I advocate the actions of those in the pictures, which makes it difficult to present the work.
When William Burroughs and Lou Reed confronted the problems of addiction in their work they met with fierce criticism and in Burroughs’s case, legal action. Now their work is accepted and respected. In the last few years my pictures have gained more relevance. The problems of mental illness and addiction have increased and the characters seem to have come to life as the urban jungle extends through the suburbs. Recently I sent the booklets I made to the Angelus Foundation in support of their education imitative. Later I noticed a video on their website that had a more sensitive, victim centred approach. I have amended my gallery on the Outside In website which also remembers the old hospitals and the men and women who spent their adult lives in the dormitories day rooms and therapy units in the old Victorian hospitals. Some of the pictures illustrate the settings for the scenes in my book ‘The Road to the Asylum’. For example the print ‘Guy Ward’ shows the ward where Terry Burns was a patient. His bed was the one nearest the top right hand corner of the picture. So little has been written about David Bowie’s family because he fiercely guards their privacy. However the Queen was not to pleased when a programme was broadcast about her cousins who have spent their lives in nursing homes due to learning difficulties, yet the programme attracted three and a half million viewers, nearly twice as many than were expected. There is a market for my work, but who wants to risk provoking not only David Bowie himself but also his lawyers and face the possibility of being bankrupted by draconian British libel  laws. That is why I keep returning to the theme of re-education and social reform. I have enclosed a copy of my essay Art and Mental Illness. 
                                                     Best Wishes,

                                                           David Beales