I’ve Been Chosen for a Billy Johnson Head
I’ve Been Chosen for a Billy Johnson Head
by Tracy Marshall
About six months ago I introduced a new character into an online story1 I have been participating in:
“A parcel had arrived at the castle yesterday, delivered by a travelling artist, who had been invited to paint portraits of the Wrick family. There was no message with the parcel, and the artist, Bill Jobsworth, explained that an old woman in black had given it to him at the crossroads, asking him to deliver it to Cuthbert and India Louise Wrick.”
Shortly afterwards my attention was caught by the story of another travelling artist, also called Billy, in a newspaper article (where my fetish number 57 was featured)2
The mysterious donor of 57 carved stone heads found scattered around Yorkshire over the last two weeks is a reclusive artist currently on holiday “somewhere in a tent”, it emerged yesterday.
The shadowy figure caught on CCTV at one of the 19 places where the primitive-looking sculptures have so far been found is Billy Johnson, a 43-year-old who describes his work as hypnogogic, or sleep-inducing.
I wrote and asked Billy Johnson if I could order one of the stone heads, and received an automatic reply that he was inundated with orders because of all the recent publicity. I forgot all about it, until I received this email:
Hi there
I am writing this email on behalf of
stone carver Billy Johnson who has
picked out a selection of emails to
respond to following the wave of
publicity on his stone heads in
October 2007. Yours was one of
those emails. Billy writes…
“Thank you for contacting the
Paradox Carving website. If you would
like to be involved in spreading the
next wave of hypnagogic heads
please can you send on your postal
address. My intention will be to
send you or give you two small
heads (around 2 inches), one as a
gift for you, the other to be left
at a site of your choice for a
stranger to find".
Billy has picked out about 20 people
from the huge range of enquiries
who he would like to give a smallish
carved stone to. […]
The first 10 heads have been sent
out and we have some great
stories and pictures of them in situ
from all over the world from
people who have taken part in
the project. […]
We are interested to see how and
where the stones go and have
been amazed at how as an art
form/concept/statement people
have enjoyed this project and found
a connection to the work.
We will be compiling photos
and stories about where the
small fossil heads have ended up
- this will be available on an online
gallery later this year. […]
Thank you for your interest and
support with this project.
Best wishes
Judi Alston
Director
One to One Productions3
Another project I have been involved in is the “Glass Hour adventures”4, which involves ‘planting objects to be found by someone else’ in the future; in this case, to be found by Jon and James in the year 2163.
I decided it would be fun to combine the two projects.
Now, the two small fossil heads have arrived at the first destination, Glass Hour member Judyette’s daughter in Birmingham, UK.
The illustrated story of the travels of the Billy Johnson heads continues in our next edition of wisp…
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References
