BECOMING PRICASSO

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A Lightbulb Moment

From Chapter 8 of Becoming Pricasso by Tim Patch

Puppetry of the Penis

The name alone, delivered in the announcer’s polished baritone, sent a jolt through me. Later recounting it to my daughter Vicky, she confirmed it with a snort of laughter, having caught their show in some gritty pub down south. “It’s actually hilarious, Dad,” she said, her voice rich with the implication that I, of all people, simply had to see it. And so I went.

The theatre itself was all plush velvet and hushed anticipation, a starkly formal frame for what unfolded. I watched, utterly captivated, as two completely unselfconscious men stood naked under the stage lights, performing an hour of astonishing, and absurd, anatomical origami. With a twist, a tuck, and a deadpan expression, they conjured imagined objects from their own genitals.

Vicky was right. It was profoundly, achingly funny, a class in sheer, ridiculous invention.

Then, the lightbulb moment!

It wasn’t a flicker, but a full, blinding flare in my mind. The connection was instantaneous and absurd: If they can sculpt illusions with that… could I paint with this? The idea was too electrically stupid not to pursue.

During the interval, I made a beeline for the gentlemen’s bathroom. It was a temple of cold, institutional marble, and there, gleaming under the fluorescent lights, my canvas: an enormous, uninterrupted wall of stainless steel serving as the splash back for a long, communal urinal.

I waited, feigning interest in the soap dispenser, until the last chuckle and zip faded and I was alone in the sterile quiet. My heart thumped a comical rhythm against my ribs. With a deliberate, experimental focus, I… moistened the implement.

Then, carefully, on a dry section of the cool, gleaming steel, I drew.

A simple smiley face. Two dots, a curved line.

To my utter delight and shock, it worked. A faint, but perfectly clear, damp sketch smiled back at me from the metal. A laugh burst from my chest, echoing off the tiles. The medium was unorthodox, but the principle was sound. The paintbrushes at home suddenly seemed terribly conventional.

A Lightbulb Moment

I couldn’t wait to get back, to see what this newfound, utterly ridiculous tool could really do. I was so impressed I brought their book, Puppetry of the Penis, which many years later Simon Morley signed for me.

I got home about midnight. It was a perfect time, as no one would be calling in on me now. Finding some acrylic paints in a drawer in my study, I squeezed them out onto various mismatched dinner plates—mostly the ones Penny’s mum had given us years before—and with a blank canvas in one hand and my penis in the other, I plunged just the head of my dick into the paint. Almost immediately I found out my first problem: I was instantly erect. It was still possible, but I realised it would be much easier without an erection—a problem easily solved.

I imagined myself on a stage or at a party in the same situation. I smiled. The vision I was having then has come to fruition many, many times over the next twenty three years.

Friend Stan

My friend Stan from Eumundi Market lived close by. After leaving Debra’s, I rang him on impulse. “Come on around,” he said, his voice warm over the crackling line. We got on famously—two people strangely on the same page about marriage, about sex, about the messy business of being human. Sitting in his dim kitchen with mugs of tea growing cold between us, I made up my mind. I would confide in him. I would tell him about the painting process I had devised, the one no one else in the world was doing.

His jaw dropped. His eyes went wide. “You’re serious?” he whispered.

When I nodded, he burst into a grin, over the moon, he was, genuinely amazed. Then I mentioned a show I’d seen a year before: Puppetry of the Penis. He blinked, then howled with laughter, and of course he wanted a demonstration. Well, I’d just left Debra an hour ago, so I was fairly relaxed in that department, not too excited, but I gave him one anyway. He laughed so hard he nearly slid off his chair. Then he wiped his eyes and said, “We need to throw a party. My friends. My neighbours. You as the entertainment.”

I hesitated. He thought the painting idea was brilliant, but he worried, reasonably, I had to admit, to keep it a secret until I was ready. So we talked it through, and I agreed: a video of the painting being made, sold alongside the painting itself. That would make it truly unique. We decided I’d create a whole body of work, each piece with its own video, for an exhibition later in the year, but first, to get me used to being a performer, starting at his party.

Stan rang a couple of friends on the spot, a gay couple who rushed over for a private demonstration. After my second performance, they were practically bouncing off the walls with excitement, and shucked off their pants to copy what I had just shown them, manipulating their equipment with laughter and giving each other a helping hand. Soon we were all far too compromised to bend anything. They couldn’t wait for the party.

Puppetry Party

A couple of weeks passed, and I practiced until my dick ached. I bought a top hat, a little ridiculous, and a curly blond wig to disguise myself. To my surprise, the getup actually made me look younger and unrecognisable, as I wanted to do it incognito.

The party was held next door to Stan’s place. The lady there was thrilled to host and had arranged chairs in a careful semicircle across her back yard, all of them facing the raised back patio. String lights blazed down on that makeshift stage, turning the night into something theatrical. It was perfect.

I was terrified.

My stomach churned. I nearly vomited with nerves just before I stepped out. Too late to back out now.

But the moment I walked into the spotlight, something shifted. The heat of the lights on my skin, the sudden hush of the crowd, everything changed. I felt completely different. Alive. Electric. A feeling I’d never known before.

The show went well. They laughed, loud, genuine, rolling laughter, and I knew in that instant: I loved it. I wanted to do it again.