Grayson Perry - Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

Alan Meales

Live life lightly and in good humour. Creative beauty with your own hands and celebrate the workmanship of those who went before. They provided the inspiration for our creativity. Everything and nothing is original.

Grayson's exhibition in the comforting, circular womb-like exhibition space at the British Museum. Perhaps the shape and the low lighting contributes to the sense of comfort and familiarity but it were the thoughts and the artefacts that really chimed for me.

I've travelled half the globe in search of aesthetics and ideologies that resonate and here, brought together from a collection of disparate artefacts from the BM's archive and from GP's imagination, is a summary, in the simplest terms, of how I feel about the world. 

'Hold your beliefs lightly', there are enough zealots in the world. Accept that everything is just a reworking of all that's gone before, accept that idol makers from the past were no different to merchandisers of the present. Is the cult of celebrity much different from the cult of ancients gods? Aren't CCTV cameras just an update on the threat and fear instilled by the images of hell painted on the cathedral walls?  

Peter Schaffer offered a horse as a god in Equus. GP offers Alan Measles. Who was your god? Who did you make promises to for good fortune as a child? I've always carried my talismen, made wishes and lived by fate. Life should be simple, well crafted, elegant and fun.