Taking stock

With the exhibition of Dave Pearson's work at the See Gallery having less than two weeks left to run it's a good time to take stock and see what we've achieved in managing the estate since his death in July last year.

1. The Legal Stuff. 

We've formed The Dave Pearson Trust. This involved Chris Pearson handing over control of the artwork to the Trust; and the three trustees are myself, Chris and Margaret Mytton. Any decisions about the work are now made by unanimous agreement of the trustees. The process cost us just over £500 in legal fees.

2. Financial.

The Trust now has a bank account. The Cooperative Bank accepted us as a Community Direct client; a business account with access to on-line banking. The process took about a month from filling in the forms to receiving all the paying-in and cheque books. The Coop has been extremely good to deal with - helpful and efficient. We have raised over £8,000 from exhibitions and the auction (see below), and this has enabled us to pay for immediate costs such as legal fees and the website.

3. Legacy.

We always knew that this will be a long and on-going process. Dave received a major obituary in 'The Guardian', and his colleagues and friends have been enthusiastic in helping us promote his work. We held an auction of work for friends of Dave to buy something relatively cheaply, and also raise money for the Trust. Meeting Julian and Jackie from the See Gallery has been a particular stroke of good fortune, and they have worked with us not only to show a selection of Dave's work, but also to raise awareness of his legacy by inviting others to see a small part of the work in the context of an exhibition. We are hopeful that his process may lead to further showings of the work. 

Margaret is writing a monograph on Dave's work and life, which we expect to publish on its completion. We have also started a website, and by cataloguing the work we are creating a database and putting things in order, and by doing this we will be better placed to handle future developments. This, I stress, is going to be a long process - of the 15,000 or so pieces left by Dave just 500 have, so far, been entered into the catalogue.

4. Storage.

This is now our biggest single problem. We've already thrown away well over three large skips full of rubbish, but the studio is in a bad state, with dry rot being the most immediate of many issues. We've removed the work from the source of the rot but now need to deal with it urgently. Some of the work is at the house, which is a 100 yards away from the studio, but storage needs to be found for the remainder (6 rooms worth) while building work goes on at the studio. The future of the studio itself is an issue and we are considering whether it can be sold to raise money for Chris, and if so what alternative storage options are there?

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We've achieved a lot in 8 months, but there's a lot - an awful lot - still to be done. The process has been interesting, to say the least, and its brought me back in contact with many people I hadn't seen for many years, notably Florence Pearson, as well as finding new friends who are helping us on our way. In all of this the goodwill and enthusiasm shown by everyone for Dave's work has been consistent and heartfelt and helped us overcome any doubts we may have harboured.