Jack Campbell-Baird has no back story, he just exists.

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Have you always been an Artist?

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"I started out in Newspapers and honed my media craft in the business"

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You're a late comer to the art scene - why is that?

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"Not really, I've created shows that no-one knows about and am a very dab hand at drawing. So creation is something in me - I had said to friends that I want to be like David Hockney when I'm older - and by that I mean painting right into my old age, kind of like the actor that dies on stage - that's what I predict will be my fate - I don't know what retirement is and that would be my idea of hell.

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I had always drawn ink on paper but never thrown paint at a canvas so I had always planned life (and art) will begin at Forty for me. Also I have never had lessons and have always been self-taught. Except flying planes - I did have lessons for that as you can't really teach yourself that.

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So there is a plan?

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Yes I have a planned time line actually and it transcends alternative realities.

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Why is it called the Contribution to Society?

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Well contributing to society is a good thinng isn't it.

 

I have seen the scum side of the media business and the psychopaths that run it from the back of the stage, they contribute nothing but take and mostly steal. So I feel I've Contributed to Society now through my art work which is enjoyed by the general public - I sleep well at night unlike the nasty men who think they control the industry.

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Who inspires you?

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You mean creatively? or commercially?, if creatively - no one. I don't look at other peoples work and analyse - I feel that having someone else's ideas from their work might infect my brain and I might make un-informed choices when I paint. So I don't really get inspired by other artists. But commercially I am inspired by Damien Hirst, and Banksy... to an extent. 

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People don't really understand that being an artist you are a brand and a business. There's no point in being poncey. As an artist you still have to do your tax return or you can go to prison. There is a romantic ideology put on artists by the general public that we sit around all day thinking which is Bollox,... I spend most of my days doing spreadsheets, working on marketing and talking to agents or solicitors... or the police. 

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Art is a business and business is an art... there you go you can use that in a quote from me.

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What plans do you have?

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For dinner tonight or...?

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Anything else you want to say?

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Just go and do it - we only have a slither of time on this planet - don't think about it - just go out and do whatever it is that makes you happy.