Wendy is out
Nathan Kelly

Even by our own standards it's been a long time between issues, which can be wholly explained by the immense personal upheaval we've experienced since the last issue was published, the most significant being the passing of Clem Galea in August last year. Losing an integral member of our team - who'd been involved since the first issue - was an obvious blow, leading to what I'd assumed would be an indefinite hiatus in an implicit understanding between Wendy and myself. There was no implicit understanding, however. Wendy has severed all ties with New Hesperia, which I only discovered many months after she'd done so. I guess this is what happens when you quit the internet.

While I can only guess the reasons for her resignation, there is no doubt that this zine would never have begun in the first place without Wendy Price, nor would it have had anybody to write about if not for her close association with the type of outsider that we champion, who would otherwise work in isolation if not for Wendy's ability to allay the concerns that come with sharing your art with the world. Wendy understood the concerns of the weird better than most, and it should therefore be no surprise that a zine that was started to champion the outsider art of Western Australia has been helmed by the biggest outsider of them all. I mean that as a compliment, but I'm certain it's one that Wendy would not accept, if only because she would have her own - oddly specific - definition of "outside" that she'd argue did not apply to her. While highly intelligent, with a deep understanding of the interpersonal and philosophical complexities of the Western Australian arts scene, she is also capable of a paradoxical hermeticism, with a deep-seated reliance on a homespun and frequently self-contradictory worldview that has seen her at different times embrace Communism, Techno-Anarchism and - most recently - the Neo-Luddism that I suspect has caused our falling out. However, her reasons for quitting can only be guessed, as she has not responded to any correspondence.

Despite our differences, I wish her well. And she is welcome to rejoin New Hesperia in the future if she wishes to do so.