What would Bald Archy founder Peter Batey do with money?
Given a bucketload of money, Peter Batey would embark on his very own extreme makeover. "I'd probably lash out and find a tailor to revamp my wardrobe. One has to go to a funeral every now and then, even if it's your own," he says.
To complete the overhaul he might install a "huge marble spa bath" in his Coolac, NSW, home. "I don't have a bath, so it's only when I go visiting, or go to a posh hotel, that one can actually lie down and have a soak."
The pioneer of Australian contemporary theatre also muses about building a "playhouse with a large stage where actors appear out of nowhere" in his garden, along the lines of Shakespeare's Globe.
To indulge another passion, Batey would build a gallery to house the cartoons and caricatures collected from the Bald Archys, his $5000 prize which annually thumbs its nose at the Archibald Portrait prize.
The artists' anarchic tendencies would be rewarded even more handsomely. "I think the Archibald is $35,000, so why not equal it?"
But it would be little more than bird seed for the Bald Archy judge, Maude the cockatoo. "She doesn't need action to keep her amused. She gets plenty of that."
