Appreciation

Question: If most people were blind where would that leave the visual artist and the spaces they exhibit in?

U

Shades of white

I am no good at drawing. Which is rather surprising since I come from a long line of people who actually made their living painting.

My father who inherited that most remarkable talent – though never made anything of it because he was more interested in pursuing other interests, once helped me out. I was about twelve. Our art homework was to do a portrait of a pirate (water colours no less – the smudge’s devil of all inventions). We had a few days. The worse and the more dreaded the task the more it’ll spoil not only your life in the interim but you’ll put it off to the last minute (deadline by another name). (Un)fortunately my father passed my desk (Sunday afternoon) as I was putting the finishing touches to a half hearted attempt at conveying both the cliche and the menace of a pirate (Johnny Depp my creation wasn’t – it was before his time). So, in a moment of charitable (or was it) intent, my father chucked my effort into the nearest waste paper basket and conjured up the most magnificent pirate ever. Took him zero time – not that he meant to ram home that I most certainly had betrayed the creative family line (on both sides). Not at all. He was far more interested in taking all my essays and other writings apart – even if they rated A* by assorted teachers. You want to know what my father called my teachers? Don’t. Repeating it would be flying in the face of my genteel upbringing and the manners my mother instilled in me.

So Monday was grand. My art teacher’s face lit up. He studied my father’s effort in detail. He was chuffed. He smiled. At me. After an artfully executed theatrical pause  he said: “Do tell your father that, on account of fraud, I’ll only give him a two” (a one being top mark). After that I can’t remember anything. Other than that I was always tops in the theory of art and art history. Brush to canvas? Forget it. Why would I? Know thy limitations.

Not to sell myself short and as befits my temperament, I did and do passable caricatures (of people). That’s about it.

As Karma has a way of biting you unawares,  most nearest and dearest to me, friends and assorted family, are masters of their chosen art. Occasionally forced to remind them, ever so tactfully, we can’t all be artistes. Some of us have to be the appreciative audience. The ones who do the clapping, the stroking of ego, the catchers of tears, the slayers of tantrums, the ones who write the critiques, facilitate you, marketeer your stuff.  And, BUY IT.

Whatever you do, please do not talk to me about gallerists. It was Basel/Switzerland, ca. 1997, when I fell off my chair on learning that a gallerist (the marketeer and provider of large swathes of wall and the monied) will take a  cool 66 % off your sales for services rendered.

Titanium white greetings,

U

 

Who are you?

Sometimes even I find myself caught in the firing line of contradictory advice:

“Keep digging.”

“Stop digging. The hole won’t get any smaller.”

To be on the safe side I do keep digging until my worst fear – the hole getting bigger – is confirmed.

Holes are conundrums. On one hand, by virtue of being a hole, there is nothing. Just a hole. Which is fine as long as you are not in it. If you want to be swallowed go to Dartmoor. Or somewhere where squelching mud will suck you down. And all you did was set a foot wrong. But at least you won’t leave a hole.

I like gardening. You dig a hole – on purpose. You plant a plant. Fill hole around plant with soil till hole is full – et voila. Come spring all you have to fight are squirrels, deer, cute bunnies, your cat, a neighbour’s dog (the swine),  naturally, snails and slugs – and you wonder why you ever thought gardening and its more serious cousin, farming, were a calling rather than a curse.

You know what a vocation is? When you can’t help yourself. Vocation, a calling, is usually associated with those of a true or imagined artistic bend and those who live in a monastery, defuse landmines and or do other foolish things to keep the status quo going. I tell you, and I mean it: Scrub a floor instead. At least you can eat off it and no one – not least yourself – expects you to win a noble prize.

U