16 February 2021
Donor class
“My god! what are you doing with all these paintings?” A friend on Facetime exclaimed upon seeing hundreds of paintings lined up like old vinyls in the bookshelves of my living room.
“Well,... I do sell them when I can,...though lately it’s been slow.” I replied quietly.
I tried to explain that for me, the most important thing is to keep painting no matter what else is going on in life, sales or no sales, in or outside of this tragic world (but to be honest, little has been actually going on in my life inside).
“It keeps me focused and alive, but it also anchors me.” I added.
What I didn’t go into was that it was really keeping my hopes alive that despite everything, from my low bank account to my empty love life, there still existed open possibilities for the tomorrows to come, for as any painter knows, hope, is the Holy Graal in this stoic art racket. But all this was way complicated to get into so I shut up and pushed the subject back to her.
The reality though, is that in this digital world of quick solutions, Painting is still a vocation, and it’s crafted over many many centuries, it’s an alloy of patience and dedication that, let's be frank, is seen by most civilians as a slow, indulgent and pretty foolhardy activity. So, sadly, like other artists, I may end up with thousands of small unwanted pictures.
Regardless, this picture from a few days ago, was the first of two done from a hazy sky. I had not appreciated it until I looked at it the other morning. It’s a deceptively simple and discreet picture at first glance, and it might appear terribly plain, but in it, I see a rich and simple truth about the sea and sky. But I’m also a real sucker for those wide and gentle stripes as if loosely decorated by a tipsy pastry chef. In fact, it’s a picture made up of just five simple colours; a deep Ultramarine Blue, a warm Cadmium Yellow, a silky soft pink, and a muted lime green. High overhead, a band of bleached Prussian Blue snugly holds everything in place. An image like this makes me wonder if such plain celestial grace could ever be as stellar as a dazzling woman wearing such a sensuously pink scarf?
Sometimes I really think I should have been a wedding cake designer. I have this thing about pastel colours that gently collide into one another and where paint slithers over itself in esculent carefree pleasure. In this study there is a delectable something about bleached peach when colluding with lemon yellow and lightly pasted over a thin sky. Above these bands is the palest of blue which arches high up and over my head, ask anyone who spends time at the beach, they'll all tell you, it really does feel like this, I promise.
The flat sea below has crackles in the paint which whisper of old patinas, but this is actually caused by small occasional incidents during transport which I don’t seem to be able to discourage. This effect may evoke the past but it’s really over the horizon line, where infinity blurs into the hazy future. This is a very small picture with large ambitions, it’s a mouse that roars, and I like it.
So funny enough, all this talk of so many pictures lined up in my bookshelves with no place to go, reminded me of an article in the NYT I recently read. It was about a Canadian fellow who had been such a prolific sperm donor that he had surreptitiously ‘fathered’ hundreds of now grown up children. A few years back, when laws opened up which had previously restricted access to old adoption files, many of his grown children tracked him down. Within a year, this guy found himself with a huge ‘family’ of sorts, and he eventually developed relationships with almost everyone who had reached out to him. They have even organised family reunions to further develop their sibling relations.
When I read it I thought to myself; “Holy cow! what a lucky fellow!..." and what a weird thing is this modern life indeed, so much life with so little responsibility, an instant family tree!” It’s like the 12 century, but without all the violence involved. I suddenly found myself envious.
Then, today, out of the blue, a curious notion came to me, clearly a nutty one, but germain all the same. I suddenly imagined that by turning out so many small studies over the past few years, sometimes as many as three or four a day, I could perhaps see myself as a kind of ‘cultural sperm donor’, like one spreading my wares equally to large and small walls in vacant homes all the world over.
Perhaps like this happy fellow who cranked out so many infants to grateful mothers everywhere, I, too, I'd be just churning out thousands of small images, spreading them with success out into the world and onto barren walls everyone. Furthermore, I reasoned, as would Walter Mitty; was I not doing the world a great service for all those empty walls around the globe?
Realistically, I mentally noted, that out of so many small studies, how many would actually survive the perilous journey to a happily furnished home?
Some, I hoped at least, would be fortunate enough to live long healthy lives. But others, I presumed might be deemed unworthy and die young. Might they be smothered by debris in the back room of some third rate Antique Shop in Paddington?
Would not the luckiest of my small pictures shine in large and happy homes, and mightn't they be full of light and framed with good taste? Others though, may end up in unhappy homes and hidden away on sad, dingy walls in somber hallways, and spaced poorly between cornices. Worse yet, others might still be held captive to hung on dreary wallpaper in ugly homes with a loathsome family.
Still others, I supposed, might thrive in small homes, much loved and looked after, in spite of deaths and divorces, while others will spend the rest of their lives entangled in cobwebs in stuffy attics and dark cellars. But, sadly still, others will go up in flames. Even worse for the painter, the last few may well be forgotten but found one day hanging tragically from the end of a rope somewhere in East Anglia.
But I’m sure, as I reasoned further, that there will certainly be a few weaker ones that will be loved for sentiment only.They would be accepted and adored despite all their flaws and perhaps even for all the wrong reasons. But Hey!
A few others, for whatever reason, might also still find themselves caught in the middle of legal haggling in Estate disputes and argued over within shabby walls of Probate Courts both here and abroad.
But lastly, and with hope and grace for the poor painter, there may still be others out there who are adored and admired with distant appreciation for all the right reasons by a critical and reverent set of eyes.
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