Art for Arts Sake

There is a scene in Crete that haunts me.  Calls me, beckons me to immerse myself in its azure water then lie amongst the olive trees and doze under its furnace sun.  But this isn't coming from across the sea - oh  no.  It's coming from my glorified shed.  It's a scene that I should have finished by now, months and months in the painting, then drying, then painting again.  Left to wait whilst work, family, writing and a hundred other things jump the queue.  Then it gets annoyed and starts shouting so I go to it and paint furiously for an hour whilst listening to Radio Berkshire because it's the only thing the knackered old radio in there will pick up and just a little progress is made but if I wait for a tidal wave of time or an explosion of inspiration it may never be completed.

I love to paint, love it.  Painted lots in previous years, sold a few, gifted a few, donated a few but it doesn't half take time and so I am tempted away from my first love by the immediacy of writing.  But I shall now use the power of writing to publicly kick my own arse into finishing this piece so the very understanding and extremely patient buyers can finally look out onto their little piece of Almirida, Kalyves and Chania, and I can then paint the pictures that will stop the bare walls of our living room from staring accusingly at me every time I go in there.  They know that I am sitting down to "go on 'The Facebook'" instead of decorating them, even though I try to look like I'm writing the next 'Ulysses' - curse them!

I know that painting won't be a career for me just yet.  Given my work rate and our children's need to be shod on what seems like a six-weekly basis, both me and my husband need 'proper' jobs right now, but what I am committing to is getting back in that shed and finishing what I started, for the love of it, for the joy of it, for the making-someone-else-happy of it, for art's sake. 



Don't just look at me - finish me!!!

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This post was inspired by finding out that someone who I last encountered when I was 20 and working in the same office as him as a freight-forwarding chimp is actually a fantastically talented artist. You can check out Robert Fitzmaurice's work here

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Soundtrack: Art for Arts Sake by 10cc