Our Daughter's Friend's Artist Father

Our 8-year-old daughter played at a friend's house after school today. Her father rather kindly brought her back and accepted an invitation to stay for some tea. Also helpfully, he is an artist with a studio in a creekside warehouse not so very far from here and responded immediately to the artist's new piece on the wall as he stepped over the shoes into the living room. I took one or two steps back myself, knowing how much it means to the artist to have an in-shop discussion about her work with a fellow artist, no matter how different each artist may be, either in exploit or ambition. Actually I have mentioned this person before - the mother, whom we like very much too, is also an artist, and a teacher - and it was good to see him relax and enter fully into a rich vein of thoughts about all manner of works. What really took off in the conversation was the topic of the artist the artist of this blog had recently seen - and spoke about - with our daughter. A woman in her nineties, no less, still making work often fuelled by memories from her childhood, and not all of them good. While the artist of this blog would be the first to admit to a happy childhood herself, it is fair to say she is quick to acknowledge the potency of childhood, whatever the shade, as a source of inspiration. No, our daughter's friend's father is a gentle and thoughtful man. His kindness reminds me of the opposite, namely that so many people one encounters these days can come across, intentionally or otherwise, as selfish in comparison to someone like him, and, though I feel pompous saying it, generally unengaged by a social conscience. I don't quite know where this comes from, this disengagement, but there are so few people taking an interest in where our culture is going, or indeed what kind of a world we now live in. No, the conversation was good and went some way towards reminding me once again of why it is I like certain artists. Yes, it is their singular need to create something beautiful. But it is also their keen awareness.