The Artist's Perspective

So the gallerist couldn't visit as arranged to view the new work because too many people at the gallery were sick. No argument there. The artist herself was sick for two weeks. A new date has been fixed. You have to be philosophical. I'm experiencing delays too. But there is no point in either of us acting like the only people on the planet. Good has already come out of it. Before I left the flat this morning we cleared and cleaned the living room, sliding the bright red sofa against the wall and getting out seven of the pieces. We sat down on the sofa together and viewed the work. The work to me looked formidable in the morning light and it's obvious that the consistent line of detail in the pieces has become its chief characteristic. The artist was fine about the cancellation. We never used to be as reasonable about pitfalls as this. Perhaps we are turning a corner. Impatience can thwart. Besides, exposure to other people's problems can soon put your own into perspective. For a country with so much wealth there is an incredible amount of poverty here alone. I was thinking this on the train today. But apparently half the world - nearly three billion people - live on less than two dollars a day. According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. Thirty thousand. Anup Shah of Global Issues states that some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Incredible. So, I guess, the gallerist postponing her visit by two weeks because people have flu is what you might call, in this light, or dark, acceptable.

I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things *

The artist's brother has learned how to fly. He has since taken his wife up in a plane and he has flown with her, dipping and weaving above the expanse of fielded countryside surrounding the market town where they now live with their delightful young son. I have always thought it must be an incredibly liberating feeling flying a plane. Nothing original to this thought, I know, but true all the same. In fact, getting above myself, I think I view the feat of the pilot pretty much as I view the artist. (The two are not so very different.) The pilot for example must know the magnitude and order of space and choose a direction in which to fly at the same time as soaring with a kind of composed relaxation above the humdrum. Well, the artist is the same. Flight is the process by which an object achieves sustained movement through the air by generating lift or using buoyancy. Well, art is the process by which an idea achieves sustained meaning sometimes on a wall by generating belief through the use of stimulation. Both chart a course, both can loop the loop, some prefer straight lines, while others, not always the most reckless, simply dive-bomb. No, the idea of a flight of fancy existing in real terms is very appealing to me. And I come at this with a kind of creative respect. If I had a plane right now and the freedom to do whatever I wanted with it, with no limit on fuel, a total ability to fly the damn thing, and great navigational skills, I would fly it with the artist in what I suppose would have to be a north-easterly direction and head towards the nearest sunset. We would watch the pinking clouds above the polar ice-cap, avoid throwing the plane into too steep a dive, and draw crazy patterns across the sky. There is a popular piece of software, a kind of virtual globe, which more and more people, especially children, are using as if only a flight simulator. Of course, they should really know that nothing can match the real thing. But they don't. Well ... nothing, that is, except the artist.
* Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944)