The artist in need of a fixative

Without a work-in-progress, the artist looks lost today: an artist stripped bare. This will no doubt change in a day or so when the role - like the work-rate - returns and a new piece on the wall becomes reality again. In the meantime, to observe an artist not working, certainly in this instance, is rather like watching a freed animal, an exotic species, missing the explicit and reassuring boundaries of the cage. We parted early this morning and I was left as a result wondering what the world must be like for an artist without his or her art. Is it a kind of air rage, when all the passenger needs is a cigarette? Is it Hitler not getting into art school? Is it about the recharging of batteries? A time for important and physically inactive reflection? But then I was thinking, we can all be artists but without the art. In fact thinking in this light suddenly makes the world a more bearable place. The shaved heads next to you on the platform or the headphoned death-mask in front of you on the train or the thin dress alongside you on the pavement are all of a sudden fellow creatives. Architecture is reinterpreted by traffic wardens. Creative tensions are felt by public servants. Clouds are read by widows. Was it ever thus? Yesterday I passed a wedding party in a famous public park exploding with flowers and could have sworn I saw a large white butterfly emerge from the bride's vast white wedding dress and fly off. Was not that a kind of zen-like work of art? How about the cluster of black-coated musicians squeezed together in an over-tight bandstand tuning their instruments while everyone else wore light bright shorts and tops? Delighted by this passing indulgence, I returned home only to find the real artist looking anxious. Was it a craving already to do more work? She will be climbing up the (gallery) walls next.