I forget sometimes how much organisation there is to be done to get anything happening properly. In the countdown to the exhibition I was thinking… how many weeks, how many paintings to be completed? I was looking forward to a hectic and creative time of rampant oil painting! But there’s so much more. This last fortnight saw us completing the exhibition website, photographing images, writing press releases, sourcing quotes for printing of many kinds, setting prices, finding framers and supplying advertisements to all and sundry.
Being an artist sounds exquisitely romantic until you realise that, like anything else, it is a business too. I don’t mind it – especially with Peter doing so much of it with me. It’s just a little reality check now and then.
Mind you… I’m sitting in the lounge writing this and across the room is a big canvas on my easel (relocated from the studio because the canvas can’t get into that room), and another smaller easel with a fox on it, half finished. In the shadow against the wall I can see elephants flying and the rabbit sitting quietly. There is a lovely smell of oil paints and a big jar of brushes. And I think, suddenly, that it is an exciting and romantic thing to be an artist…
