Fair Craft

Hello, I hope you all enjoyed my last blog, even though there was very little of it. As you know, I attended a craft fair yesterday in order to show my paintings and hopefully sell one or two...well, I sold neither one nor two, but none, a shame, but nearly every one else was in the same boat too. I am extremely glad I dragged myself out of bed never the less, for other opportunities arose yesterday as is often the case when one course goes awry. I was invited to attend a different craft fair, much larger than yesterday's and of long established repute in the north of Oxfordshire, I gladly accepted. There were many other happenings yesterday of equal value, and a couple those instances are priceless. The various folk who attended, although business was far from great, kept a jovial air about them and everyone mingled and chatted, comparing and admiring their different crafts, old friendships were fortified, and new ones raised, it is indeed a fine sight to see, folk at their best.  One other wonderful occurrence of yesterday or I should really say many compiled as one, was the way people were looking at my paintings and some of the comments that were made. Whenever I go to events like these I always make a note, quite literally, of the differing expressions on the faces of people as they look and all that they say, good or bad. In doing so I get a better insight into my own art that I might not get if I were to ask for the appraisal of an art critic, though of course there are inevitably some members of the public who become art aficionados the moment their friends or lovers ask them what they think. Some of these aforementioned folk were so very important in their second of assumed wisdom that I swear they could have described for their patient listeners the scent of the barn's ceiling. There too were folk who simply stood smiling, others wore the looks I love of  the same unwavering concentration one might see on the face of the painter at work. There was a lady who screwed up her face and physically recoiled when seeing my latest painting 'AWE'. I saw one couple unfortunately, who had expressions of genuine interest, which was great up until the point the lady muttered to her partner, "No, we can't go and talk to him, he's an artist..." then seeing a couple of my books that I always lay out for people to flick through said, "oh blimey, he's a poet as well", and with that they hurried away...some of us actually quite like talking to people, living on earth and all. Children, I noticed yesterday seem to be fascinated by some of my paintings, so the rest of this is basically redundant, if it's made a child smile it's good and I'll hear nothing on this to counter my opinion, sorry. However I shall continue anyway,  I have been told that it's because of the colours and shapes. I had hoped everyone would like that regardless of deeper meaning, only liking one aspect of a painting, to me, would be like saying, "I love chocolate ice cream because it's brown", you wouldn't follow this logic and eat all that is brown,  it's important to see upon how many levels you do like something. The last people I shall mention illustrate this point perfectly, a couple in their mid twenties stopped to have a look, they both smiled and nodded, the young lady turned to her fella and said, "Gorgeous", just the one word, to which he replied, "Damn, it's like music, how can just listen to one of a singer's songs". This comment alone made the day worth while. I will leave you with an odd little sketch I drew yesterday whilst smiling at the new born critics...whether they liked my paintings or not I hope they took something of value from the day too. To perfect to be sullied...

Peace In All