A portrait of an artist
Madame Chairman, ladies & gentlemen,
Does anyone else enjoy the luxury of stepping out of the hustle and bustle of day to day
life and slipping into the tranquillity of an art gallery? [ pause ]
If I am in a city with time between meetings I often do just that. It tends to put any
niggling work problems I have into their proper perspective.
This self-administered “psychotherapy” and living with an artist son for 23 years has led
me to the conclusion that artists are born destined to create. [ pause ] I also believe that
if you take away the opportunity to create, the artist’s very reason for being … ceases to
exist.
The journey from birth to creative is not without its challenges however, especially for
the parents.
For instance…How do you deal with a one year old child who risks melanoma from
prolonged sun exposure because of his unquenchable fascination for making sandshapes in the sandpit?
What do you say to a three year old who comes home from nursery utterly distraught
because he has just discovered his class is timetabled to paint only once a week?
And why on earth would your five year old be pulling
grotesque faces in the mirror
and shining a torch in his mouth? The answer to that one by the way was so he could
sculpt the inside of his head!
Eventually, even the most distracted of parents recognise a pattern!
I suppose we were lucky, we had some clues we might have an artist. But what would
you think if your child came home one day and announced they were going to be an
artist? [ pause ] Imagine in your mind’s eye a typical artist…
 a bit eccentric,
 unkempt clothing,
 paint splattered shoes,

& SKINT?
As a careers adviser distressed parents often implore me to “talk some sense” into their
offspring’s heads. “BUT”, they cry, “she is SO intelligent, why waste her potential on
art? PLEASE tell her to do something safe & sensible like [ pause] Law”.
Artists do not have a safe path to follow, with a career ladder, pension plan and regular
hours. They may not know where their next pay cheque is coming from, so they need to
be able to cope with uncertainly, yet have the certainty they will succeed.
AND SO DO THEIR PARENTS!
That their son or daughter should become an artist is the aspirational parent’s nightmare
scenario. Imagine the dinner party circuit (now at this point you have to remember I work
in some seriously posh schools!). The conversation starts like this: “DO tell me Jocasta,
what IS young Tarquin doing nowadays?” [ pause ] The killer question hits poor Jocasta
like an Exocet missile. She turns for help to husband Quentin “City Banker” but he has
conveniently stuffed another crudité into his mouth and refuses to meet her eyes. [ pause ]
Jocasta has no option but to try to put a spin on the fact that their pride and joy, Tarquin,
so much potential, is now an untidy, paint splattered eccentric, and is unequivocally SKINT.
Such shame.
I think that Jocasta and Quentin have no issue with art as such. They are almost certainly
admirers of …Monet or …Renoir. Their problem is whether their son can ever expect to
find fame & fortune in his lifetime. Or whether he will wither and perish for his art,
only to be resurrected from an unknown graveyard centuries later.
So what drives Tarquin and others to eschew the parental path of financial riches and
embrace their creative character?
I would venture to suggest that the true artist has no choice. Something deep within them
drives the creative force and to deny their true nature is to stifle their very being.
I have a litmus test for art. If a student asks me for help in deciding whether or not to
follow art, I ask them to imagine their life as if I have taken their art away from them.
The true artists cannot imagine their lives without art. 
The urge to create, runs deep
within their veins. It is so entwined in their life
force that if the Tarquins of the world deny their destiny they end up questioning
how they ever ended up in some soul-destroying-job which sucks out the very essence of
who they are.
But let me turn the tables for a moment and ask not whether the artist can lives their lives
without art, but whether we the non-artists can live our lives without their art?
Without art our non-artist lives would be as if in monochrome. Even if we discount art in
the widest sense and exclude “The Arts”, to live our lives in the absence of art would
make for a very dull and introspective world indeed.
Art transports us to different times and places. Through it we can experience our world
& understand not just our society and culture, but those of others.
Artists create visual records - serving as historians, documenting life … on canvass, with
photography, or in sculpture. Art can challenge beliefs, trigger emotions …or provoke
debate. (Think of Tracy Emin’s “Unmade Bed” for instance!)
And through the artist’s eyes we can be lifted
beyond the confines of reality
& everyday banality and into another, arguably Nirvana-like world. I’m thinking here of
Michelangelo’s fresco “Creativity is Life” on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
So we need the artists as much as the artists need to create. Tarquin, and my son,
may never reap huge financial rewards but they add immeasurable richness of thought
and vision to our lives.
So the next time you are in the midst of the hustle and bustle of everyday life and
you spot an art gallery, slip inside and treat yourself to the artists’ portraits of life.