Aaah, ART GALLERIES

A lot of people go to art galleries ALL THE TIME (or so they tell me), and I LOVE that. Where would I be without them, after all? I love the feedback, I love the connections, it’s HEADY STUFF if you’re a painter. But darlings, you have NO IDEA what’s it’s like behind the scenes. I could write a BOOK (and maybe I will……….one day).


I speak from an artist’s point of view, of course, and it may sound as though I’m biting the hand that feeds me, but I have severely conflicting emotions when it comes to art galleries. If you’re HUGELY lucky, they can make you feel pretty good. OR they can make you feel like they’ve single-handedly saved you from a life of TOTAL OBSCURITY (thereby indebting you to them FOREVER, of course). I’ve had my fair share of them over the years, with varying degrees of – God, can I call it PLEASURE? I have to think about that. But with one notable exception, it could NEVER have been described as FUN.


BUT THEN – there was this note, you see, which popped up in my studio mail a long time ago, asking if I’d be interested in exhibiting with them. OH SURE, I thought, AND I believe in Santa Claus, I thought, and threw it into the bin.


One phone call later, and this lovely tiny hippy-chic person with a Cockney accent came through the door and into my life. Su Gibson. She’s been there ever since. She has wheedled, cajoled, coerced and persuaded me, as only she can, (I think out-and-out BLACKMAIL came into it occasionally) into more exhibitions than I had ever DREAMED of doing. And, much as I may have moaned and groaned along the way about the STRESS of it all – there’s ALWAYS stress – each one has pushed me along the road to confidence, and taken away some of the angst I’ve always felt deep down about my capabilities.


And it HAS been GREAT FUN. Okay, now and then a period of turbulence, but nothing that a really good friendship (which is what it became) couldn’t surmount. And ALWAYS – an abiding respect for each other. We sold a LOT of paintings, too. Spoilt me for life, it did.


Chalk Farm Gallery was – and still is – my idea of what an art gallery should be, but so seldom is.

It’s LOVELY to look at (see photo), fun to be in, AND – this is important, and the secret of her success, I think - HUGELY accessible to EVERYONE. Su has an irresistible energy and enthusiasm that just carries you along. And she LOVES art with a PASSION.


It couldn’t last, of course. Some years ago, she moved the gallery to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I have felt UTTERLY BEREFT ever since. Never having done this sort of thing before, I made one or two half-hearted approaches to other London galleries, and came away feeling like some sort of sub-species of humanity, with my morale in UTTER SHREDS. God, I HATED that.


And so I don’t do that any more. Because the one thing that my experience with Chalk Farm Gallery – and Su – has given me is the knowledge that the people who buy my paintings do so because they love them. Not because they’re investments, not because they’re important, not because some gallery person with a lot of hype topped up the sales figures. Just because they love them.


You CANNOT IMAGINE how good that feels.