I am thankful.

My exhibition was two days ago now and I’m still catching up on sleep. It all went great. I am very lucky to have so many wonderful people cheering me on with my creativity. Painting is such a solitary activity, and yet it is such an intimate way of communicating with more  people than I can imagine. At the opening of ‘Mudita’, I could not greet everyone personally but I could look around and see my paintings having conversations with the viewers. ‘Hi, I’m an ‘isbester’ … G’day, I’m new here … what are you laughing at? … take me home ..etc’ ( I imagine that paintings are very cheeky.)

One of the fun things is when people come to the openings and they have seen some of my paintings but have no idea what I look like. At the exhibition two ladies, very glamorously dressed, came hurriedly clip-clopping along the footpath to just outside the gallery. They stopped at the entrance catching their breath and smiling politely, and one asked me ‘Is this where we find the ‘isbester’s?’

I said ‘Yes you are in the right place. They’re just in there.’

They then seemed to spring past me,  pausing for a moment, to adjust the hair, stockings and cleavage etc before gracefully sliding through the door to meet the paintings. I loved that. I enjoyed also seeing their surprised  faces when they realized  during the opening speech that the guy they brushed past on the way in was the artist.

The truth is that the paintings themselves are the dashing extroverts that people have come to see. They do the talking. On the other hand there’s me. Just a guy, quietly observing, amused by irony and seduced by this beautiful floating world.

In nature, the deepest reflections can follow the briefest of rain showers and so I hope that the depth of my gratitude can be expressed with these brief words – I am thankful.