Recent sketchbook pages featuring cowslips
The Real Thing - a story
Some years ago (maybe sixteen).
My then-boyfriend and I are visiting the Fitzwilliam museum, in Cambridge. We are wandering about the painting collections, the dark grand galleries. I point out a few particular works. But today is not for conversation with old painted favourites. My boyfriend has not been here before, nor has he stepped foot in a museum or gallery since childhood. I watch him, a man in his forties, look at things with a little apprehension, amusement perhaps. But it was my turn to choose where we would spend our time and he wanted to see a bit more of ‘my world’.
‘These - these things are probably worth a lot of money?’ He asks. I agree. ‘So, they are the real thing?’ I am puzzled. I look around at the magnificent displays of fine historical art. ‘‘What do you mean, the real thing?’ I ask. He shrugs and says: ‘‘Well, maybe they are copies of the real thing. They put the real thing on display? The actual real thing?’
I smile. I wonder if he is playing with me. But I look into his blue eyes and know he is deadly serious. In some charming way he has built up an idea of things being real or not real, or there being a fake factory so that all the ‘real artworks’ are hidden from sight. Behind the panelled walls, maybe, are the real things.
‘Maybe,’ I suggest, ‘some are fake paintings but really good ones. But really they would still be the real thing. But that’s just confusing so don’t worry.’
His phone rings. He steps into a darker corner to whisper.’ Yeah, we’re in a museum… I know, I know. Getting a little culture., It’s all the real thing, you know.’
Later, over dinner he has cooked, my boyfriend tells me how much he enjoyed our visit to the Fitzwilliam, Really? I ask for reassurance but he nods. ‘The real thing,’ he says and we laugh.
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A painting from 2016 - inspired by gallery visiting and visitors.
I tell you this story because I often think to myself what is the real thing, and I am reminded of that afternoon at the Fitzwilliam. I sometimes wonder, when I look at my work, both past and present, if I am making the ‘real thing’ or just the version of. A version of. Or the copy that gets to be displayed. I would like to think my work is, as far as possible, the real thing: authentic. I suppose this is, yes, about authenticity, which is different, in some ways, to originality. I think the real thing is a piece of work that I can look at and think: I learned something from this. It is not so much about whether or not it will look good on Instagram, or even sell. It is about my journey with it, from the first inkling of an idea to how it evolves over the hours.
But however one wishes to muse on the idea… I thought you might like my story.
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Sketchbook pages from 2017
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Last week I shared with you two versions of a poem: How To Write A Spring Poem. Thanks to all we attempted a response, much appreciated! It really lit up my day to receive the poems and read them. I decided on one to share here. Thank you to Amy Camuglia for sharing her response with me. Amy was inspired by the line ‘un-name your childhood flowers’ and used this as her starting point
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Puffy Puffs
because “dandelion” will never do
take a deep breath and blow
it’s flufferlings into the openness
maybe one will land in the green
that is your neighbors yard
and they will curse under their breath
when they see the yellow
whose roots seem to reach China and can
never be totally foraged
- Amy Camuglia 2022
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A spring drawing is on its way to you Amy, thank you again.
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We have been enjoying several fine spring days here in the south of England. The neighbourhood is full of blossoms and blooms. It seems to be a particularly good year for magnolias. I really need to take my camera with me on my next meandering walk and record everything before it all disappears - shifts toward summer. The clocks sprang forward an hour this morning, which means I am sending this a little later than usual (also because it is Mothers Day here in the UK and was treated to tea in bed).
So please note, with the clock changes here and elsewhere - if you are overseas, kindly check the time when it comes to future shop updates. Thank you.
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Thanks always for reading here. I am so grateful to all subscribers. If you would like to share this post with a friend please do. All posts are free to all - I appreciate it if you would like to buy me a coffee to show support.
This made me smile, I work in a gallery shop and regularly get asked if the paintings are real. It always surprises me, it’s an art gallery, why wouldn’t they be real. And that’s when I realise that my experience of art is not the same as others. I was taken round galleries from a very young age, my degree is in History of Art, I work in a gallery, it would never occur to me to think that it’s a gallery of copies or print, just as I never consider the value, which is what I’m often asked after replying that they they are real.
This might be a sidetrack… but I have been thinking a lot about authenticity in my own art lately. Sometimes I make work I believe to be original (in the sense it is made by me, based on my creativity - not on a vague copy of something someone else has made before) but it still doesn’t feel authentic. And I wonder: WHY? How can something I have made with my own hands based on my own imagination not feel authentic?!? While other things I make feel immediately & unquestionable authentic to me. As if there are certain moves in my art I inhabit and others I don’t???