But is it...?

Down to London, today, to have a rehearsal for tomorrow's presentation. It was just the Minx and me plus the excellent lady, Héloise, who is helping us with our grant application. The Minx excels at presentations but I think she found it a little weird being in a room and presenting to only one person.

But it was fine - and soon over and done with - and we headed 'round the corner to the Royal Academy of the Arts for the Summer Exhibition, which, folks, is the world's largest 'open-submission' show, which means, I think, that anyone can put forward a piece to be displayed.. According to the literature, Grayson Perry - who led the committee of artists, this year - personally reviewed 20,000 pieces submitted by both recognised artists and the public. In the end, there were 1,300 pieces to look at.

And wandering through the exhibition halls was very much like flicking through a box of second hand singles in a charity shop. Lots and lots that didn't warrant a second glance, a few 'oh, that's interesting', and, happily, an intermittent trickle of gems. 

Some of the pieces are stunning works that are clearly the product of a lot of time and talent, others look almost as if they were tossed off in a few minutes, but the joy that they might give is not necessarily proportional to the effort and skill. I'm not sure where I'd class the piece in the photo: a bit of work has gone into it, clearly, although if it hadn't had a catalogue number underneath it, I might not have looked at it long enough to realise it wasn't a real alarm. 

Which is not to say it isn't a good piece of art, it's just that I didn't particularly care for it. (Although someone did; the red dot indicates that it's been purchased.) I like things for lots of different reasons and it's very rare that I can provide a straightforward justification for why something - a photo, a piece of music, a building - particularly appeals to me. 

About ten years ago, around the age of seventy, my Dad took up water colour painting. The pictures he produces are lovely. A little technically naive, of course, but charming. I have one that I particularly liked, of a post box, on a wall at home. It appeals to me for many reasons and that fact that my Dad did it is only one of them.

Ultimately, if you create something and want to call it art, that's fine by me. I suppose if other people agree with you then that must be reassuring but, you know, over twenty years ago I was in a band that didn't even have a name, and we wrote and recorded nine or ten songs. I never met anyone who liked any of them* but we did and that really was all that mattered. No one could tell us it wasn't an album of songs, a piece of work, art.

*Actually, my brother's mate, Dave, liked one called 'Pitfish' but I didn't want to spoil the flow of my prose :-)

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Reading: ‘The Janissary Tree’ by Jason Goodwin