Last week I was surprised and delighted to find one of my paintings sitting in the basement store of the Art Gallery of Ballarat. Acquired by the gallery through a benefactor’s donation it now awaits “accessioning”, that arcane process of numbering and cataloging that museums do in order to keep track of our history and culture.
The poor wee thing looks a bit lost and lonely down there right now, amongst works by Sidney Nolan, Fred Williams and other big guns of Australian art history. I swear I heard it whimpering. I felt sorry for it and left it with a saucer of warm milk and a digestive biscuit.
Who bought the piece- where?
I’ve no idea who bought the piece. It was in a show around 2006 and was sold then. The gallery I was with back then was keen for me not to meet the buyers. I guess they thought I might have done some private deals with them and “cut out the middle man”.
The middle man. Oy. Here’s a question for you Lars. Way back, when you first began liking your own painting, just a little, was it ever hard to part with them? To give them away? 😉
That’s a hard one. I think every so often there’s a painting I’ve made so recently I haven’t had time to “absorb” it (I guess in order to develop more work from it) and that’s hard to see them go as it interrupts the art-making journey. Mostly though I don’t have a lot of attachment to them once they’re made… for me it’s more the process than the result that’s important.
Lars, this is helpful. I’m a super new painter and have wondered if long time painters become more detached to final piece–and more absorbed in a creative unfolding –which is exactly what you’re saying happens for you. I’ve also thought that our individual creative lense might always be shifting our interest …and then what we feel attached to is temporary anyway. How it should be! Yes?🌿
Gosh, congratulations! Tipperary Track might be lonely now…eating it’s biscuit….but it sounds like it will soon have a long shelf life –garnering lots of well-earned attention!