Help me please, I am an Artist

Hello, my name is Lorz and I am an Artist.

Hello Lorz, welcome to Artists Anonymous, have you anything that you would like to share with the group today?

Well, it’s been a bad week, I couldn’t stop myself... I.... I.... I umh!! Sorry, it’s difficult to talk about it..

Relax Lorz, we’re all friends here.

Thanks, well, umh! I pa... pa.. pa pa..... painted....

Group... Oh! Dear LorZ.

I tried very very hard not to... It all started to get bad for me on Sunday. Sundays are always bad for me... too much time. I wanted to stay locked up at home, but they insisted... told me it was the weekend... told me it was family time and we should do something nice... I knew what was coming.. a walk... agh! Fresh air would do me good they said. Agh! I made excuses, but they have me bound in guilt, they pushed, I had no way out of this... They won’t let me stay here on my own... not since they caught me painting again.

So, it was a walk... and by the sea was suggested

Argh!!!! NOT BY THE SEA.... PLEASE I BEG YOU...

Don’t be silly, it will be lovely....

They threw pebbles
I saw patterns
They laid blankets
I felt movement
They spotted crabs
I fell into harmonies and contrasts
They unwrapped sandwiches
I visualised in grids
They called to fishermen
I reference to colour charts...

So it went on, the knot inside grew.. their words faded.. my head crowded.
I can’t remember the journey home, but when I briefly revived from musing, they were angry.

We know what you were up to...
We know the signs now...
You were thinking of another painting....

Well?

Er!!! No! I was contemplating finding a job... you know a proper job...

Hmmm! Liar!

Sunday night was terrible, Monday was worst.. I could not stop thinking about it.. my head had it visualised, had it sketched in 3B, had it under-painted, had the sequence of construction mapped. My hands practised critical brush strokes; checklists of materials filled my head. Sleep never came, the little voice didn’t stop, I twisted maybe five kilometres a nocturnal hour but never left my masterpiece.

I was supposed tour recruitment agencies on Monday, they packed me off in a tie, made me shave, and even re-dressed me into something called co-ordinated. Printouts of my abilities were wedged into my backpack and a list of names and addresses stapled to my cuff.

I wish I could say that I tried, I really do! But I failed terribly... While sat laboriously waiting for the first interview at a place called HR Solutions (or something like that) I drifted into doodling on the back of my completed application form... Minutes passed... doodles grew... sharper looking candidates queue jumped me. Doodles interchanged with jottings. Pressed jackets and shiny briefcases vaulted my dishevelled position. But I didn’t care anymore, I was busy, I was creating... a list of needed paints started to materialise in the jotting... and I knew what had to be done... The fire escape beckoned... the canvas called. I had more important things to do than serve burgers in a stripy hat anyway... There is a masterpiece waiting to be created.

So, I fell from my promise, through the barred No-Exit door and stumbled towards the Art shop, list in hand.

And how do you feel now LorZ, did you get it out of your system and back onto the path?

No, it just got worst.

The Art dealer was happy to see me back, well he would be it’s his living. They have told him not to sell to me, but he is inscrutable, his morals stretch only as far as his pockets. I want to blame him for my addiction, but that’s unfair, he is just the supplier. I am the one that is obsessed and weak. As usual we deal, he trades me a yard of finest Belgium weave stretched over soft maple splines, a pastiche of ocean tubes, finest single pigs he says and splashed my palette with a cheeky line of iridescent white, a taster sample he says. Fab I thought that’ll zenith the tops of my waves resplendently. So I stripped, pass the tie, shoes and coat under the counter and secrete my wrap of contraband under my shirt. No time to think about being cold and blistered feet now. The suffering will only last till I get to the Arnault’s house and claim my fortune; he buys Masterpieces and he’s flush. If it all goes south I shall fall back to the mythical big boys who attacked and robbed me story again.

The dealer is good with this trading schema, most of us artists are kept, or as we like to say sponsored. Let’s be real for a moment, none of our art sells, we craft facsimiles of moments of inspirations, deluded that we won’t commercialise from our artistic piety. Spending more on materials that we could ever recover. Churning out neurotic masterpieces, our very own pièce de résistance which to everybody-else classifies as ‘oh that’s nice’. No hands reach for chequebooks. The dealer knows this; he knows we are poor and desperate. He has adapted from the regular cash and receipt concept and created an empire on the back of our birthday presents. We all know how it works now, they won’t fund our art, buy us paints anymore... So we have adapted too, hints to granny that we need a watch, a fountain pen, a tradable... I am told the dealer has other affiliated business, shops with barred windows, where our presents are laundered along side car stereos with cut wires and misappropriated wallets with variegated photographs of innominate loved ones inside.

Sometimes but rarely he will take a piece of art as a trade. I surmise he has cultivated a monopsony market for Art around these parts. Try as we might, all local doors are firmly closed to portfolio bearers. However I occasionally spot the un-mistakable signature of a fellow dependent hanging in the waiting rooms of doctors and dentists, also retirement homes (seascapes and floral only). Yes, the dealer has his hooks everywhere, exploiting and segregating us all through his evil hub of supply and demand for his profit at our loss.

Anyway, he has a small back room, where consumers can take their fix in privacy, protected away from our guardians and sponsors. He set me up, easel, water, apron (essential as I must eventually return home clean). He only has used brushes available and that always worries me, the possibility of contamination from the last user is a big risk. He says he cleans them, but how well? I once heard of a sunset ruined by traces of Winsor Green from a previous user here. But what can I do, I didn’t prepare for this, couldn’t prepare for this. Anyway they have taken all my brushes anyway and I am supposed to be embarking on a prosperous career in fast food not destroying my life here.

So I paint, twisting the caps off the tubes gives me an instant rush, the unmistakable scent of mediums, I breath it all in deeply in anticipation, good time memories absorb me, a smile cracks open, the first for many months. But it doesn’t last, the first stroke disheartens, it doesn’t go well, stress and guilt weigh heavily, suppressing the high that should arrive, strangling the channel from mind to brush tip. I’m jerky and stiff, it’s un-fulfilling, and does not quench the thirst. The sensation awaited for so long disappoints. I let it run, wait for the mediums hit to kick in, waiting, waiting waiting. Nothing. I feel lower than when I walked in...

Nothing flows.

Assessment of my oeuvre so far, transmigrates to me, what am I doing, why am I doing this. Just looking at the canvas makes me shudder, am I really that bad, have I been kidding myself all this time, false impression of talents to fulfil chromatic aspirations. That feeling again, that I am not a real artist, just a talentless enthusiastic amateur engulfs me. I sink lower, not the adventure I sought for today.

I look at the colours stroked, something lacks, it should be a vivid reality, but it barely registers as monotone. Examining the tubes, the Phthalos are dull, opaque and dense. The dealer has been cutting pigments again... replacing my desired single organics with blended inorganics. The swine has cut me with umbers.

Vexation of my artistic competencies pirouette rapidly to indignation. Why does he have to do that to me... Obviously exploitation of a painting junky and pure greed. He knows he has me trapped, that I do not mind, especially as I pay 15% over street for tubes, just to be able to use his back room... and I leave him the half tubes when I’m done well I can hardly take them home can I? But to cut my pigments with umbers, I’m devastated.

I’m done I decide.

Finished with painting, going straight. I’ve put my heart and soul into it all these years, I live it, breathe it, it consumed me. Now I am spent. Painting renders me only unrewarding torture.

Sure, everyone liked what I did, but nobody bought any of it. I sold nothing. Covered my walls with creations of my ingenuity. They try to stop me.. but I fought them hard. I thought it was important, my work, my creations, my soul immortalised in pigments for generations of visual pleasures... But the pain to be an artist... is it too much.... to bear!

I Pollocked the canvas, stamping flat those costly and fraudulent tubes, leaving nothing for the Swine’s wealth recycling....

I leave, canvas less, stomping in socks, leaving footprints of oceans hues (umber corrupted), tears streaking and I know I’m in big trouble, my masterpiece would have made it all worth it. Instead I am empty and cold... The anguish of art.

What I need now, is an Artists Anonymous meeting and stripy hat job...

Well thank you for that LorZ, did you get the job?
No, I am too old, have too many A levels, and not enough experience.
But you came here to your first meeting, did it help?
Yes, thank you for listening to me.
Do you think you are cured of painting now?

Oh, Yes! Definitely!

I am taking up poetry...... as soon as they give me back my library card and granny sends my birthday present, I hinted for a nice fountain pen! The dealer tells me there is a big market for limericks and he has great offers on vellum.


LorZ
14th March 2015
Tarragona

Click Here for More Information