An Artist's Life

It’s the first warm (short sleeves) day of spring so I feel guilty about being indoors at the computer but I had to write this post as it has been in my head since last Monday and threatens to disappear.

Last Sunday night I say writer and former restaurateur Gay Bilson being interviewed about happiness.

For several years she has lived alone in the McLaren Valley, a wine producing area in South Australia. She spends her time gardening, cooking with the local produce, writing and indulging in her favourite pastime, reading. Her book Plenty talks about food and her life.

Lacking any capacity for loneliness, she made the point that it is not an extravagant life in the monetary sense but that she felt that being able to do exactly what she wanted was a source of great happiness. She also said that having plenty of what she enjoyed was a prerequisite for creativity and happiness.

I though that what she said was true and described the life led by a lot of artists. The stereotype of starving in a garret, partying and indulging in excesses is a romantic vision that most artists probably leave behind a few years after graduating.

Later in the week I encountered similar references to an artists life. Joanne Mattera has recently visited the studios of several artists and her post about her visits to Mary and Craig Barnes and Gerald Coble and Bob Nunnelly was filled with pictures of the good life which were remarkably similar to the images of Gay Bilson’s garden and the millions of spring garden images that I long to post on this blog, I hesitate to in case it looks like a gardens illustrated rather than an artist's blog. It’s a dilemma but here is just one image of the spring blossoms in my garden of plenty. What is your artist's life like?