Torn.

 I'm sat on a train to Banbury to collect a car and drive it back up north to a customer.

They'll have it for a week or so and another employee will drive it back to Banbury. I know this because I do just that a few times a week. Today though there is no car to drive so its all the way on a train.

I would of course rather be painting. Why aren't I then.

Because I'm waiting to be "discovered"

That's the issue facing the young man in the book I'm reading, "The Kite Runner".

He's hoping to write stories. The fact I'm reading his book means he got, "discovered"

OK so to get discovered as a painter I need to paint more or paint better, or both.

Right now I can't do either. Yesterday I finally got a date for my shoulder operation to repair a torn tendon. Currently I can paint for about twenty mins on a flat surface, but that means small paintings.

I like to paint big. The operation is in January then I'll have six weeks in a sling. I may have to paint left handed. Does that mean I'll switch to the right side of my brain. 😂

I recall seeing the movie of this book many years ago, maybe not all of it. It didn't stick In my mind too much but there again it must have as I'm now reading it. Something must have hung around enough for be to reach for the book as I perused the second hand book shop. 

It's a story that reveals much of the life of a young Afghan boy in the 70s long before any wars. It seems a peaceful life until the Russian invasion. The countryside is described as beautiful. He paints a great picture of his home. 

My paintings are good (he says modestly) but clearly not good enough. Or shocking enough, or they don't have a story, or a message, or a fight attached to them. 

Am I playing safe?

I have ideas for paintings that will surprise my friends or maybe even society. 

They will reveal facets about me that i've kept to myself, closest friends and family. In fact in that sense then they won't surorise my nearest and dearest at all. 

So do I paint them?  I'll be sticking my head above the parapet, and opening myself to public scrutiny, to the murky scary world of online opinion. To keyboard social media warriors ready and waiting to attack from the safety of four brick walls and a catchy anonymous name. 

And for what? Fame, money, notoriety. 

I get annoyed when I see artists who have found fame and therefore potentially money that follows who I feel are inferior in skill to me. 

I do though have to accept they have been "discovered" and in doing so have opened themselves to the world at large. 

That takes guts. Artists create work that is part of their very being and allow it to be seen by many. 

Am I ready for that.... 

Am I ready to suffer the slings and arrows... 

Well I'm getting a sling.... The arrow may have to wait a bit longer... 😂