Roger in Kuwait, part 5

If I start to paint for money I risk losing the objective and message that I try to convey and then all is lost. Not to say that I won’t make more money, I probably would. What I’m afraid of is losing the relationship that I have with what I do and the love and respect I have for those around me and life in general.

I just noticed that I used the word “relationship” in the sentence above and that struck me. Look at the way the word is constructed; “Relation” and “Ship”. You can perhaps understand that as love and respect placed in a ship, steering your life for better and for worse. What we need to get away from is money, letting the stress of the daily day get to you, not spending enough time with your family and friends and not trying to see the beautiful things that there are in this life of ours. That is my sales technique, if I ever had one.

The second day of the exhibition started slowly at 16.30, I believe we were all grateful for this as it gave us some more time to talk to the many interesting people who came to see our works. Paintings went slowly and imperceptibly, often the subject of a "hello" and some talk, the person, or persons, walking away and coming back before deals were struck.
I think this is the right way and I love the quiet sounds coming from people who spends some quality time looking deeply in to a work of art and small talk; it’s similar to the hum that can be heard in a good restaurant where we, as people, just sit, eat and enjoy. The second, and last day, ended with the desired and seemingly unattainable “sold out” being declared after checking that all works had the red round sticker next to them. We spent some time, exhausted, with the sponsors and the representatives from the Danish consulate congratulating ourselves on the success and the way that things had been planned and carried out.

The following morning we got up early, everything we had brought with us needed to find its buyer and paintings wrapped, ready for delivery. It may be sad to part with the works but that is also a positive thing; it allows you to clean the slate and look forward, you cannot develop as long as you hang on to what you have done previously.

We had two days to wrap up before heading home and those days were not just spent packing, we also had the honour of an invitation to the Art Association of Kuwait.

I believe that nowhere can the state of affairs be seen more clearly than in the art and writings of a nation so we were very excited to see the works in the art association.

I’m not sure what I should, or could, expect. Was it to be strictly traditional works? Were the colours going to be dull brown, okra and yellows? Was there to be any inventive and expressionist works? Thoughts flew through my mind as we drove through Kuwait City with its mosque’s and minarets.

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