Stories From…

The Cheese Fair

Picture me sitting indoors, possibly at the kitchen worktop with my laptop in front of me, a cup of tea by my side on a Frida Kahlo coaster with maybe a small cake on a plate next to it. I look out through the open kitchen door, and the sounds of distant life and nearby birds waft through to ease me on with my work.

So, why on earth would I choose to swap this for single-handedly erecting a heavy gazebo, taking half a house worth’s furniture out of the back of my car (after having dragged most of it down from the attic and loaded it all in there in the first place), to then stand for hours on end in a field (sometimes hot and dry, sometimes wet and cold) so that by the end of it every ounce of life force seems to have been extracted from my body?

Because there’s nothing better (in my world) than talking to people about my art, their lives, my life and their art, or their love of it.

Take this weekend at the Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival. I did all of said lugging of large objects from the attic, I did all the driving to the field and the erecting of gazebo and installing of ‘furniture’, and was as a result, paid well for the efforts - some in the welcome and necessary monetary form, and in many other ways too; namely by excellent conversations and stories.

For example, there was the lady who worked her way along through my case of prints, onto my display of brooches and magnets, over to the cards and the mugs and bags and back. Then she told me that my work reminded her of ‘The Mousehole Cat’, a book she loves, which is one I love too. We talk of Cornwall and all the wonderful places she has lived there and which I have visited and know well, and the twinkle in her eye glitters just that bit more.

Then there is the lady who says she can’t buy anymore artworks as she and her husband are down-sizing now that they are past 80, but who still enjoys the looking all the same. She is then joined by her husband who is equally enthusiastic and as she drifts off to the next stall, he tells me about all the photographs he has taken over his life, which are now sat unseen in his garage. We decide that it doesn’t matter that they are there as they have done their job and given him (in taking them) and all who have looked at them, much enjoyment over the years. He then talks about how working with dedication to find out who you are as an artist brings you real peace, and that floors me for a second as I realise that is true, and that I may indeed have already found some of mine. It may well be the holy grail of being an artist.

While I am on the subject of holy grails, another of my favourite encounters has to be the man who visited my stall on Sunday afternoon, and who hesitantly told me that some of my artworks reminded him of Monty Python. Well, I’m not sure which artworks he means but it is definitely a comparison I find amusingly welcome (he needn’t have hesitated), having grown up with and always loved them. Sometimes, it seems we just can’t escape our early inspirations!

So, even driving home feeling ‘glazed over’, being no longer able to count or speak coherently, slightly dehydrated and completely frazzled, I can say that all the hard work in getting to a fair is definitely worth it!