Arthurs Plot

Life has been very kind to me. I arrived at a very early age with an interest in drawing and painting, encouraged by my father who trained in art in Poland. Then my grannie took me in hand to show me how to grow good roses. I was hooked and eventually took a career in horticulture with art as my hobby. Things went well till redundancy loomed as the Government decided to wind up all the New Towns. I worked in Landscape and Forestry in Livingston new town, so took redundancy in 1992 and changed career to a full time artist, and horticulture became the hobby, but then I discovered saskatoons on a holiday in Canada. I got hooked on this new fruit which was unheard of in UK. Got myself some seeds and tried them out. Starting with about 10 seedlings of Smoky and Thiessen I needed an allotment to grow them so ended up at City Road allotments. Saskatoons took off and as I collected my own seeds for propagation before long I was growing them by the hundreds and selling all over the UK. However the artist in me continually saw potential paintings amongst all the dilapidated sheds, falling down fences, pallets, wheelbarrows, tubs, pots and a massive variety of plants. Arthur, my neighbour had a fantastic collection of garden debris, but the gardeners nightmare plot was the artists dream. Asked Arthur if he minded me taking a few photos. He said to hang on a bit till he tidied it up. I thought, no, I just loved it as it were in the run down dilapidated unkept condition. My first painting of Arthurs Plot in Summer was the start, but then in autumn and winter I got more ideas for further wee masterpieces. The artist brain keeps asking the question, what if this or that were to change we could come up with a massive variety of different images. Today reality in art takes a back-seat to allow our creativity to take us into unknown areas, and colour and composition become more important if they make a better image. So I just could not resist adding red flowers to the potatoes. I must now have painted a dozen images of Arthurs Plot.