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An Artist/Craftsman based in Glasgow, Scotland.

French Polisher and Antique Furniture Restorer for most of my life. Now spend an increasing amount of my time and energies painting. I bought brushes and paints shortly after Tracy Emin was made an Academician at the Royal Academy, so revolted and appalled was I that she was so 'honoured'. I felt sorry for all the real artist's being so insulted by the RA. I want to add good art to the mix, real art, quality art, art for other's enjoyment, not their revulsion.

My drive and 'motto' can best be summed up in the following, written by Vincent Van Gogh in 1883 to his brother Theo- “…Without any definite motive, I can’t help adding a thought which often occurs to me. Not only did I begin drawing relatively late in life, but it may also be that I shall not live for so very many years. …so I go on like an ignoramus who knows only this one thing: ‘In a few years I must finish a certain work.’ I need not rush myself too much--- there is no good in that, but I must work on in complete calmness and serenity, as regularly and fixedly as possible. The world concerns me only insofar as I feel a certain indebtedness and duty toward it because I have walked this earth for so many years, and, out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures --- not made to please a certain taste in art, but to express a sincere human feeling. So this work is my aim --- and when one concentrates on that one idea, everything one does is simplified in that it is not chaotic, but all done with one object in mind”

19th April 2009. Must add this quote from the International Art Critic Stephen Hughes from a marvellous television programme recently about the shocking state of Modern Art and where most of the big money is going because people like Emin and Hirst have been pimped by the Sattchi's...


"If art can’t tell us something about the world we live in, then I don’t think there’s much point in having it….. what good is art, what use is art, what does it do... is what it does actually worth doing and an art which is completely monaterised in the way that it’s getting these days [showed work by Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin on screen] is going to have to answer these questions or it is going to die.

23rd September 2009. here is one of my favourite quotes from Glasgow architect and furniture designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1902..... "All Artists know the pleasure derivable from their works is their life's pleasure--- the very spirit and soul of their existence."