
I admit that I have never been a supporter of art for art’s sake. As a playwright when I begin a new project I always imagine the audience laughing or applauding. They are the end users of the months, sometimes years, of work I create alone at my desk. And I have finally come to accept, as it applies in the performing arts, the same goes for the visual arts.
A painter can sit and spend days, weeks or months on a piece and think that it is completed. However, until someone possesses it, either as a gift or purchase, is the process of creating art complete? I totally recognize the fact that art and its creation is good for the soul. But I’m talking about those who do it to feed oneself. In other words, a professional.
Now since I opened the TWG Gallery, I have come to appreciate, like a play that it is written well and waiting to be produced, a work of art hangs in the gallery waiting to be purchased. And not until a producer or theatre comes around and has the money or space to produce a play, a painting waits for someone with the funds and a place to display their purchase.
More and more each day I hear the words “That would look great…” either over, above or between a piece of furniture or architectural detail. And as the theatre is a playwright’s final venue, the living room or den belongs to the visual artist. Lucky is the playwright who receives sponsorship or the painter whose work is purchased by a public gallery or corporate collection.

25″ x 29″ by Johanna Van Kempen
So, the art that is hanging in any gallery is somewhere between being a commodity and an accent piece.
And here I thought I was in the business of promoting culture. I am in fact selling household interior objects. Perhaps I should be offering terms of “Don’t pay a cent until…” . Ay caramba!
til the week ends
Vince