A true story

I graduated with a degree in Fine Art in 1985. In the summer of that year I rented a shop in the village of Aberdour in Fife. I used the back part of the shop as a studio and the front part as a gallery, where I displayed my pastel drawings and oil paintings. Aberdour was a quiet village. Not many people came into the shop and I was struggling to pay the rent. A few people wandered in to have a look, and I would chat to them, grateful for the company. I remember the feeling of elation when someone actually bought a piece of my work. There is no feeling like it.

There was one painting in particular that proved very popular: a girl in a vermilion dress stands on the beach, her long brown hair whipped up by the wind. Her back to the viewer, she looks out wistfully towards the horizon. Dark grey storm clouds are brewing, and the sea water forms little reflective pools in the ochre sand around her feet.

Someone bought the painting as soon as it went on show, and many visitors admired it. I proudly put a red dot in the corner to show that it had been sold. Unfortunately I can't remember who bought it. If you are reading this, and it was you, please let me know! I would love you to get in touch! Perhaps you could send me a photograph of the painting, if you still have it!

Anyway, one day a scruffy man with black curly hair and horn-rimmed glasses came into the gallery. He was probably in his mid thirties and spoke with a Fife accent. He made a bee-line for the painting and peered very closely at it.

"That one's been sold," I said proudly.

He said nothing. He just kept peering at the painting.

"A lot of people have admired it," I said. "I could have sold it a million times over."

"Well, why don't you paint more of the same?" asked the man.

I simply laughed. No artist worth their salt would paint the same thing over and over again, simply because it was popular!

"Then you'll never make it," he said.

He peered at the painting for a few minutes longer and sauntered out of the shop. I never saw him again.

Some years later I read in the national papers about a self-taught painter from Fife whose first exhibition had been a sell-out ...