Suffering artist

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

Bollocks!

I have talent as you can see from my renditioning of the 'Three Wise Monkeys' visual parable, and I am often told, "Wow, that's great - but I couldn't live with it". I try to inform them not to compare my drawings/paintings to chocolate box covers, or relate them to commercial crap. I tell folks to open their eyes to the possibility of having one as a talking point, or as a one-off art investment, especially as I am fast approaching the age of mortality. Listen to this artist. Everyone knows that once one has shuffled off his mortal coils, one's artwork increases in value. Just ask Van Gogh.

Art is my passion

My works certainly warrant the 'talking point' label. They also make for great exhibitions. I have exhibited my art internationally, including in the USA, Germany, Belgium, and Jamaica. I have also been involved in collaborative art projects such as a gigantic mural in a mountain village in Crete. So, when the public see one of my paintings hanging on a gallery wall and I overhear their comments, such as, "Oohh, it's very good but!". That bloody but! I inwardly tell them to shut up and buy one.

Where is my support?

There was a time that I really did sell myself to the devil as I was desperately in need of financial support. A friend of mine decided he needed to travel the continent to get ideas for a business venture involving building sheds. He told me that there was a massive pigeon convention in Holland, where everyone would be looking for sheds or lofts to house their birds. He also suggested that I should do paintings of pigeons as they would easily sell, and I would be good company on his travels.

So, that was when I went through my pigeon period - a dark moment of my artistic career. Shamefully I got stuck into creating small canvasses of life-size pigeons with reassurances from my pal that they would sell like hotcakes. I should not have listened to him and sold hotcakes instead.

We arrived at the massive venue in Holland, then made our way to the tiny, allotted space that I had rented from the organisers. I had been allocated a small, exhibition area where I set up my pigeon pics, expecting the passionate pigeon lovers to flock to my display. Not so. It was as if I didn’t exist. The bird fanciers were far too focussed on looking at other birds and the top of the range pigeon lofts, that my display was not even given a glance, while my friend did his networking to get orders for making lofts.

Neither of us was successful, so at the end of the day I’d sold not one painting and he never received any orders. When the next Christmas arrived lots of my mates and relatives received original paintings – of bloody pigeons.

I did have a very profitable side to my art. That period lasted about ten years. I know you are dying to hear what this money-making, ten-year entrepreneurial business was and here it is… Pub signs.

Having painted a sign for a local landlord pal, I then took a photograph of the finished product hanging proudly outside his pub. With the photo tucked away in a posh-looking briefcase, I contacted a sign firm and arranged an interview with the boss. We met at the factory where I pulled out the picture and exclaimed to the owner that I was a pub-sign painter, and there was the proof.

After about 6 months of nothing, they approached me with a contract to paint Vaux Pub signs. One thing led to another, and I ended up painting signs for different breweries for ten years. By the end of those years, I was so pissed off with having no creative input for the signs (the breweries were notoriously narrow-minded). E.g. A King was a King, a Queen likewise. Bulls were black or grey, horses were bay or white, etc, etc. I could not deviate from the title one creative little bit.

The twice I tried ended up disastrously. I used to paint a self-portrait on all of the signs, sometimes obvious and sometimes subtle. I even became a cult pub signer with the national Pub Sign Association. Its members used to ring each other up from different parts of the country and swap photographs, somewhat like trainspotters do.

So, back to a Black Bull sign, I was commissioned to paint. I decided to paint my face on one of the bull’s bollocks and - the nerve of the brewery – they painted both balls out. Result, not much of a bull.

The second example was the ‘7 Stars’. When the brewery saw the sign, they exclaimed that it only had six stars, which included a supernova, a red dwarf, a red giant star, a hot blue star, and our own sun. “But where is the 7th star?” I was asked. My reply, as I pointed to a particularly dark patch on the picture, was, “a black hole. You have to look really carefully to not see it”. They were not amused.

By this time, I was so disillusioned, I’d decided I’d had enough. During that decade, I had painted almost 1000 double sided signs, and I used to photograph every one of them for my own reference. In my studio I had a wood-burning stove, so one day I opened the lid of the wood burner and poured every single one in, to be consumed by the fire. Well, I did not want to be thereafter known as Gavin Mayhew, the pub sign painter. I mean look at Holbein! No more pub signs thereafter.

An incredible coincidence happened regarding one of my signs. The odds of it happening were greater than winning the European lottery. Two of our dear friends, who lived in the USA, had a condo in the Adirondacks, where they’d decided to have a long weekend break. En route, they were driving through a small mountain town when Nona shouted to her husband Bob, “Stop the car!”. Panicking, Bob slammed on the brakes. “What’s wrong?” Nona just opened the door and quickly walked to an antique shop across the road. She called for the owner and asked about one of the items leaning outside the window. “Can you tell me about this?” she inquired. The owner then explained that it was an antique pub sign from the UK. Nona shook her head and explained that it was not antique.

“Oh but it is”, the lady defensively stated. “It was bought from an English gentleman who categorically stated that it was, indeed, antique”.

Nona’s reply, “Then how come the picture of the farmer hoeing the crops is my friend Gavin, who painted it?”

Sure enough, there was I cutting the wheat, as large as life. It turned out that the last time I saw the sign, was when it was left in storage at the Vaux Brewery warehouse. The lady was selling it for more than I was paid to do it. Talk about being undervalued. And, honest, I’m not THAT old.

Now that I am retired I have my own small studio (a converted garage) where I can create masterpieces for my very own pleasure, with no one breathing down my neck and telling me what to paint. My daughter, who lives just around the corner, now has a garage bulging with my paintings, awaiting someone to recognise me for my worth.

I probably will have to die suddenly, to finally get the recognition I deserve. I can’t wait!