We’re Antiques Roadshow fans in this house. It’s quite often on in the background while dinner is cooking, with cries of ‘Ten thousand dollars? Tell ‘em he’s dreaming!’ ringing out after the big ticket items have been presented.
My favourite items are always the glassware - I find the way glasswork has evolved over the years to be so fascinating, and the fact that these extremely fragile items have lasted hundreds, and in one case thousands of years is a testament to how even the most vulnerable of us can survive if we are taken care of.
Of course, I’m always interested when paintings come up, especially where there’s a collection from the same artist. I love seeing how sketches sit alongside finished works, and the development of an artist’s style over the years. I love that they show local talents as well as national and international stars, proving that success can be relative, and as long as your art is being sold and appreciated, it doesn’t really how big your audience (or your price tag!) is.
Sometimes when I’m painting, or scanning my work into digital files, or filing practice works away, I think about someone discovering the cache of my archived works and taking them along to the Antiques Roadshow. Of course, this is decades into the future when my work has become of some renown, and people are interested in seeing the early works.
‘Ahh, see here - the evolution of the ‘Rainbow Wattle’ piece. This was the first work she ever produced, you know - I believe she attended a ‘Brushes and Brews’ workshop with her sister-in-law and fell in love with the medium. Periodically she would return to this subject, initially to see for herself how far she had progressed as an artist on a technical level, and later on to demonstrate the evolution of her personal style’.
I wonder what they will make of all these old practice pieces - many of which I would be perfectly happy to never see the light of day again. Will they sell as a collection to someone who was interested in owning the first tentative brushstrokes I made as I explored what it meant to be a watercolourist? Will some paintings be pulled out to be sold separately, hidden gems that even I didn’t see the potential of? Will some gallery or museum somewhere put together an exhibition of the evolution of my work?
I paint for myself and am grateful that other people enjoy it. If it never becomes my sole income, if I never gain an audience beyond the people who know me, if I never sell a single painting, I will still be happy because I am creating.
But still, it’s fun to dream of success and what might become of my art when I am gone.
Maybe in 2062 a distant descendant of my family will be watching the Antiques Roadshow and see one of my pieces come up. ‘Ten thousand bitcoin? Tell ‘em she’s dreaming!’