Stub

I couldn't believe it!!! The ticket stub I cherished as priceless, where I got to stare at half a cow was now worth nothing. I had loved it, cherished it and framed it, and hung it next to Great Aunty Mabels photo from 1632, having left me her priceless egg cosy collection and a handful of Spam recipes.

Never mind your Steak Diane, a '70s concoction once lauded at the now White Wall Space, a hip and trendy (n'est pas?) commercial art gallery in Leigh On Sea. The re-purposed tertiary unit has received much press locally, which always helps with public perception. Can I take Christopher Mayes opinions as any kind of consensus? He traces the recent purposes of this building (aside from the fact that it has a very long and interesting local history) from restaurant to gallery. The menu, which he describes as "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" (Prawn Cocktail, Steak Diane, Black Forest Gateaux) having been made extinct by Nouvelle Cuisine, was lamented. Clear values: Get Stuffed.

"The majority would like to return home with a work of art that they can enjoy rather than a ticket stub for viewing half a cow." So there it is. The consensus, given to us. Is it true? Judging by the current businesses which outnumber galleries 10:1 in this area, it seems cushions and silk flowers, anything with crystal and faux diamonds is actually what people are taking home. A good argument for any gallerist. Anther aspiration for a good gallerist (oops, free advice from a non-gallerist) is possibly representing artists who have a national and international profile who live locally, but it's darn hard to find them if you don't know they're there. They live in nice terraced houses like the rest of us, go shopping at the Co-op and have a vision and appreciation of the world in languages that can remove the veil from one's eyes. As much as "local lads" are to be applauded, rooting out - headhunting - negotiating and curating is a journey that makes most gallerists intensely private, and most critics intensely loud. Let's throw in a few big names to give it that extra cachet (that's a '70's word too, is it not?)

Let's not. Not a consensus, but an observation: festivals are heaving, performance art is back in swing, flash mobbing has been an event near you since 2003; video art; under and overground the integration of artist, performer, participant and viewer: live events are where we're at, contrapuntal to the virtual world we live in, which is why flash mobbing exists at all. What reality is painting? The singular view of the painter, the vision as it stands, only of any merit through the craft values in which it is executed as the clarity of communication regularly hinders the message. So, not what it is, but how it's done. Lovely, but people want to live it, experience it... but like those strangers in the Co-op, only if you know it's there. Go and get it.