YOU ARE NOT NORMAL!

Hey, you found me...welcome! OK, so now you're here, let me rephrase that rather rude statement and replace the word 'normal', with 'ordinary'.

"You are not ordinary"...sounds much better, right?

Why? ...those two words essentially mean the same thing, but with subtle differences

Normal = Functioning properly and free from mental or physical impairment and therefore healthy.

Ordinary = means reliable, or down-to-earth. It celebrates the everyday, relatable qualities that make up the vast majority of people.

Both mean 'sound of mind, body and spirit' but one 'feels' more 'judgey' in the negative than the other...?

Those much wiser than I, apparently, have concluded that most people respond quicker to a perceived insult than to something agreeable and therefore, benign, and I guess that the fact that you are reading this, annoyingly, proves their point, so fair play to them.

I believe (and this is just my take on things), that people who buy or collect art, are not ordinary consumers. Ordinary consumers often consume without much thought or consideration - think, Temu impulse buyers.

Conversely, people who 'consume' art are thinkers...they have an acute awareness and fundamentally understand that buying art is a connection to something deeper than that which is surface level, which - (and again, just my opinion), is NOT so 'normal' by the first definition, cited above.

Disclaimer notice: I feel I should, at this point, shoehorn in a small caveat to the above to qualify that I am by no means 'throwing shade' on Temu impulse buyers ...some of my best friends are Temu impulse buyers for goodness sakes! ...no, joking aside, I'm not, and I am sure that most of us have been guilty of doing just that, including me (although not on Temu). Read on...

People who make art are often the same people who have experienced an unusual amount of emotional challenge and discomfort and have a hard time processing the deep emotions that discomfort creates. To prevent an inevitable breakdown, an artist will often try to channel these feelings in the only way they know how, via calm, creative engagement, which may or may not result in a successful work of art that you might get to see. Conversely, the 'normal' people seem able to easily absorb, digest, defecate and wipe clean these feelings and go about their ordinary lives, blissfully unaware that they were ever affected.

Their emotional barriers are drum tight, seeming to easily deflect the daily emotional missiles coming at them from all directions. Whereas your emotional barrier is probably a bit softer and more absorbent, allowing a lot more of those emotional pathogens through.

However, some people who seem not to be interested in art may also share the above-mentioned easy absorbency and seem to deal with life's emotional missiles by adopting pain-numbing and sometimes destructive behaviour via overconsumption of 'things' (oh no, we're back to Temu again)

You, on the other hand, can feel every bit as deeply as the artist who created the art you admire, which, for both you and the artist, provides the healing salve.

Your reasons for buying art may allow you to express your thoughts and feelings indirectly. You see the wisdom in sidestepping the time and expense of teaching yourself the art skills you need to create art that speaks to you and provides that all-important emotional fortress. You see that, by procuring those skills in the form of art, well-made by an established artist, is by far the best solution, as it essentially 'kills two birds with one stone' - you maintain your emotional fortress and help the artist build theirs via a sustainable business.

It is perhaps customary at this juncture to conclude by signing off with '...hope that all makes sense, but I am not going to in this instance, because I know who I am talking to here.

After all, we understand each other.

Above: my drawings for the 'Common Denominator' project.

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