Split second decisions

Having spent the last two weekends gallery sitting I've had time to sit and surreptitiously watch the viewing public in an art gallery setting, and what surprised me most was how short a time people spend actually looking at art. Some people were taking two to four SECONDS to look at each painting! Now, I can do that too, for some art, because to me it might be a poorly painted piece, BUT when I see a painting I like, it'll stop me dead in my tracks and I will be transfixed for minutes infront of it, taking in its beauty and admiring the technical brilliance of it, or the choice of subject matter, the way the colours work together, or some other thing that makes it a stunning piece of work, for me. I love it when I see a painting that I couldn't improve on. But the majority of people obviously aren't artists so are therefore not looking it in the same way I do. And if I was to ask them about pictures they would say "Oh, I don't know anything about art!" to which I would reply "Oh.... BUT you DO!!" - in those split seconds their brains are analysing the artwork, deciding whether they like it or not, whether it appeals or repels, and making informed decisions about it. Sometimes you'll see a couple going around an art gallery and they'll stand infront of each and every painting and make loud comments about it "OOOh, I don't like this one!" or "That cat looks just like our neighbours three legged ginger tom, Lucky" or "Oh, we went there on holiday that wet Easter week when our Jane had measles and the dog threw up all over Grandma", and sometimes you learn from their comments......... and sometimes you wish you hadn't!!! (I stopped being sensitive years ago - I don't mind if people say out loud that they don't like a particular painting - at least they've noticed it).

But most people don't invite discussion with their companions, usually they make their own decisions in their own minds. Art's very personal. We either like it. Or we don't........

.........And what's really nice is after sitting in a gallery for two hours on my own, when for the first half hour there was a steady stream of people, then a WHOLE HOUR of not a soul, when the sun is blazing down on one of the nicest days of the year and I'm wondering why I'm stuck inside on my own on such a glorious day, until another steady stream of people arrives and no one says anything to me. I leave.......But the next day, when I went to collect my paintings, a woman who also stewarded the gallery at another time says that she adored my "A step above" painting and both she and her friend put it in their "Top Three" paintings of the whole exhibition and she loved it so much as it reminded her of her holidays in France, and asked me where it was of? I smiled and said "A tiny village in France, in the Ardeche". She said how much she loved it, and was very interested in buying it. She likes it and is thinking about it...............