Who do you think of when I say the word -

My dad is an artist.

When he was eleven he drew a small and beautiful protrait of the small and beautiful home he'd been born in, near Zelah, on the edge of the estate of a wealthy landowner in the Duchy of Cornwall.

Four young boys (one of them his uncle), two parents, one grandmother, one cat, six chickens, and two trimmed bay trees by the front door. Four rooms - kitchen, lounge, two bedrooms. Three adults, four children: home.

He painted the small picure with watercolours and found a frame for it too. He was talented, with an eye for light and detail, and it shone through.

As the oldest boy, he was told not asked, a trade not art college, a proper job not messing about with paints and pencils - and so with the stinging welts from a leather belt on his young skin he turned his eye for detail and light to an escape: a flight path away from an old man with heavy hands and hate in his heart.

When he joined the RAF at fifteen with dreams of flying, he found that a boy of undistinguished background was not meant for great things in the forces. Officer class was inherited, not attained. He was shaved, broken and shamed as part of the standard induction, and a further interruption in his fantasy of change came with the news that he was, in fact, colour blind.

His plan of escape from a life of measured means had folded in on itself, so he made the best he could - cultivated jokes about the high action life of a low ranking military clerk, and did what he knew well already - keep going - work - cause you can't fly a plane when your reds and greens look exactly the same.

My dad is an artist.

Years after that watercolour house he still paints, on weekends, between split shifts he paints. Evenings after being paid minimally for the hours he's given, he paints. Now the hallucinogenic skyscapes that sell so well at the amature art show in the park each year leave him bored - so with encouragement he stretches into new things. Interest and skill work against the voice of an abusive father and long lines of dismissive folk who'd rather trust their assumptions about working class men than stop and actually SEE the caretaking, glass fitting, labouring, load shifting, unemployed metal fabricating, bingo calling, heavy hauling, jam factory line operating, child rearing ARTIST before them.

My dad draws, inks and paints. Fantastical visions and Alberta skies. Cornish sidestreets. He's a man with a rough past and calloused hands. And he is an artist.

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This is the first of what might be a few posts about art, class, and who gets to do and say what about what, inspired by a similarly sidewinding conversation with the boy. He's an Art Historian don't you know. Of COURSE that must mean he's middle class. Right?