Crazy bag lady

Art?:

Police have arrested a woman who said she placed the packages as works of art. She made the claim after walking into Hammersmith Police Station.

They just don't get Jack Vettriano

I’ve always admired the work of Jack Vettriano which is why I understand his frustration with an art world that doesn’t seem to appreciate his work.

He has been called the Jeffrey Archer of the art world. A purveyor of "dim erotica". A dabbler in "badly conceived soft porn". A painter who "just colours in". Most cutting of all, the critic Duncan Macmillan delivered the patronising one-liner: "He's welcome to paint so long as nobody takes him seriously."

Now I appreciate and understand to some extent that the upper echelons of the art world dabble in a sublime world that most of us can only glimpse but their treatment of Vettriano cannot, I think, be explained away by that alone. Also, I think their attitude serves only to push away people that might otherwise seek to explore art further, having been introduced to it by Vettriano’s accessible work.

I look at art, the painted form, as I look at photography. Content is king. If you catch that magical moment, the one that is so hard to explain but you know it when you see it, then execution is secondary. Indeed, some of the most iconic photographs of the modern age, a young man standing alone in front of a tank for instance, are meaningless when discussed in terms of sharpness, exposure and to some extent composition but are, nevertheless, more emotive, moving and inspiring than most of the work worshiped in the learned towers of the art world.

That is what I think lies at the core of Vettriano’s success as a modern artist. His choice of subject matter and his rendering of it as an observation. It strikes a chord with people, ordinary people who want something beautiful to look at that makes them feel something or someway. An art world that tries to separate feeling from the object is not worth preserving. An art world that does not accept as a success a person whose work strikes a chord with ordinary people, whose work people love not for its execution but for its content might as well pull up the drawbridges and accept that making art accessible is not really what they are about after all.

With age...

...comes wisdom:

Artist Damien Hirst has said that he thinks that some of his creations have been "silly" and "embarrassing".

Con-woman pulls off scam

The BBC paid £60,000 for the sculpture.

Street painting

This guy is amazing. Just take a look at this if you don't believe me.

Just popping in to say.....

...what a load of rubbish.