Fashions come and go but good art is great forever.

Fashions come and go but good art is great forever. It’s not seasonal. 

That’s a commercial for something that isn’t above commerce but should be. I don’t have to apologise for the fact that market forces drive content. I don’t have to apologise for the mistakes in art, even though they are often the best part of the deal. 

So many websites have a separate directory for something called Merch that it becomes intensely disturbing when all you do is Merch and nothing else. Art should never be Merch, and yet sometimes it’s absolutely impossible to keep the two entirely separate. I want to live in a world where Merch is Merch and Art is Art. 

I also want to fly free with the swallows, when they duck and dive and go crazy. I get vertigo and hanker after those tight formations that ducks or geese get into when they fly away to warmer climates. 

But as I said, art is not seasonal - and art is not a promo item for anyone’s brand. Art does not migrate to a warmer place when winter sets in and/or tastes change. Art is in for the long haul.

Sometimes you find it resting against a wall in a charity shop. That’s when you must feed it with love, because when it’s there it’s not an embarrassment. In its old age it’s like an ancient citizen volunteering with a warm heart, to take the pain away.