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See Mike's The Road to Poland: “My Polish Bracelet” paintings here:

http://mikeabsalompoland.blogspot.com http://mikeabsalompolishversion.blogspot.com

 

I began to draw long before I can remember beginning to draw and although I cannot recall precisely the subject of my earliest artistic endeavour, it was more than likely to have been a sketch of a Spitfire crashing in flames over the Channel or a Messerschmitt 109 machine-gunning the bathers on the beach at Torquay, for I was an observant child, and from the time I grew old enough to understand what people were talking about around me I took great pleasure in the graphic illustration of the daily events of my childhood. I preferred the macabre, and fortunately for me I lived in interesting times.

I may not remember my first drawing, but I certainly remember my first art critic.

I was four and a half years old, newly deposited in the local Kindergarten and bursting, I felt, with the urge to express myself in pencil. I did just that at the first opportunity and in the first place made available to me. This was my arithmetic exercise book, for we started young with our two times tables in those days, and the pages and pages of creamy white paper screamed out for the fulfilment of Spitfires and Messerschmitts and full frontal assaults up the beaches of Normandy. I did not disappoint those virgin pages; I poured my soul into them and filled them full. So full indeed that when the time came for tables there turned out to be no room for even one, let alone two times tables.

When the headmistress saw my portfolio she was speechless, but decided that I deserved a good talking to anyway, and did it with a bamboo cane. She was my first art critic and the memory is indelible. The marks left by the stick on my lower extremities turned out to be moderately delible, although they did last several months, which was plenty of time to think deeply about art and life and come to the conclusion that perhaps life would turn out to be more probable if I decided to let art go.

Well, in compensation I became a musician and did well enough. And I wrote, and that was satisfying too. But more and more, as a lifetime gradually slipped away behind me, I wondered…what would have happened if I had gone on with the Spitfires?

Now the time for wondering is over. These days there are a million other motifs that call for examination and here is a selection of my recent paintings and drawings.

 NB: Most of my works are for sale. All prices exclude shipping and insurance. Please email me to find out the best shipping procedure and payment option.

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