As a Painter you can be relatively poor compared with other professionals , but have more responsibility to shoulder to respond to the vocation of prioritizing your own chosen medium. I'm sure the powers that be in the Liberal Arts would label me a failed Tory, but what if I'm trying to restore the position of the medium that I work with within the establishment of Art in this country determining all things Artistic? Wouldn't I be called a rebellious Tory challenging the reputation of the Art establishment? That's right we have an establishment in Art that is Left leaning as opposed to the political establishment of centuries in Britain that is well documented. Furthermore what if right leaning Artists were not materialistic and fundamentally idealistic?
I believe in a Toryism that is both idealistic and pragmatic, where a Painter can influence his own conduct in the rejection of whichever commercial galleries informed by his refusal to be a 'Liberal Art's' hack? I've stood my ground for 30 years and I'm delighted to tell you that I'm still not prepared to slobber over Liberal Art's left wing instincts and their money-making(and contradictory) niche. But is this my vocation- to see if it is possible, to try living on a shoestring but not to weaken in the face of adversity? Is this a line similar to line in the sand that the Left so deftly refer to as their NHS factor? Well, in Artistic terms this is my NHS, this is my non-materialistic principle.
As a Painter in Britain, I'd like to field the endeavour of service that some of my buddies literally working in the NHS do for the NHS without question. I know a few who work in psychiatry who protect and resource those vulnerable in society, for little or no wage. They deal with the horror of breakdown and terrible psychological damage and disability. I'm sure the intervention of Princes William and Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge was truly welcome when they promote issues of mental health. They have de- stigmatized mental illness every time they can, and for many Left thinking people in the NHS that I know, they have been a revelation, destroying critical Leftish thinking by showing both pragmatism and service to a section of the community that the Left assumes is marginalized and ignored by the likes of 'aristocratic people'. I hope that they are recognized as the valuable and informed people that must be, who aren't bothered by social stratification but are more bothered by the social issues that they obviously are concerned about.
Painting is I suppose can (tenuously I admit) be the Artistic medium that is broken as far as the fashionable are concerned, and have been since the 80's according to some Art Histotians.
Suffering a breakdown in its ability to converse with the ever changing technologies has often been attributed to it being exhausted of invention due to its limited physical criteria.Hate to stretch things, but Prince William's swapping from a degree in Art History for Geography at St Andrews, probably reflects many who are dissillusioned by the 'Art Circus' of trendy terra firma for the Left. Perhaps Art should re-think its own geography before it siddles up to Labour, and perhaps new demographics and new skills from those you wouldn't hitherto associate with progressive thinking, have and represent a fresh and valuable contribution to Art and society. Voting 2 centuries was done by a small fraction, but that majority of those that are eligible to vote today can do so with the news that they represent the future that doesn't rely on old ways of thinking and allegiances that are no longer as rigid. As a Painter for the last 30 years, this creativity transcends all previous barriers, and thank god for that.