Picture perfect!

There is a painting in my room that everyone wants to buy. It is a grey green mountainscape in early morning with ghostly white trees reaching their skeletal hands upwards, straining like eager beggars to the morning's stingy sunlight. I think it is in winter. There is the slightest reflection of the dim yellow of the sun in the water and that is it. I don't want anyone to buy the painting because then I will lose it. But I know how hard it is for artists to survive on painting alone, and part of me would like it to sell so that the artist can keep on creating.

I also wonder if I would buy the painting, had I the money. My dad is an artist and it would feel like a betrayal. Only because he needs money and whereas I would just take a picture from him without paying, I would have to buy from someone else. I would like my first purchase to be one of his, as I love his work. Not just because I am biased, I assure you. He has had so many phases in his work, ranging from purple orange portraits of Caribbean models to stippled landscapes, political art to abstract. My favourite is his work on censorship and his montages...the censorship pieces are brightly coloured ink and mixed media behind non-reflective glass, every word of the news print relevant to the piece in question, and suited somehow (accidentally) to any location. The montages are bigger, brighter, more personal, wood and plastic acrylic paints creating a vortex of shape and a riot of colour. I miss the painting he gave me that I have back in Ireland - the one titled "Van Gogh's room". The actual painting of Van Gogh it refers to is little like it except in a vague manner, but oddly, that Van Gogh painting is of great significance to me. It reminds me of the first card I received from my ex and the first picture we had in our first flat. It is odd that it has become the postcard of my life.

Summer is blooming in Barcelona. The sun flirts with the tourists, the trees are in full flutter, pigeons bombard the streets, the Irish are on the beach already (the locals will be a bit longer). It seems like everyone is in love despite the fact that anyone who knows me has recently broken up with someone. Today I had my first day completely on my own in the flat. I made Mexican lime soup and a goat's cheese salad. I spoke with no-one. I like it like that. Sometimes, all I need is a little space. I figure if I sort out the music side of things, the rest will come. I would like to rephrase an old Irish saying:

“Mol an ceol agus tiocfaidh se"Praise the music and the rest will follow/he will come

The original line is "Mol an oige agus tiocfaidh si", for those who wish to know: praise youth and it will blossom.