Artist Row
21 September 2022

A candid snap of an artist painting in the Barbican district, Sutton Harbour. My city is full of artists, entrepreneurs and creative types. We are conditioned to limit how we think about art and creativity. The painter/drawer/picturemaker is the obvious artist here… but there is a bowl of fresh seafood, a culinary masterwork, in the frame. As are two folks to the right of our sketcher, wearing outfits that they chose – at least partly – as gestures of self expression. They are (perhaps somewhat sadly, given the lovely day and atmosphere) on mobile phones – designed by technologists, with UI/UX and mobi layouts made by graphic designers. Music plays from the crooner (just out of shot)… architects and civil engineers have cobbled together the waterfront. Logo designers and shopfitters have made the pub (a great place for a Sunday roast, btw) customer ready. We tend to sometimes relegate art to confined spaces – a museum, a library, a streaming platform. But art is all around us. The story of humanity itself is the story of artistic creation.

Peter van der Walt is a fiction author, although you may find some non-fiction and the odd essay out there. Fans can find his newsletter, posts, updates and developments at petervanderwalt.com. Currently, he is hard at work on his next story. When not writing, he has far too many interests to reasonably keep up with. He lives with his partner in Devon, England.