There is nothing up here / Where are you going with your art?

Sometimes the road, or in this case, the steps, really do lead nowhere. That's not actually true since they lead to what I think were the backs of residential buildings on West End Lane in West Hampstead. I didn't continue for fear of invading the privacy of those who obviously didn't want strangers poking around, hence the message scrawled on the wall just off the street at the base of the steps. I didn't see the message until I'd been to the top and back down...

...still, can I use the photo/message as a metaphor? If I want. Sometimes stairways lead, not to heaven, but 'nothing'. We've all done it, whether the 'stairway' is a click bait link on the screen or a telephone inquiry to a large corporation; you go nowhere. Or at least, nowhere that's of any use.

Occasionally people have asked me where I 'want to go' with my art. I've always found that impossible to answer. Where do artists 'go'? Presumably, for the ambitious ones, they see themselves on a set of steps to recognition and subsequent financial reward. As you may guess, that's never been me. The first and possibly last place I want to go is the completion of a piece of art. That said, through chance and, very rarely, self-promotion, I've got somewhere in terms of exhibitions and publications.

It's an old adage but I'll dust it off again, artists (musicians etc) must create first and foremost for the love of their art. Obvious? Perhaps, but how many set off every day/year with a view to climbing those steps to Success before really discovering themselves as artists? OK, I know that's a lifetime's work, to me at least. Others hit on a 'winning' formula and cease discovering anything other than the next way to present their Vision...again and again. 

If my 'steps' lead to 'nothing' in the eyes of some, so be it - I don't care. If they lead to places I'm happy to be in, that's good. First and foremost, though, as in the second of these two photos I took on Sunday, the steps lead to a dazzlingly bright place. It may be a place of my imagination, or simply a piece of work I'm very happy with. Either way, what drives me and many others is the idea that there is something 'up there'.