Getting Ahead in the Lucrative Field of Artist Management

2011 06 24_0029.JPG, a photo by rolpolpolpon on Flickr.

I pass by Streatham Common most days, when travel from work to head office. There is a tantalising point, when driving down the hill, where you can see for many westward miles, so I decided to stop one lunchtime to see if I could capture it.

I marched purposefully between the trees, trying to ignore the drunk having a torrential slash, and set up a tripod. Sadly it appeared that the best view was to be had from the centre of the A214, not a place to be standing in the middle of the day. Still, I managed a few snaps, got back in the car and pootled off to work again.

Later on I stuck one or two of the pics up on twitter, and an old friend of the family popped up and said 'Did you know Van Gogh did sketches of the Common right where you were standing?'

Indeed old Goghy once wrote to his brother "Enclosed is a little drawing. I made it last Sunday, the morning when my landlady's little daughter died; she was thirteen years old. It is a view of Streatham Common, a large grassy plain with oak trees and gorse. It had been raining overnight; the ground was soaked and the young spring grass was fresh and green." Apparently he would often walk to Kent from his pad in Brixton, (still quicker by foot than by public transport to this very day) and would bash out a quick sketch on his travels. Most of these have been lost now, and are worth many thousands of pounds.

http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let032/letter.html

However this guy really knows how to tell the story!

As he says, like Van Gogh i believe there is a limitless subject on our doors steps and don't need to travel further than you can walk to find inspiration and beauty. We can but try...