Sometimes a Sandwich...

My appetite for tedium is insatiable. It takes many forms. One is cooking. Or more properly, preparation. Show me a vegetable and I'll show you a long time. I see no need to build up nor employ techniques to cut up and chop vegetables efficiently. Taking time to slice and dice strikes me as the very point of the exercise. And then when you're done, you have all these little pieces of different colours and textures. What are you going to do then?

Just a Sandwich?

People had come into the kitchen, cooked, eaten and left. I had only just finished cutting up my red pepper, my green pepper, my cucumber, my onion, my piece of mature cheddar, and my carrot. Bread was buttered. And then piece by piece I placed a small cube of food on the bread. Always observing rhythm and balance. John was one of the aspiring writers in the house. Outlandish stuff he wrote. But fast. Discipline, in his art, was not for him. His stories came out rather like the projectile vomit of his social evenings. He was frustrated by my making of my evening meal.
-Verne, it's a SANDWICH.
-I know.
-It's JUST a sandwich; it's not art.
-It's always art John.

Ten Years Later

Ten years later and I'm still painting. And these days I'm eating grated carrot sandwiches. Only I grate them with a knife, cutting them Julienne and then some more until finally I have the shreds I want. All manual. And I still love sandiches.
John doesn't write anymore; he just aspires. Like me he left his homeland. And he works on Wall Street now. He does okay for money; indeed he bought a few of my paintings a couple of years back. And social evenings are as much fun as ever with him, albeit with less projectiles.

Paul Dorrell says:

If your work is all social statement and no craft, that's fine, but you may want to ask yourself, what exactly are you offering the world?

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