Art And Alcohol Are The Only Sane Responses To Life

A man lies in a field, dishevelled, and holding a bottle of beer or cider in his hand. His eyes are closed and he is smiling. He appears to be drunk or dreaming - or both. The image of drunk abandon came to me at a time of great social and personal stress. It is a very human thing, in times of stress, to turn to drink as a pacifier, or to help one to forget one's situation. It is a method as old as humanity itself. In this picture I felt a kinship with the scenes of drunken debauch in the paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. In Brueghel's paintings there is often reference to man in nature - drunken scenes at harvest-time, and the like. Likewise, in my drawing the man could be a farm labourer, lying in the grass or wheat of the fields in which he has worked that day. On the other hand he could be a drunken vagrant who has fallen by the wayside. However, beyond alcohol, I have found that both the making of art and the exposure to it are powerful antidotes, comforters and aids to making sense of the chaos and occasional incomprehensibility of life. Art and alcohol as the saviours of humankind!