I’m the person who does the big overseas trip, and everyone has to keep hearing about it for years to come! If you follow my Facebook page or blogs, it wont take you long to see how excited I still am about Steve and my first trip to the other side of the word this year. It was only three weeks, but we did London, the English countryside around the Avon Valley and Salisbury Plains, and Paris. We ‘loved’ it! I’d been wanting to go all my life, and it was everything I had dreamed, and 10 times more!
People kept on telling me how perfect it would be for me to paint the cities and villages over there. I kept telling them that I would let the people over there paint their own cities and villages, because my passion is to paint this nation.
So, now I’m home, they are still asking me if I will paint English and French towns as I loved them so much. If I had an abundance of spare time, which I don’t, I would consider it. But my answer hasn’t changed. In fact, after seeing the long history and deep identity of England and Paris, it has only served to intensify my motivation to capture New Zealand’s identity in my paintings. Going to the art galleries, and seeing the great art masters bodies of work, still wowing people 100’s of years after their creation, has only served to deepen my resolve to keep working on my own body of work of Aotearoa.
I’d been painting and publishing New Zealand Towns and cities for 15 years, when I had my epiphany moment. If I could do anything with Sarah Platt Art, what would it be? And I knew the answer immediately. I want to have every town and city in the nation painted and publish in the collection. It will be a simple and honest body of work that documents and captures our stories. Our wee slice of heaven. There is no way I can accomplish this in my life time unless I have more artists helping me. To do it, I will also need to build Sarah Platt Art in such a way, that it has sustainable momentum, and had the ability to keep growing, even after I get too old to keep painting. I will need people around me who will be willing to become part of the story as I work on telling ‘our story’. I’ll need customers, and contacts, champions and people who can lend their wisdom and favor. I will need people who are just willing to encourage me. Every time someone buys a piece of Sarah Platt Art, or simply decides to follow me on line, they are doing this.
Is there a deep resolve in you to do something important? What will you need to make it happen? Not all of us have that feeling of a call, but most of us can become part of a significant story when we partner with those that do. I’m asking you to partner with me.