Rowland The Artist ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 38 )

An artist, not known for his reliability, takes on a commission and is paid in advance. 

After three months there’s no painting, the money’s been spent, and the wolves are circulating.

 What can a poor artist do?

Dave from the Drum asked me one morning as he was walking Roman his German Shepherd, if I knew any picture framers. He’d been asked by Rowland Cartwright who lived at Finches, a converted barn to the south of the village. I said I’d give it some thought but Rowland had a reputation, and not a good one, so I wasn’t keen to get involved. 

You may not have heard of the artist Rowland Cartwright. I hadn’t as an artist, only as someone who Dave had to ask to quieten down on more than a few occasions and once threatened to ban from the pub. It seems he would arrive with some friends, create a disturbance, and not then be seen again for a month or two. The friends were often women, and Dave suspects were of a dubious sort, he might know being an ex-London cabby. Having thought about it for a day or so, I decided I would call at Finches, out of sheer curiosity.

Of what I could see from the gravel drive the garden had some choice statuary, a few modernist sculptures, and to my taste in particular a very nice bronze figure of one of the three graces. It was impossible to tell which one due to it being partially hidden by ivy, weeds and tall grasses. The converted barn I approached had a lot of glass and from what I could see of the interior was what a set designer might propose as the studio of a Francis Bacon or a Jackson Pollack, chaotic and unkempt. 

I was wondering whether to retreat when the solid oak front door creaked open to reveal a slender figure in his sixties wearing a dirty white bath robe and pink fury slippers. A shock of wet grey hair was clinging to a head on which were perched a pair of sun glasses, beneath it the stubble concealed most of the features but the blood shot eyes were prominent, as was the cigarette hanging limply from a mouth’s corner, 

‘Who the hell are you?’

I introduced myself starting with the obligatory apology before explaining the connection to Dave and picture framing.

‘Mmmm, it’s a bit early but you better come in, if you must.’

I nearly replied I needn’t but I was pre-occupied considering how two o’clock could be ‘a bit early’. The interior was much worse than I had judged from the outside however I followed, who I presumed to be Rowland Cartwright, through to the kitchen which in contrast was very tidy due probably to lack of use.

Over a coffee, we sat on stools at a sort of breakfast bar. I was looking down across a neatly mown lawn to the stream at the bottom as Rowland explained that when he can be bothered to paint, his words not mine, his agent sorts out everything else. 

‘Once painted I have nothing to do with them, don’t even varnish the things.’

So saying he undid the top of a whiskey bottle added some to his coffee and before I had the chance to refuse, added some to mine.

What I could make out in between cursing mumbles and expletives, a friend of his sister had approached Rowland with a commission. Because he needed the money, he had accepted and been paid in advance. Three months had passed and he had spent the money but not even started the work. The friend was threatening to complain to his sister having belatedly discovered the nature of Rowland’s somewhat individual work ethic.The friend had insisted on a meeting and Rowland had suggested the Drum not wanting to reveal the absence of any painting. At the pub, Rowland under the influence of Mr. Jamesons, had said that the picture was finished, all except for varnishing and framing but it couldn’t be varnished until it was dry. Time had run out of that excuse and he was now having to claim that the painting was at the framers, and they were holding things up not him. The friend had given him till the end of the month for either the painting, the money returned, and far worse, informing his sister.

I asked Rowland how long would it take him to do the painting, but he shrugged his shoulders, which I took as a ‘don’t know.’

We had both run out of coffee by then but that didn’t stop Rowland topping the mugs up with whiskey. As he leant forward across the table he whispered,

‘I’ll let you into a little se - secret, I absolutely hate painting.’

When I asked why he did it, he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and said,

‘Money for nothing.’

With that he stood up unsteadily and raising one finger to indicate he wouldn’t be long. I thought of leaving, but that would have been rude besides I was intrigued by his problem. On a personal level Rowland was an alcoholic, no doubt, how much of his life was spent as a functioning one I didn’t know. If none then any strategy would be pointless as co-operation would be unpredictable.

While I was making more coffee, I wandered around the ground floor. To one side of a very large living room by north facing windows, there were easels, tables and trolleys laden with tubes of paint, palettes, bottles of turpentine and mediums, rags and brushes, exactly the studio paraphernalia that you would expect if it were tipped out of a skip. Before a massive inglenook there were several voluptuous sofas surrounding a large teak coffee table. Here and there were excellent pieces of furniture, signature artworks, an ebony cabinet with pietra dura panels was very special. Add to that the aftermath of a boisterous weekend party, glasses, wine and spirit bottles everywhere, overflowing ash trays, an assortment of clothing, specifically underwear from various genders yet to be reclaimed, and you would have some idea of the scene. 

Back in the kitchen I considered removing the neat whiskey from the mugs but that would be presumptuous as a guest, so I topped them up with coffee. Rowland re-appeared as I was looking out across the lawn.

‘That’s my bloody sister,’ he said and explained that she pays for a gardener to mow the lawn.’

He also thought the gardener reported to her any ‘goings on’.

It was all I could do not to enquire about the ‘goings on’ but instead I asked him what he intended about the painting. He said he’d wait and see, maybe they’d take him to court, or get some heavies to put some pressure on.

I suggested they might break a finger or two.

‘That wouldn’t help me paint would it?’

And I admitted he had a point.

When I asked him how long a painting would take, he said about three weeks, or less if he was in the right frame of mind. I asked him how much he’d been paid, it was into the thousands, 

‘And a lot less than the galleries rip off,’ he told me. 

He showed me photographs of his work, bucolic scenes featuring early farm machinery, the advent of mechanisation in the countryside, a mixture of realism and nostalgia.

I asked him, if he paid the money back would that solve the problem. He said he didn’t have it, maybe a few hundred was left.

If it could be raised, I wondered, would that give him time to do the painting?

The problem was that unlike a ‘conveyor belt’ as he called it, he refused to be pressurised into working. He produced two or three pieces a year and ironically, when he needed the money. 

At home I made several calls. The first to the owner of a string of pawnbrokers, and then to several dealers. Only the dealers could see any advantage in the proposition I was suggesting. The following day I returned to Rowland’s with a plan.

The two pieces, the bronze by the drive, and the pietra dura cabinet, I knew would more than cover Rowland’s advance if sold,

‘Can’t do that,’ he told me, ‘they were dad’s, my sister would go bonkers if I sold them, even more bonkers than she is already.’

Apparently he had reached the limit of what he could sell, however I wasn’t finished.

I then told him I had two dealers who would advance him more than he needed, on a potential sale of the cabinet and the bronze. He’d then have three months to repay the dealers, from the sale of the painting, otherwise they’d be gone, sold! 

It was a good gamble for the dealers, potentially they could buy the two pieces at much less than they were worth, even to the trade. 

For Rowland it was a breathing space, and the removal of the pressure he found it impossible to work under, as lots of artists do. The muse isn’t always there when you need her. Whether she arrived or not, I’ll have to let you know.

Listen to Village Tales and other short stories from the HONKEYMOON CAFE

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.