What is it about visual artists and ketchup? Yesterday, I have worked in a wonderful location: a painterโs studio where a moderately famous artist lived and worked for forty years until his death in the 1990s. Not much has been changed in the studio since. His heirs piously preserve the maestroโs legacy by flogging off the place on AirBnB, including his last paintings, brushes, paint tubes and a collection of art magazines from the 50s. I wouldnโt be surprised to find the late artistโs cat mummified behind the fridge (I didnโt look).
I felt immediately at home. When I came to Art School, aged eighteen, we shared studios with the students of painting and this place was essentially the same. It was all there in perfection: heavily used linoleum floors, stained tables, ancient easels, carpenting tools that look like they have been already used to make ๐ธ๐ผ Marie Antoinetteโs scaffold. And of course the well-worn daybed of museal quality (artists have the self-serving habit of calling people they go to bed with their โmusesโ).
Yet there is one more thing that all the studios I have known have in common: an empty fridge occupied by a bottle of ketchup. The moment I had tuned in to the vibe of the place I have made a bee-line for the fridge. And there it was: an ancient bottle of toxic-looking red substance in the white void of space. The final certification of authenticity!
The painters among us, please come forward and enlighten us! Is this a dietary requirement or do you use it for technical purposes (ketchup tempera?๐คช)?
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