Yesterday my 14-year-old son rushed in from school and told me he had heard the most amazing idea that day. He said Mum, Mum listen – “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” he stared at me, waiting for my reaction, unaware that the rest of us”grown-ups’ have heard this phrase so often we have become numb to its particular magic. It struck me suddenly how new and fresh it all was to him and how jaded I had become.
Walking around the streets of Salisbury, I kept turning over this phrase and relating it to life as an artist. Some years ago now the news stories which covered the horrific Tube fire contained in the smaller section – ‘a sculptor was among those who died’. It has always stayed with me. On hearing it I instantly thought of his work, of all the pieces he had laboured over, all the ideas he was exploring, did they leave a sound as such? And the many blogs from newly fledged graduates facing an uphill struggle to recognition, the artists who like me, persevere to combine work with family etc, – when one day they find the going too tough, when they decide perhaps it’s all too much and pack up their tools to keep a roof over their heads, as they close the studio door for perhaps the last time, does it make a sound?
