Sometimes it hurts

Once upon a time…

Actually it was a little over two years ago that I found myself with a rather large painting challenge. I was asked to produce some artwork to go around a band stand in the middle of town. It was going to be used as Santa’s grotto and had to be finished for the switching on of the Christmas lights. In under 2 weeks I did what was needed and it actually made the middle of town look a bit brighter while it was in place.

There were 14 panels, painted on both sides, all nicely secured by ten anchor points on each panel (I did a risk assessment before I even started sketching the design).

The whole thing was done for the Market Traders Association and I donated my time and effort free of charge. I even offered to maintain and alter the artwork if they wanted it changing the next time they used it.

After Christmas was over it was taken down and the following year it wasn’t used. However this Christmas it was back in place – or rather some of it was. Only the lower section was used and whoever installed it did a very bad job, only anchoring each panel at four of the ten points required. Needless to say in the high winds panels were getting blown down. I rescued three of them myself and eventually all of the panels of artwork had come down and lay inside the bandstand.

The weather warped some of the panels, which was sad and a couple had been damaged slightly – but could have been restored. They lay there for two months and I walked past every day wondering when they would go back into storage. Then the council started doing up the town centre, repainting the place and making it look nice. However this is what happened to the artwork I had produced…

Smashed, scratched, covered in paint and equipment. I walk past that bandstand every day and it is heartbreaking to see how badly the work I produced has been treated. I’m not precious about my artwork, but it isn’t nice to see something you spent so much time and effort over getting treated so badly.

I’m not sure if this story has a moral, and it certainly doesn’t have a happy ending, but I wanted to share it anyway.