PAINTING & PIPPA

Pippa’s offer on the painting was refused. Months later the money had been sunk into stamp duty, solicitor’s fees and a new boiler. The painting had gone from the shop window. The house still needed work and Pippa’s aunt had offered to give her some money. There was a condition attached to the gift though, Pippa must spend it on something she loved and didn’t need. She returned to the shop to enquire about the bird painting. It had been retired to the back of the shop. Her fixation with the painting had a sweet irony. In her early teens Pippa and her sister had an eye-rolling disdain for bird lovers. The ‘massive squares’ would congregate in her family’s front room for the Southbourne Young Ornithologist’s Club, run by her mother and a friend. Helpfully, on the back of the canvas, the artist has identified the birds as a Blackbird, a Collared Dove and a Chaffinch.

13 Nov 2011