“When are you going to stop playing around painting pictures and do some real work, Joey?” asks Luke, a friend of 15 years. There is no point replying with reason though, Luke is a steely civil engineer and his tittletattle is part of an old schoolfriend bonding ritual. The painted pictures to which he refers do not truly exist; but I did study for a degree at an art college and I guess that’s what he is referring too. Ironically though, I’m incredibly amateurish at practicing visual arts. I cannot paint or draw, at all. Despite Luke’s disparaging tone, I wish I could have been painting pictures. That’s a skill that really would come in useful for the research I’m currently doing at the HighWire Centre for Doctoral Training at Lancaster University.
