This was a phrase constantly in use by my father, in reply to our repeated wails of “It isn’t far!” It has the potential for use as a way of cynically disregarding any consideration of distributive justice, but it can act as a timely reminder when we feel sorry for ourselves because things have not worked out how we hoped they would.
Dad’s words came into my head today after driving home from the local civic gallery, the Cartwright Hall, where I had just delivered my entry for their annual open competition. I had given a lift to a friend of mine (a fellow artist) who had been putting in his bid as well. Thinking about Richard does make me acutely aware that life can be distinctly short on distributive justice. He is an able artist, who in an earlier time of life worked as a textile designer. A victim of the general crash of the Bradford pollen textile trade in the ‘sixties, he had difficulty in finding employment suited to his training and ability, and fell into a period of mental illness that eventually resulted in his being declared disabled. He hung onto art, however, and is still active.
He has a reasonably successful line, I gather, as a portrait painter, but his passion is for the creation of 3D constructions, strongly reminiscent of his earlier textile experience, but increasingly divergent from that. The results are constantly and impressively innovative. I do hope that his work is accepted by the competition, as it deserves to be, and that it is received well. It is about time that life was fair, despite the normal run of things.