This was me in the sacred space of the Chagall gallery and museum in France last year. I felt the love, the sense of life and divinity that he had, that his colours and images expressed so sincerely it made me cry – and want to rush back to New Zealand and do likewise…

I had the thought this morning that this Dreamspace gallery and workshop space, though necessarily fought for paid for and defended with passion, blood, sweat and tears, must be, on the inside, about love first, beauty second, truth third and freedom fourth. It is love, unconditional regard, appreciation and caring for all who visit or work here, that must be the first thing. We can’t compete with the elitism and exclusivity of the (degenerate) ‘high art’ scene because we wouldn’t want to anyway, but we can do something much better: we can live a vision of art as essentially something that comes out of, and inspires, love. Art, sincere art, is surely in essence an expressing of a person’s true values and feeling for life – what they love. It might contain images of that which opposes these things, but the essence is love, sensuous reverence for life and things, be they cats or leaves or trees or women or men or dragons, mountains, rivers, seas… and things unseen but real – emotions, virtues, the noble, the good, the exquisite… Now that’s art worth creating, and paying for!

If we can day by day hold this space of love, and yes lovingly keep out works or people that are violent or hating or disrespecting of life, then we will have a transformational place that is truly awesome. And the works that come into, or are produced in, that space ‘will be blessed and can bless’. And so will the people be too. Now that’s what I call an Art Gallery!