When I was 28 I had a nanny job in Paris 10 hours of the week to suppliment the income I made from selling my art. The kid was a brat, but the job was easy. I just dropped him to and from school on the bus, and for this I was paid 200 Euros plus I was given my own tiny apartment 18msq including kitchen, bathroom, and lounge room. The bed rolled up into a couch during the day, and practically took up the whole room when I rolled it out at night, but it more than suited my purposes. I had a painting studio else where so I had all that I needed.
The child was unlike other Australian children that I had cared for at home who were usually well mannered, kind and sweet. The kid gave me silent stares, told me that I was stupid, and on the whole ignored me, but I put up with the job to be an artist in Paris.
I wasn't so hard until I was taken on a skiing trip in the French alps, although there was no skiing for me for the first week at least as my days were free and I was allowed to bring my paintings there and paint in my free time.My employer even boasted that I was an artist to his friends, as if in some way it added to his own prestige.
As soon as we arrived my job status changed wildly to French maid. I was ordered to lug huge garbage bags up snowy hills, keep the apartment spotless......not exactly my strength and look after the kid inbetween his bouts of skiing, and do the shopping.
The other really terrible part of the whole scheme was being ordered to sleep in the same room as the Kid and his little friend!
They threw pillows at me, and giggled all night, with the kid making up stories about me to turn the other kid against me in a language that I barely understood.
In the morning the father screamed at me that I should know where his cup was!
It was the beginning of the end. A compulsive neat freak, he found a single strand of my hair in the bathtub, and a tiny piece of paper that I had been using for collage under the cupboard. As punishment for these misdemeaners he locked me out of the main part of the apartment.
I told him that I wanted to quit, and his kind friend who he had been holidaying with slipped me 50 Euros to stay in a hotel over night before I went back to Paris. Like all other people with more essential needs I pocketed it.
I lugged my luggage plus 2 finished paintings through 2 kilomentres of fresh and falling snow, and a very chilly -7 degree temperature.
I boarded the first train headed back to Paris. I stayed awake through the night with a bunch of gypsies, listening to the rythmic pulses of their fast flying fingers urging us closer to the capital city.
It was 5am when I swung into the first open old man's pub in Belleville. I drank 4 glasses of wine that tasted liked piss in quick succession and celebrated my new found liberty with the road workers skulling their first beers.
This was one of the last jobs I had before becoming a full time artist. I knew I had to make it happen, or be trapped in a cycle of working for someone and making someone else's life more comfortable instead of my own.
When I got home James Cockington from the Financial review wrote a story on that very portrait, and asked the question" will this $5000 portrait be worth 5 million in 2050"
I laughed, If there's any that should be worth the price tag it's that one.
Today it hangs in the home of a friend and collector over looking Tamarama's spectacular coastline in Australia. A fitting final resting place, for a painting that has traveled so far.
