Sam Quinn’s Success.

This is a story, entirely fictional, of a young boy who thought he was following his dreams.

Sam Quinn, a young aspiring artist, moved to the city. He did not visit the sites, he did not see the Queen, he simply stayed in his attic studio flat and painted.

He had forgotten time. The only indicators of the days passed were the scarcity of clean socks in his drawer and the wall of free newspapers blocking the front door. Sam Quinn decided it was time to leave the house.

He walked up and down Gallery Street and visited gallery after gallery, trying to get his work exhibited.

But he was laughed out the door every time.

Filled with grief and remorse, Sam Quinn returned to his attic flat and did the only thing he could do. He painted. He painted and painted in such a frenzy that he broke his paintbrush.

And cut his hand.

An art dealer had heard of this young frenetic painter and decided to stop by his studio. Sam was shocked and delighted. He nervously but excitedly, almost forcefully, took the dealer around his small flat and showcased all of his best work. But the art dealer, uninterested by Sam’s depictions of cities and skies, picked up from the floor the abandoned and blood stained canvas.

The art dealer loved this accidental masterpiece so much that he used all of his connections to get the young unknown artist an exhibition in a top gallery downtown. All of the finest members of society came along and the reviews were outstanding.

Sam Quinn was the talk of the town: the critics wanted to know him, the press wanted to know him and the gallery owners who had rejected him a few weeks previous were now knocking at his door.

Sam Quinn enjoyed the success and happily responded to the demand for more of his now trademark bloodstained pieces.

One member of the art public who was a particular fan of Sam’s wanted to commission some work, but he wanted it more of them and he wanted them more vibrant, more red.

More red meant more blood. Sam Quinn was unsure whether to carry out this almost surgical commission or whether to pack it in and move back to the country.

He did it. He could not give up at this pivotal moment of his artistic career. Without art, life was not worth living.

But this art made living an impossibility. After completing the sixth painting of the ‘Red’ series, Sam Quinn died of blood loss. The words spoken at his funeral painted Sam Quinn as a dedicated young soul, whose art was his life. But everyone sat in the audience understood that as art was his life, he had made it his death.