YOU asked what the Bolton Evening News readers think of modern art. To be blunt, I consider it a "con", something artists (I use the word loosely) create when they do not have the ability or talent to paint or even draw.

I have always been of the opinion that the idea of art was to portray on to canvas the subject you see and wish to reproduce with as much accuracy as you can. This takes skill and talent. I once heard a critic remark "why paint this way when the camera can do so much better?". This statement is utter rubbish. Will the public be viewing a bath of spaghetti, or a sink of blue mashed potatoes 100 years from now?

Yet the great masters of yesteryear (who painted what they saw and not what they thought they saw), have their work displayed in galleries all over the world, and we, the normal people, are still viewing and admiring these wonderful works.

I have painted all my life. In my youth, I was told I would not be successful if I continued to paint in "chocolate box-style". I never did attain success, but I have made a lot of "normal" people happy with my daubs, and I'm hanging all over the place. I do find a camera handy -- giving your work away is like selling your babies, so I photograph them before they go.

Mrs D Perks

Hibbert Street, Bolton