It’s probably just that I am tired and bored with having to spend time in front of the computer. I have been working on some of the things I need to do in preparation for my exhibitions but what I really wanted to be doing is some art! In fact, when I did get to the studio, everything went so smoothly! I didn’t allow myself to say no when I had the urge to work on a larger piece. I am at that point where I need to just concentrate on my art or I’ll have a meltdown – but I have other stuff I need to do.
Don’t ask about the stuff on the envelope. I was so desperate to get away from the computer I forgot to do the envelope and found myself at the studio naked in the envelope department! So it got done this evening when my interest in computers and keyboards has waned even further.
It’s a shame I cannot talk about the process of making today’s artwork and why it was like a visit to the opticians in some respects, but I cannot give the game away. Mind you there are so few people actally looking at this blog – let alone reading it – that it really wouldn’t matter much anyway! What I will say is that I really enjoyed the way today’s piece came together. I will say it is a return to more familiar ground and it me in top form! Ha!
I would talk about the printer but frankly I’m bored with it all and have other things I would rather do. I was going to say I have other fish to fry but you may have thought I was having problems printing because I was using a fish.
It’s not a big philosophical question that I allude to but today’s piece is a bit of an enigma for me. So I don’t mean what is the meaning of this artwork you can’t yet, or perhaps ever, see but what does it mean that I have created something that links work I was doing a year or more ago with work I am doing now! Does it mean that the ideas and issues that motivated me a year or so ago were unresolved; that there is more mileage in them? Are they bubbling under the surface wanting to get out again? As I wrote this I realise that is the case. The other option was that I was just a bit stuck and opted for a familiar path, but I see that was not the case. I see also that there is a continuum rather than separated ideas. I hope the reunion will be fecund.
As to the seal, well I used up the last little bit of that stick stuck on the end of a scalpel and heating it with a lighter. Of course it all melted and fell flaming onto the envelope. I was all for letting it burn a little but it went out of its own accord!
It quite often happens that I lose confidence on the piece I am doing or am happy enough but fear to take the next step in case bugger it up. Fortunately I mostly tell my self to stick to the plan or go with the flow as appropriate. Today was a stick-to-the-plan day. A few times I had to remind myself that the picture I had in my head would work just great and that I just had to keep on to the end. Of course it was fine, in fact I am more pleased with it that I expected, but I am interested in examining that process where doubt sticks a finger in! It appears as something negative, but it is probably based in a cautionary principle (“mind you don’t waste those materials” or “if it doesn’t work you will have wasted all that time”) coupled with a quality-control vector. If I can link more with that aesthetic quality control when those feelings arise it may be a very useful exercise.
I said above “the picture I had in my head” and yet I am not able to visualise as I understand some people can. I do not and really cannot see a picture in my head as if i were looking at something with my eyes. It is more a feeling that I get. I can feel my way round things and describe them but I don’t see anything. I never have done even though from all the tests I seem to be a visually-biased person. I have never been able to do those creative visualisation or NLP exercises because when I close my eyes I see black or after images mostly. There is a sort of visual process that goes with remembering and imagining but it’s not like a scene which I can view and move through; it’s more like a 3-dimensional diagrammatic feeling!
I say interesting because I thought twice about sticking with today’s piece. I found the results and process very interesting and want to play around with other things in this vein but obviously don’t want to start tweeting images that might give people clues to what I am doing. So yet another thing goes into abeyance – or not!
Today was the first time for ages that I have used sealing wax and I stuck the stamp on sideways which I have not done before.
The height of excitement yet another different post box.; a George V one at that! We know how to live in Bridport!
The musical allusion isn’t summery, but then the day didn’t really turn out that way. Added to which I cannot find a clip to embed so if you want to hear and see Talking Heads Live in Rome version of Electricity (Drugs) check out this YouTube video. It only got into my head because I have been dealing with electricity companies today.
And we thought yesterday’s visit by Violet Lines was a one-off but she has knicked some of the pigment at the trailing edge of today’s print.
I have been struggling with this post as I did with today’s piece. It’s a muggy old day and there is still that unsettling electricity in the air that last night’s thunderstorms didn’t clear. It makes the bees irritable and over-defensive and me too really. I thought it would be a good idea to force some kind of resolution on some elements that I have been playing with for a few days or more. I thought I could use that idea up and get it out of the way, but of course things have their time and today wasn’t it! After a few other false starts it was time to take a step back and stop struggling. Now I don’t mean that in the way of giving up or giving in, rather I mean that sometimes battling with something head on does not bring results and oblique strategies and sideways thinking may prove more effective. As soon as I started to work on some other things not related to #Letter365 an elegant solution started to form and opposition crumbled away. Struggle was only interested when it thought I was up for a fight
That strategy didn’t work so well for the envelope or this writing or indeed the other work I was doing but, hey, you can’t win ’em all!
No132 goes in the box with a caress from Violet Lines
I am so tired that it has been really difficult to do the simple tasks of creating the envelope, photographing the work and getting it in the post. Fortunately when I returned to the work (which I had done much earlier) I was very happy with it. As I walked through the door of the studio I had a little anxious moment thinking “what if I don’t think it is good enough?” It was already late and my energy was really low. I am barely going to make this before midnight: goodness knows how I would have managed to create another from scratch!
As to the work, it is another new direction to explore, coming from some possibly sculptural ideas I want to develop.
And Violet Lines has returned in almost spectral form
This is an exciting moment: you should not that the envelope of #Letter365 No131 is absolutely covered, both front and back, with a complete lack of annotations. Tha’s right not a single annotation – not even one to say there are no annotations – adorn this envelope.
