I was thinking that I hadn’t delivered one by hand recently and thought Thursday would be good because we are at a gig at Bridport Arts Centre that night. Then I realised that there was a new stamp issue and it would be good to do a first day cover. So I thought I would wander round there and take a last look at the Greta Berlin show before it finishes. So imagine my surprise when I saw the box was missing! I don’t know: Polly Gifford, the Director, is leaving soon to take up a new exciting role in Hastings and already the place is falling apart! Lovely Jill took delivery and certainly makes a much more interesting and colourful photo than my hand holding an envelope by a box! She said the box had broken. The question is, “how?” When Rothko’s painting was vandalised at the Tate it was in all the Media. My work is removed without a how-do-you-do let alone a splash in the local press!
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!
I suppose I should have said “Pleased with this piece but, more importantly, I am excited where it might lead.” The piece itself some might consider too “sketchy” and in some ways it has that feel of a work in progress, an idea still alive with potential to be explored. And expolore it I will. If you buy this one you could have the start of a new series of work from me. Well I’d definitely have it on my wall!
I spent last night and most of today nursing our poor cat, Bramble, and am pretty drained yet strangely creative. I have loads of things I want to play with but am too tired and short of time. Stuff is going in the sketchbook and getting tried out as and when. Today’s piece is just such a one and thankfully it worked well.
The end of a sealing wax stick is always fun and today the little piece I had speared on the tip of a scalpel fell burning on to the envelope. I blew it out and picked it up and it stuck to my fingers and left lovely, fine strings of red scrawled over the envelope, Sadly they didn’t stick to the paper.
I keep doing things that I would like to see on a monumental size and today’s piece is one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I like what I have done today it’s just that I would like to explore the idea much, much bigger and in different media. I have never really been a painter and never before the last year or so wanted to create large-scale pieces so the idea is unsettling but exciting.
I am a bit pissed off because I lost all the next bit I wrote when my session expired and I want to go and spend time with my sick cat not rewrite this. Sorry.
Only to say that I forgot to take my camera to the studio today and had to record things in a rather ineffectual way and broke my desire to record the whole thing on that camera – not that it matters a jot really.
I couldn’t work out why I was finding it so difficult to do my #Letter365 piece. Despite all my worries and upset about our sick cat and other stuff taking my time, I have been able to get on well in the studio – so why not #Letter365? It got a lot easier when I stopped trying so hard
And the sealing wax was so brilliant I didn’t want to spoil the back by annotations, then failed to take a decent photo!
Seal on the back of No188
The piece inside sort of caught me by surprise. I was keen not to just take something from the current stream of work and was at first stumped as to where to turn only to turn up trumps.
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 am still struggling to come to terms with our cat being seriously ill, but I managed to get on at the studio for a while today and started a big drawing as well as preparing some substrates. I was a bit concerned that my #Letter365 piece was more device than content and didn’t commit to it fully straightaway and left it hanging around for a while before I was able to see it with objective eyes. Now looking at the photos Ii am happy all is well.
Basically as an artist you get to play around with all sorts of stuff and generally have a fun time until you remember that you have to sell stuff and pay bills and do admin and you realise that it’s just like any other job only less well paid.
An unfolding artwork created a piece each day for a year
