I’m not having a good day, struggling with the black dog, and I thought I could cut corners, save time and do any old rubbish. But, of course, I cannot. There may be a question about the quality or value of my work from and aesthetic standpoint but, I find, never from a moral one! Even after I had resigned myself to doing it properly I started bemoaning my choice of materials: “that will take longer”, “I wish I hadn’t chosen that”, “I have to take care now I’ve done that! and so on. But you know it was worth the effort. It would never have worked without doing it right and it would only have made me feel more depressed. And I got a moody picture too. As much as I love the London slang “moody” I don’t mean that. Nor is it in a bad temper. I just mean it’s a moody photo. Mind you it’s not so easy to read the bit about Schrödinger’s cat!
I do not know what it is in me that makes me create more work. After a long break when I managed not to write anything at all on the envelope in the way of annotations, today I write a note on the back. That means I feel obliged to include the photo of the back and write about it maybe. All I was doing was making a note to remind me what I wanted to write or say on this post. Normally I would just put a note on the blog in a draft which I could elaborate on later, but because I had to do a factory reset on my phone last weekend (the latest Android upgrade broke it!) I had not set up my WordPress blogs and couldn’t remember my log in details! Which has just made me think i could have done it on my tablet – but then I probably haven’t set the phone up to link to the tablet … and now i see that it’s Android that made all this extra work!
What I realised as I was creating today’s piece was that it had strong resonances to a strand of work that I did at college 45 years ago. I was approaching the same place from two directions but with a similar outcome in technique and look and feel. This has prompted me to have another poke around in that area – well I have already started – but to also revisit the technique. The interesting thing is that I had a very strong idea for today which I perhaps approached with the wrong medium, so found myself in different territory! Perhaps that one will happen tomorrow!
It’s been a busy day. I met with friends to talk about my show and engaged with others about my work and went to the dentist (it’s quite a journey)and saw the beauty of soft, dramatic skies on the sea and did some work and did my #Letter365 and made dinner and went to the Film Society and that needs to be spoken of. The film was Museum Hours and I think that it would help you understand me and this project (among other things) if you watched it. It explores so many things about mundanity and specialness, the beauty of boredom, the wonder of humanity and the way that the small things hold the magic.
Screen grab from the Bridport Film Society website featuring “Museum Hours”
It is odd that, when I am now keener than ever to develop themes and work through ideas, I find myself feeling guilty when I do that in #Letter365. I have been here before, having to remind myself that its ok to do things that are similar. Many artists have done countless versions of the same thing or developed similar works along a theme.
I don’t deny it and, in fact, I am quite proud and excited especially since it probably is one of the best pieces I have done in this project. Now you might say if it’s one of the best then it’s because it was someone else’s good idea that makes it good! To which I would ask which of the many versions by various artists did I copy? Or is it an amalgam (an interesting word to pop out considering the context of this piece!)? Is it a cop-out or is it very clever? It references 400 years of the history of art, plus the history of physics and of chemistry; touches into the realms of philosophy and religion; demonstrates my understanding of the traditional technologies of communication and my knowledge of art techniques. Could it be said that the earliest two versions I know of were in themselves a cop-out – one that I recognise myself liable to? Then, taking all of that into account, I delivered a finished piece that is technically pretty good and almost perfect against the needs of the idea – especially in the choice of materials – as well as being pretty good to look at!
All that is pretty good when you consider that when I returned to the studio this evening I was vacant of ideas and got pretty despondent that my first fiddlings about were leading nowhere. There is a whole magnificent history of stealing other people’s ideas throughout the history of all the arts to be discussed. I have made this piece my own partly because of the intellectual content behind why I did it, which opens up another discussion about what art really is. Sadly I have neither the time nor energy to think about it right now, let alone construct an argument about it. Another day maybe.
I have been really enjoying my last few pieces and I thought I would continue in a similar vein. Towards the end of the process I had a dip in confidence and felt it was ok but not special. That changed when I stuck it on the wall to have a fresh look, then my response was, “ooh, I should do this for a living!”
You know, I really enjoyed making today’s piece. Yes it is satisfying when something goes well, but part of the joy was just because I was making some art. I am getting so little time each day to do art at present that I am going a little nuts! I know it’s important to do all the other things to make a successful show (my #Collage365 show opens next Tuesday at Bridport Arts Centre) and I did take some welcome time out today to spend time with an encouraging and interesting friend, but I would really, really like to just spend whole days just working!
Today I pass the two-thirds-done marker, so it is time to up my game and get organising all the other aspects of this project, but I can just for a moment relax and give myself a little congratulation for getting this far. That is eight months, fresh and unique every day, no cheating, with no breaks and to what I believe is a pretty high standard of work.
Here’s another example of time being spread too thinly. Today I had completed my piece by about 10.45 this morning and yet it’s now 11pm and i haven’t posted to the blog yet. True I didn’t do my final check and review till late afternoon and it was gone 6pm when I posted it. So where has the day gone. I have been busy all day but apart from #Letter365 I have only done one other small piece of art! The rest has been preparation work for my #Collage365 show: picking up work from the framers, gathering label information (had some help here) and a bit of setting up stuff at the studio ready for some viewings. All necessary stuff and I was pretty effective most of the time but so little on making art!
I have written about that moment when you can be afraid to add something to a piece in case you spoil it. I can get quite timid and have to force myself to do what I know in my heart is right. Today I just knew something else was needed and it was plainly obvious what it should be – even to the degree of control and how much leeway for chaos to play. No hesitation. So why so bold today and so timid some other times?
If anyone has been following this blog, they would notice a similarity in each day’s image. Most days there is a snap of my hand holding the day’s artwork encased in its envelope poised at the edge of a postbox’s aperture. I have a collection of many hundreds of such images (I take usually multiple shots in case I mess up in some way). I like the regularity of it. This regular, repetitive process, the same but with individual variables, is at the heart of most of the work I create. It is also at the heart of what Nature creates: my favourite being the ripples on beach sand. At this time of year we notice the leaves on the trees turning and falling. Millions of the same thing but everyone unique. Starlings murmurating. Wildebeest migrating. Crowds of human beings. The structure of crystals. So many things we find beautiful because of repetition given texture by individuality.
An unfolding artwork created a piece each day for a year
