Do other artists find themselves obsessing over small things? I’ve been away from the studio for family and the festivities, so these things are milling around in my head, in my notebook, even in the occasional song lyric. I’ve been thinking about fog. The literal and the metaphorical. Brought about I think, by the general election and the effect it has had on my mood. The thick, pea-souper sort that keeps you trapped. As a child I remember the fog, and being trapped in a field for some reason… I walked the perimeter trying to find the gate, having lost all sense of direction. I felt frightened and sick. I am convinced I walked the perimeter twice, missing the gate to the lane. I think I was around ten or eleven. I was alone.
I left a drawing on my table, half done, probably. Fog. Amorphous shapes and shades and texture driven by the feel of the paper beneath my pencil. This still is about the same themes I think, but the sense of touch has become more elusive. Disconnected somehow. I can’t breath in it, it’s tight and smothering at the same time as drifting. I found myself holding my breath a little for fear of inhaling it.
And after a night of fitful sleep, waking several times in pain* that defied painkillers and cream and meditation and music… I find that the fog is nailed to me. I feel like I have a bed of nails. So this morning the drawing in my head is one of nailing fog. I won’t be in the studio until probably Tuesday or Wednesday. This vision may lose its potency by then. Or it may be desperate still to appear on the paper. By then I might feel better. By then I might have had some sleep and the obsessive nature of my thoughts will have subsided.
Or not.
Fog.
*I have Osteoarthritis that seems to have flared up over the last couple of days
