I have started about half a dozen posts since the end of last year, all of which have remained in a folder. Some even said ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Happy New Year!’ My blog to, date has maybe come to an end. I am wondering how to continue. My stuff has largely been about my difficulties, fears, questions, and that has not changed. My experiences over the last year via the blogs have been immensely useful. It is in my nature to feel something of an outsider, and to be ambivalent in my attachments. Through writing as I have done, I have been able to stand outside myself to an extent, (to be an outsider to myself?) to describe and look. Jon Bowen in a comment on one of my posts referred to (his) possibly appearing ‘contrarian’. It was a term in which I immediately saw myself reflected. Apart from a little discomfort the question that arises, is ‘how does this occur’? How am I as I am? The blog and my paintings have worked with me in a trialogue in which each tests the possibilities of the other. I need to continue this in some form. There is in publishing it, however, something of the little boy on the fringe of a group of grown-ups.
I cringe when there is a surfeit of ‘wonderful’; it is slapped onto all sorts of stuff, but at the same time I have moved toward more enjoyment of things for what they are. I wonder sometimes though about the feelings that accompany words, especially superlatives. Often when conversation gets a little sharp, the notion of ‘…well art is subjective…’ pulls the rug. I recall sitting in a library when I came across the idea that aesthetic judgements had ‘universal subjective validity’. It formalised what I had long felt. It was a pleasant moment of affirmation, and I sat and smiled. Phil Illingworth’s recent post in which he refers to age set me thinking too. Having missed a lot for one reason or another, I need to catch up with the present.
I have followed up references from fellow bloggers , to reading. and to a wide range of artists’ websites.
My reading is disjointed and irregular. I pick up crumbs from the big table and chew . Some melt, some grind. I am currently preoccupied with Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of becoming. (Ho Ho!That sounds grander than it is.) It’s still all crumbs, the loaf remains out of sight on the table. I present the crumbs to my painting. Some resonate. Word association. It’s quite exciting, ‘Becoming’ seems optimistic. Becoming is a perpetually pregnant present?Do I see it in the conjunction of two colours?
