Well over halfway into this residency. A daily routine is nicely established, and interesting insights emerge every day.
First, magic happens after at least five or six hours play-work on a variety of meditative tasks (another layer of papier mâché on a life-size figure; sketchbook doodles; a series of small studies painted in rapid succession; more mind mapping). After a full day of happily pottering from mini-project to mini-project, back and forth, clocking up 10,000 daily steps without leaving the space, I start painting on a large surface with huge brushes and pots of Dulux with no idea of what will happen, but loving the process of slapping on paint rapidly without thought. Watching figures emerge. Not judging or correcting, but allowing the paint to be paint though admittedly there’s not a lot of choice with a four inch brush.
Second, allowing conceptual concerns to just be there, quite literally on the periphery of the space and my mind, and then getting on with making and not thinking, has allowed my practice concerns and processes to cristallise without brain ache. Issues which have nagged me for a long while suddenly seem clear, and my work without conscious thought reflects these concerns from inside-out, rather than the ideas driving the work outside-in. This feels right. I had not realised how much I was shoe-horning my work into my ideas.
Third, I have always known inside I am a one-stop alla prima painter. Although the work of the last year has made me realise I don’t need to overwork, and also that there’s nothing wrong with radical reiterations, I am loving starting and finishing huge surfaces in a couple of hours. My storage issues will be worse than ever after this month, but it’s worth it to connect with my genuine inner self.
