WEDNESDAY, 6 JANUARY 2016
Going to Walthamstow on the first sunday after New Year in the pouring rain was a mistake.
So at the start of this New Year I am thinking about risk, mistakes, learning and new beginnings. Tommorow I am stuck at home so it is a good day for trying something new, time consumimng and time sensitive, which requires the use of a cooker.
New Year, new technique: I am finally going to have a go at water gilding: my glue is soaking to be cooked up in a bain marie tomorrow, strained and then mixed with the bol, I have a pre blended bol to make life easier for me as a beginner. The bol will be applied to the area I want to gild on a gesso board. I also have a pregessoed board. Let the errors begin.
And here’s the thing, I have taken away some of the potential mistakes to make the areas for mistakes more limited and therefore more examinable.
My New Year Resolution involves a new note book, always a happy moment. I have been using this blog as a sketch book, dotting down all potential ideas, and then…..sometimes not noting them, when I feel they are too ill thought through, and I realised at the start of this year that I need to be a bit more organised in keeping those less well made plans documented. I have had a whole field of scraps of paper and various notebooks full of everything (including domestic stuff and things related to other work).
Then yesterday as I had a big chat with my youngest daughter about the need to become more orgainsed now she is at secondary school I realised that I could do with following my own advice a long time out of the other side of secondary school. So the notebook: a place to record the semi formed ideas, too ill formed even to make it onto here (and some pretty raw ones do make their way onto here).
My practice tends to take the form of occasional storms of ideas and inspiration, that need settling, researching and developing or rejecting and sometimes just need a little space and time to mature before I return to them, then an untangling where a direction that is worth pursuing emerges; then the following of that direction, with a few falters, turns and diversions, often taking me to a quite unexpected destination. Sometimes directions I have not pursued are worth revisiting, and sometimes sharing a potential idea too early almost feels like a jinx, or makes me feel too worried about it not working out. But ideas and atempts that do not work out are actually the most valuable ones in order to make the journey.
ideas forming
not yet informed
or readable
by anyone else
f
a
l
li
n
g
and
failing and
muddled and
unpracticed
needing a little
quiet space alone
(And if you are thinking Walthamstow is a strange place to be inspired into poetry check out @michaelshann1 ‘s new book. Even the shop names are poetry here in the right hands.)
So my NY resolution is to get a single ideas book to record these ideas early on, and to do a bit of filtering before they get shared with you, and most importantly keep them in a single place. There are times when scrapes and accidents need a bit of polite privacy before they get any publicity .
So the documentation of this project which currently includes pieces of paper, notebooks that contain alot of other things too, note book that includes details of story collecting plus other stuff, paintings, drawings, prints this blog and the website and a folder of bits. It will be refined down to:
1. Ideas book
2.Market notes note book including shopping lists
3. Story collecting note book
4. Sketch book and loose sheets of paper for drawing
5. Blog
6. Website
7. Painting prints
8. Products (exhibitions/publications etc)
The note books will be dedicated to art work only and inevitably I will have another note book which is a general life one. My partner will proabably just see this all as an excuse for some January sale stationary purchases, and will wonder why I can’t do it all on a smart phone like him. (Remember the lost stories…..)
The shop
Rainy Sunday at the start of the year, our second attempt to visit Walthamstow Farmers market was met with just a little more success than last time, when there were no stalls at all. This time there were 5. The guy on the main veg stall that was there said that most people didn’t turn up because it was just after Christmas. But then you have to ask yourself the question, why advertise it as open. It is quite a treck for us, difficult to park as most of the streets are parking restricted, we had checked on line and the markets own website advertised it was on, so it was very dissappointing. We bought some “biodynamic” betroot and leeks (£4.20), though I am going to have to find out what that means, a new one on me, (according to google it has something to do with Rudolf Steiner) honey from a local supplier(£7), half a leg of lamb (£12) from the stall selling pricey meat and the following from the informative veg man: kale purple and green, rosemary bunch, mixed colour small carrots, 4 bunch days and tulips, purple sprouts, large celeriac, large asian pumpkin, oak leaf lettuce, spring onions bunch, 12 shallots, new potatoes 1 lb (£25) total:£48
A lot of money spent in a short time and no time to set up contacts for story collecting.
