Saturday morning. Just sitting quietly in the roof space, listening to rain fall on the window panes.
I love the rain, the simple sound of water, where my mind can gently meander and visualise the world outside and around me. Images never to be painted directly, but certain to find a place somewhere within the simplified, stripped-down watercolours for my new series in my French studio.
Complexity and simplicity, areas of busyness and areas of calm. A continuing and important philosophy/psychology for my work, where the minds-eye naturally wants to move away from a busy image after a while to rest. Rather than move outside of the image entirely, there is space within the image, to find that subconcious calm we all ultimately seek. This all helps to balance and harmonise the work, ultimately giving and not taking anything from the mind of and the enjoyment of the viewer.
…an OFF day today…another cold, another sore throat and a headache. OFF days are important to help balance the mind and body. It's often a natural physical response to having done too much.
Van Gogh, Emil Nolde, Vasily Kandinsky, all had OFF days, so I'm in good company. Then again, so did Adolph Hitler, Himmler, Goering and Goebbels, so it's best not to compare…?!
Seeking sanctuary…a safe place, a quiet place, a contemplative place, a comfortable place, a place to reflect for a few moments or as long as it takes. Similar size to a small garden shed and placed every mile or every five or ten miles by the side of the road in all countries, depending on the need of individuals. Simply walk in day or night, sunshine or rain, close the door, stand, sit or lie down.
It's raining, you enter and select from a drop down menu on one of the surrounding screens the mood you are in at present. Enter any other thoughts, emotions, concerns.
Relax, close or open your eyes and experience a contrived world of images, sounds and smells to lift you out of yourself and position you in a place where you feel more positive, more self-assured, more hopeful, more peaceful.
When you feel ready to, press the screen in front where it reads,
'Now return to your important life and try to remember you and everyone is an artist and everything is art'.
The door opens and outside it's still pissing down with rain…
Ever accidentally dropped a tin of paint down the stairs?…I just have.
The mind, the imagination, the terror, is all focused in slow-motion.
All I could do was stand helpless and stiffly on the stepladder, wide-eyed in stunned, expletive silence and observe the totally random bounce of the tin as it's acrylic white contents decided where to splish, splash, splosh, on the carpet on the walls and eventually on Emily's brown suede boots that had carefully positioned themselves in the perfect spot in the hallway below, to receive the final vestiges of wicked white dribble from this cantankerous tin and with particular evil impressive skill, land, perhaps even laughing, the right way up.
Serendipity?…not!
Having restored, designed and built hundreds of gardens, I actually have grown to love weeds…and having read architecture for three years, I love playing with perspective that is incongruous and doesn't actually work…
