When I began to paint a picture every day http://danyoungdaily.blogspot.com I knew I wanted to develop my relationship with paint and painting. What I didn’t know was that that relationship can be as rewarding/frustrating and complex as a relationship with a real life living person. I have just read Sandra Erbacher’s break up letter to painting – www.a-n.co.uk/p/635183/ and found myself thinking about my own relationship to it (sorry Sandra I have been in a relationship with painting for some time time now! Two timing medium that it is).
I have felt like ‘breaking up with painting’ before and indeed spent a few years making digital work but, I ‘came back’ because, well.. I missed it. I missed the activity, the smells, the way paint feels like sh*t or silk (depending on how well the painting is going) and the thrill of that mark that makes you run round the studio with your shirt over your head like a deranged footballer, I also revel in the historical baggage and accepting my small own part in that history. I am a part of it and thats what is important.
Most of all I missed creating the simple illusion, and now I cant stop making those simple illusions each day… Painting, for me, has become something like an addiction and I would genuinely feel like a traitor if I had a day off from it. Today will be the 569th consecutive day that I have made a picture.
Obsessive relationship…me?
