No two days are ever quite the same. This drawing, if it is a drawing, arose from a total loss of idea.
It is a mindless act, but impossible not to think about. Each day, adding more dots, I become aware of the obvious. The pencil tip wears. I am distracted by my radio. My thoughts drift away; I no longer pay attention. The totality grows. Tonal variation arises from pressure applied, sharpness of pencil, tiredness. Spacing varies, closer and more distant depending upon speed of application, attention to detail. Time of day seems important. Variation in angle of application affects the shape of the mark, sometimes circular, sometimes stabbing. It has become like my colour paintings from a short time ago, defiant. Or is it defiant? Perhaps it is opaque, has no potential. Is there really nothing there to see? Making the dots is obsessive. The first dot removes all possibility of choice -or does it? Perhaps that is all that it is – a displacement activity. Something to do in place of doing something. I like the surface, albeit that it is in places clumsily made, replete with weaknesses and uncertainties. Is a surface of identical dots possible? Do I like it because it is mindless? Why should I like it? It is simply ‘there’. We are drawn to things. We are drawn in in things. We are drawn by things. There is a temptation to make recognisable – to generate an ‘image’. To find a landmark. To know where I am. To be safe. To know where I am implies space. The counter urge is to be absorbed. To have no space. I anticipate the relief to be gained from solving or avoiding the problem. Anticipation might be preferable to disappointment. I like its opacity; it invites me to resolve it, prompts me to refuse. I recognise a recurring tension. – a refusal to give to the work what it needs, a refusal to give to myself what I need. Childish or child-like? It is neither beginning nor end, problem or solution It is both necessary and pointless. Juxtaposition is potential; spaces the source of energy. Spaces between words. There is a spatial ‘not being’. Dots and words and myself press in upon each other. Or reach out? ‘Dot’ seems a silly word.
