Drawing. I do it. I'm working on a small drawing about 10in x10in. of some long dead lilies. Looking down. It's very difficult. I wear the difficulty as a criticism of my competence. I travel hopefully but bearing in mind potential disaster. Even the slightest change in my position changes relationships throughout the subject. Sometimes I cannot tell if I have made a mistake, or if the subject really looks like that. It takes me back to teaching. I felt always that the value in learning to draw was to be found in the resultant ability to look, to question, to take nothing for granted. So the child's ultimate ability to describe something 'accurately' was second to his/her growing capacity to challenge and wrestle with preconceptions. Similarly in teachers' relationships with children. Our initial position and our ability to shift and to see anew is vital.
I have done some more to one of the grey paintings. I was trying to 'whisper' the vase of roses onto the canvas; it is difficult not to shout sometimes when I cannot make my point. The pit of sentimentality threatens. I try to stay away.
Back to work. There are not enough hours in the day just to deal with distractions!! I have started a series of smallish paintings !8 x18in, 22 X 22in and 24 x 24in. Mixing greys again and building textures which will provide a context for the image that joins them. I am thinking "What you mean is 'backgrounds'… " but I am trying to resist the term since it smacks of formula – slap on a background and then paint an image onto it. I like greys especially when they are the product of colours and perhaps have a tint in them. I like the 'juiciness' of paint. This probably points to some unresolved infantile condition, but I'm reminded of Henry Moore's negative response to the possibility of psychoanalysis, on the grounds that it might remove his need for his work. The therapy of working is enjoyable but must never be allowed to solve the problem.I have the notion of using precise glazed images over the 'backgrounds'. I shall see.
Why paint? why not paint? I feel that what I do needs to be purposeful – have some meaning that justifies it. On the other hand, painting makes my mouth water; reason enough perhaps. As a student at Ipswich I had a lecturer named Lawrence Self. He would occasionally show us slides of his work. His work was very tactile. I would go away from his shows itching to paint. (I wish I had told him) This feeling that I am 'indulging' in a pointless pursuit is somehow a millstone around my neck;pleasure accompanied by guilt is no real pleasure. Even as I type these words I see the nature of my problem in that I try to intellectualise what is not an intellectual pursuit, albeit an intelligent one. In my teaching I used the notion of 'feeling with the eyes' to point to the business of drawing. Such acts can only be trusted; they cannot be explained. I have had a break from my work in recent weeks. My work is in the SHED and I feel a need to get back to the physicality of drawing I met a man through my exhibition (he was the previous exhibitor at the gallery) named Henry whose work was a breath of fresh air. Utterly without pretension, it was plain naive statement, untutored and unselfconscious. If ever there was a guru, it is Henry. He wrote poetry also.
My work has been in the Peter blake Gallery for three weeks now. I have had some favourable comment. I am working on the shed which will house the returned work. I lined it with glass fibre loft insulation and'Shed Boat Shed' mutated into a reference to the felt and fat installations of Joseph Beuys. Being in the unfinished shed transported me to a Beuys installation, which in turn had taken me back to my childhood, playing in haystacks on a farm near my home. The way in which sound and oneself was absorbed in each situation created a powerful sense of part suffocation and part protection.Of course I feel that I know the difference between an artwork and a'functional' artefact, but the possibilities of the everyday niggle away at my understanding. A criterion often quoted in defining a work of art is that it has a level of skill in its creation. But the notion of 'skill' as a qualitative criterion is misplaced. What we have is technique;skill is a measure of the command of technique; technique is applied in the pursuit of a further goal. To differentiate between art objects and other artefacts is in one sense unnecessary; the experience is the defining event. So why paint?
I have a pathological need for certainty and a disposition to be uncertain. This makes enjoyment a little diffcult and fleeting. My work is on the walls at Dartford Library. I can look at aspects of it and feel satisfied. I guess that the difficulty of drawing is something with which I feed my uncertainty. Knowing when something has run its course comes more easily than knowing whether it has any value. The notion that matters of taste are subjective and therefore beyond dispute confronts head on the need for judgements to be rational and therefore arguable. Taste without judgement is valueless. I try to undermine my own taste in my work:good taste is potentially the artist's worst enemy. I want the work to be valued, but not necessarily liked.
