A seagull, in a gutter near Eastbourne. About a year old, surprisingly large, I found it impossible to ‘see’ it when I first began to draw.
I wondered how on earth I could draw the creature. I was completely without any imagination – the placing of a mark is an act of imagination, and I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even have a technique. The drawing was awful. And I felt incompetent. I’m having another of those periodic episodes when I know that I don’t know what I am doing, particularly here on a-n where my brain seems to have dried up. I often imagine those numberless artist who do not connect with groups such as this, and wonder what needs motivate us in our various directions. My little dog has to grip its teeth tightly onto a-n’s trouser-leg, growl and wait for the moment to pass. The problem of the ‘Artists statement’ has drifted back to me recently, because from one perspective, I’m simply drawing birds in a reasonably competent way, when I guess my pretensions wish for something more. Why else is there no statement? Making this drawing, I arrived at the point where I had to work through my failure. I noticed the silence, and put some music on, which stirred me up a little, and I got a rhythm going. I’m no dancer, but there is something of the dance in drawing, a mirroring of line, connections through space and movement, reciprocity, a conversation of touch. Perhaps it’s a displacement activity. I’m tempted to think of it in terms of a kind of lived metonym, whereby the life lived stands for what is really desired. Gradually, pattern and form emerge from confusion.
The weather is becoming doom laden and dull. I dislike it and shall until it recedes. In recent years we have had months of dull grey over the Christmas period. At a particularly low moment whilst drawing I went to make a cup of tea. On my way back, I noticed what appeared to be a leaf on top of a fat ball hung out for the birds. Looking more closely, I saw it was a mouse, reddish brown with large ears. It remained for a while, motionless on the fat-ball, and then moved carefully to the dark shadow beneath the bird-table, where it sat, absolutely still, either unaware of its tail hanging vulnerable below it, or unable to do anything about it.
