‘So it will be like Rolf Harris, then?’ said my partner when I told him about the changes I want to make to my project. He was referring, of course, to the Saturday night programmes that Rolf Harris used to host where he would do a huge painting before an audience, with ‘Can you see what it is yet?’ being his catchphrase. ‘No,’ I reply to him, ‘not like Rolf Harris.’ And yet, if I am asking to people (or at least getting the galleries to tell their audience that I will be there drawing) to come and see me drawing is it not the same? Will I be some kind of side-show, or even freak, show? Are the public interested in drawing? I like the idea of the ‘live-ness’ of it.
It is real, I will be challenged, something will happen amidst the fear, the danger and the unexpected-ness of it.
Or perhaps nothing will, like the times when I draw in the coffee shop and no one, absolutely no one comes in and I sink like a soufflé.
Aren’t most forms of creation like that, though? Sometimes it is there and it is marvellous to both behold and to feel and others it is a damp squib.
Meanwhile, I try to keep this drawing practice going, waiting, my breath held. to hear from the galleries whether I have their blessing to offer myself up as performer or not.
All I can do is keep drawing, honing, watching, observing, noting and trying to improve.
