At times today it felt like the world was conspiring against me. Icy conditions and serial road works made the journey to Wimbledon drag on for what felt like forever. I was itching to get on with some work but instead was confined to an over-full bus half convinced that I could have walked to my destination quicker. It was a dull and overcast day with none of the bright light I enjoyed yesterday. This blighted my plans for what I had decided to work on this morning, which would have involved engaging directly with the light. When I arrived at the Centre for Drawing the glorious natural light that illuminated the far wall of the room yesterday was nowhere to be seen, and it remained that way all day, so Plan B came into play (not that I had a plan…)
I took a trip to the library, photocopied some of my line drawings from yesterday and had an enjoyable time scanning the drawing section, which is well stocked with inspiring books and catalogues. This gave me rather more hope for a productive day than the tedious bus journey had.
Back in the project space I spent some more time inspecting the curious cracks in the wall. They don’t run straight, but instead inscribe disjointed lines down the entire height of the wall at regular intervals. I’m quite fascinated by them. Perhaps it was these disrupted lines that caused me to start cutting up the photocopies of my drawings and reassembling them, fracturing the architectural lines and superimposing one linear form onto another. I made a series of collages from the reconfigured photocopies and then started drawing my own deconstructed spaces using yesterday’s drawings to inform my new lines. I developed these until the resulting drawings had become larger and more complex, then explored realising the lines by folding paper instead of drawing. It felt like there is something to develop further here, so I will return to this tomorrow. As is often the case, Plan B turned out to be more interesting than what I’d originally intended. It’s taken me a long time to let go of the need to ‘plan’ work but I finally feel able to explore materials and processes without worrying about what the outcome is. In recent years this has been one of the most liberating experiences in my practice, to be able to trust my ability to explore, test and evaluate without fear of failure.
Although the sunlight had mostly evaded me I still had time at the end of the day to undertake some quick and rather scruffy experiments with folded mirror card and florescent paper, looking at reflected colours on the white project space wall and three dimensional forms as a means of drawing in space. Despite a deeply unpleasant start to the day on the 152 bus I left the CfD feeling excited about continuing some of today’s lines of enquiry tomorrow. A good day in the studio can indeed make the world feel a much better place.
On the way home the bus broke down so I have written this blog entry standing on the edge of a road in south west London.
Tomorrow I’m travelling by train.
