After a period of reflection… or should that really be during a period of reflection, I find hidden amongst it all, a reason to carry on doing what I am doing. By that, I mean to not be worried about moving onto a New Thing. While I was looking at fifteen years worth of my work in the Weeks Gallery in Jamestown NY, I found myself asking “what next?” Other people also asked the same question. I said I didn’t know. I think if they asked me now I would say “more of the same”.
I know I say I don’t need a reason, I trust the process, I’ll just do what I feel like doing, and will play. I do say this, and I mean it. But I am also happy when I find an external reason, justification to do that. I shouldn’t need approval, permission, validation… but I do know that I feel better when I have found the root of it all. I need to tie my string to something before I go off wandering. That way I know where home is, I can give it a little tug, feel that it is still attached, then wander on some more, reassured.
In the massive studio sort out I did recently (which is actually all part of the reflection process) I came across some drawings I did about five years ago… maybe six or seven even… and discovered something unresolved. It never really said what I wanted it to, it was, I thought at the time, a little cul-de-sac, a diversion that didn’t go anywhere, so I left it and moved on.
So I now have found the thing to do is definitely more of the same. I shall repeat what I am doing, in the light of what I uncovered, and in the work itself, discover the change. Repetition… is a repeat exactly the same as what went before? No… it’s not. I might use the same materials, method, make the same actions, but it isn’t the same. It’s that different view from the same mountain again. I repeat, but what ends up on the paper, or being made in my hands, is mutating as I work. You might not be able to see what is changing from one piece of work to the next, but after a period of time you can… the tenth drawing is nothing like the first. I don’t expect others to see it, or appreciate it. If you ask I can point it out. But I might not be bothered. It’s like a game of Chinese whispers…
So the next drawing will look different, but also will nod at what went before, and I will tie my string to it, and move on to the next.
(Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance
…
Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance)
