Beautifully, wonderfully validated by someone I really admire, and it is working to clear the way forward. I am so sensitive, negative things people say can deeply affect me, even though I would say to anyone else, pay no heed. Anyway the mist could be gradually clearing, I say this tentatively.
I want to draw, which is always a good sign. I want to work through some incomplete ideas and see what happens. I have been looking back on works I have made which contain a magic, and am looking to harness some of that and expand.
Watched a programme about Leonora Carrington, and how she was left out by her male siblings and so turned inward to her imagination. I can relate. My siblings are a stretch older than me, and I used to draw on my own a lot. I think this must have set something in my mind, a place to rest, something to really be present with, be truly myself with, away from others, inward, immersed in my imagination.
Another faltering start to painting. Made some quick paintings of large serpents. Might be something in it, but didn’t get the feels. Read some of Stephen Ellcock’s Elements book, powerful imagery aligned with nature, which is what I aspire to create. Way forward remains foggy.
Friend who understands my work says amazing and kind things, they are so valued and dear to me. I believe them cognitively, I wish my nervous system would catch up.
Put under pressure by a curator I greatly admire, I am to show with them late next year. Today they asked for some idea of what I will show, and I didn’t have any, but entered into a most worthwhile discussion. I have come out the other side so incredibly validated- again, twice in a couple of weeks. I immediately started working, prepped surfaces, made bold moves on two flagging paintings, and ended the day making some oil pastel drawings. God, the relief.
How a throw away comment threw such a spanner in the works, it set me into thinking way too hard and trying to turn a corner I hadn’t reached yet. Finally I can work, I have found another who deeply understands me and my work. I can’t wait to show with them.
Someone asked why the waves are somewhat stylised and it comes from a comparison someone made to the Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegal the Elder- one of my favourite paintings! There is a painting of the tower in Norwich Castle, by Tobias Verhaecht which I always have to go and look at while I am there, along with a Sickert I can’t take my eyes off.
Went out drawing in a friend’s woods. Even though at the moment trees are not my subject of choice, I always get a lot out of making drawings in situ, from life, as such a lot of my work is from my imagination. I’d like to make Maggi Hambling style drawings too, automatic, without looking at the page.
In the event of the death of David Hockney, I painted Rumpelstiltskin, after a print he made on the subject and my subsequent drawing. Felt right and a welcome return to the comfort of the sea.
I’ve been looking at David Hockney’s Grand Canyon paintings and have impulsively ordered 12 panels to make a seascape version of the Bigger Canyon, which is made of 60 panels and is enormous. If I had the space I’d also go that big.
Painting a Danse Macabre. It scares me and I am not sure what I am doing. There is a lot of symbolism, personal stuff. It may be too dark even for me, so I want to add a beautiful sunrise to give it some contrast in energy.
Started a large diptych, as advised from a painter I admire. It’ll be full of skeletons/us/me of course, in some kind of ladder of bones.