Sometimes I get to Wednesday and I think, bloody hell, I’ve nothing whimsical to talk about. Maybe this should be ‘whimsy on a quarter’ or something. Week to week is a bit, ya know, challenging and yet it’s not that things don’t happen to me of a whimsical nature, because they do.
A lot.
However, I can’t always talk about them. It wouldn’t be prudent to divulge what happened at the pub last Friday, why there was a video, and how even though face coverings have been banned in my town I really feel like wearing one. I can’t always talk about the things that amuse me and the village details I get given like pub A boards, or flowers in planters for the blooming glory, because I want to keep some friends and hold a reasonable level of respect, despite that vanishing rapidly.
And it’s not that I don’t like a challenge - I love them. I believe I produce my best stuff when tested.
Maybe I should get you lot to challenge me but then, when I recall the minds of my readers I think I’m better off leaving that well alone.
However, I can talk about what I have been up to which is a lot of arty stuff. And maybe that’s a thing I should write about because art, in all its forms, has been a real exploration into self.
Art, like writing, has been a salvation to me. A deliverance from my own frustration. If I go a few days without doing something creative I feel like I might go mad. Or perhaps I should say madder.
Whenever I’ve exhausted myself on a creative level I can honestly say it’s like I’ve taken some medication. I’m calmer, serene. I speak pleasantly to people. I let traffic out at junctions and don’t yell at them when they go slow. I don’t want to knock the 25 cyclists spilling across the country roads off their bikes. I applaud their dedication. I’m amenable and convivial. I might even get to the point where I’d buy you a drink.
Creativity is basically my therapist and the only one that can cope with me. And I it. Together we work our way through the turmoils of life - painting out the irritation, writing it in a rant book, making all the annoyances turn into pretty things or interesting anecdotes and accounts of life. Sometimes not pretty things; occasionally darkness or sorrow.
When I started drawing and painting I came from a bit of a sketchy start. I have always loved to sketch- fluid lines, interpretive, basic. I still like to keep first marks and lines in paintings because the thing about painting is that it can get a bit tight and a bit small. I started to go down that line, trying to be perfect but that’s not the sort of art I wanted to do. If I want realistic I’ll take a photo. Another thing I like doing. Instant gratification. Painting does not give you that.
A couple of years back I decided to go to a drawing class taught by a fabulous artist. I believed that if you could master drawing well then you could get to grips with all other mediums. I still believe that to be fundamentally true; drawing gives you foundation, value, shape.
This artist would throw things on a table and tell you to draw them. He would insist on a big page, A3 minimum, and tell you to just start. He wouldn’t show you how to do it, just tell you what to consider. It was like a technical challenge in the Bake Off - no recipe but make this.
Initially I found this very irritating. I felt lost at sea. Why am I paying to not be taught? But after a few lessons I got what he was up to. Sneaky. He wanted you to be you; to be confident and bold. Make the moves and then he’d show you how or where you could improve. I learnt a lot from him and I am confident enough to draw well or in a sketchy fashion because I know I can do it well if I want to.
Take this dog that came into my art club last week.
I don’t do dogs, not really. I used one piece of charcoal and a couple of crayons. I liked the comical sketch of it. I don’t want to create a perfect dog portrait because I wouldn’t like it. And that’s a big turning point for me. If I don’t like it, I’m not doing it and I’m certainly not doing it in detail.
I found with paintings I was still getting too focused, too tense. Especially when I moved from the fluidity of watercolour to acrylic and oils. Then recently I did my first large canvas. I started and stopped. I left it for a while. I kinda liked it and then I hated it until one day I thought, well this is ridiculous. This big arsed thing is stopping me from moving to my next creation. I got a load of paint and started to wipe out great sections and soften other areas with a big brush. I changed the colours, I altered the values. The journey was stressful, messy, and then it was at some point enlightening. I started to pull what I wanted from the chaos and it was right then that I realised it is the emotion of the whole process that is the answer. At the end I had a painting that was finished.
When I say finished, I mean finished in that moment. In that space I had completed. No painting, or writing for that matter, is ever truly good enough for the creator. But you reach a point where you know it’s time to stop.
I put this one on my wall as a reminder of that breakthrough even though there are a few people who want it. That makes me happy. I feel like I’ve broken the next step in evolving and on the way, possibly healed a little part of me that needed it.
Now I’m concentrating on some smaller, one off pieces. They aren’t all going to plan but that’s OK. I recognise I will travel there eventually, work it out, and that that is the art people connect with; the part you have spilled yourself into.
Oh feel free to disclose embarrassing details of the private lives of people who live in your village here on your blog. We can be trusted to keep the secrets delivered Soto voce over a pint or five. (Wink)