the colour brown

I been thinking of manchester lately. What set it off was I just got an email from Blank Media, that a couple of my poems had been accepted for publication, i sent that submission off in June 2009, so wasn't really expecting anything back. But there it was, and well, i've always had an emo tendency to write poems, but it was only in that 3rd year in manchester that i actually did it regularly. At night i'd 'retire' (it seemed like an appropriate, old word to use) to my room with beer or whisky or whatever else, and sit down at my laptop, this laptop, and write. Sometimes i'd watch a foreign film i'd borrowed from the university library. Most nights i'd have boiled eggs, rice and frozen mixed vegetables, which i'd boil all in the same water. Some nights i'd smoke, camel lights (big girl!), but would never feel addicted, it was a pleasure to, i'd try and blow smoke in rings. Occassionally it would get late and i'd just carry on through the night, go for a walk to spar, or matt and phreds (the jazz club), and get even more drunk, even more emotional, even more lonely. Rarely, locked up in my little room with few people to talk to, those feelings would become physical...

well. I always make a big deal out of new paintings, paintings which i feel are taking me in a promising route. I always do that (like with the last post on the black framed paintings) and it never seems to pan out. And this above is no exception, only it feels more me. More sincere, like how i used to paint a year ago in uni. Figures in strange wasteland type landscapes, fighting, being mauled by wild animals, dead, staring out, prostituting themselves.. Thats me, those paintings, those ideas, those colours, are me. And brown is the colour that is most associated with those paintings. Brown blends into the background, but it is the most subtle and beautiful of colours. To make brown you have to mix blue, red and yellow, all three primary colours. If you change the amounts of those three you make lovely tones of the secondary colours, purple, orange and green. I love brown because it doesnt hold attention, yet is integral to a painting. And that seems to be a theme which follows me around, that hiding at the sides, not causing a storm so people look, but waiting to be noticed - its wrapped up with my persona. Not everything can hold our attention, its disorienting if every part of a painting has a strange contrast or an interesting alteration of colours, or nice lines or just general points of interest. Parts of it have to hold back, has to be the backstage crew, and without that backstage lot there isn't much to show.