you have your reasons

"You have your reasons for which pieces you like most, I'd never try to change your mind (the creator knows best). But, had I the chance to buy a piece of yours in the future (which I really hope to and I'm not blowing smoke), this would be high on the list. Though I don't come from a city with an art scene, (other than the one my friends and I are attempting to create) I've had the chance to visit galleries all over the U.S. and some in Europe, though mostly only the big name ones, I've seen shit and movement art which is all fine and well, but painters that paint for the love of the craft with such a broad spectrum of works and talent are few. You, my friend, are such a painter."

He was talking about this painting;

Of my own work it's not my favourite, though i may admit it has something, some viciousness to it which i like, which i harbour and cultivate at times. But the comment was perhaps one of the nicest i've ever received, mainly because it's exactly how i would like to be viewed. TO have the work free from constraints, transcending money worries, not pandering to any particular audience. Just being, from me, to whoever wants to see it, you.

This was today's work, that is all.

unweaving the rainbow

Read the first chapter of Richard Dawkins River Out Of Eden. A science book, a biology book which goes into other areas of science and technology, and even grasps at poetry and philosophy (with an underlying claw at organised religion).

I've always been interested in science, in school i wasn't interested in anything, i was bored, unimaginative, unhappy, and didn't get much in the way of comfort or inspiration from either teachers or students. And when i did i started to listen, and express interest, hence my favourite, and well graded school subjects are (or were) English, Maths and Science. Not art, which i have always had a skill for, not drama, which i have always leaned towards. But since leaving school, that's where i have learnt the most. The science books i've read are mostly popular, i've watched tv series on space and 'life'. And i always find myself feeling all homely. Maybe that has something to do with my dad always watching them when i was a child, maybe not.

But i fail to understand how other people (even other artists) aren't inspired by science, by something which attempts to understand and express what we are. Many of the artists i do know are much more interested in spirituality and supernatural occurrences (which possibly explains why they also have an interest in conspiracy theories.) No, at such times i don't feel like i fit in with arty types at all. But maybe i just don't fit in with crafty types, maybe i just havent met many real artists yet. Leonardo, there was an artist, and a great scientist. Lately i recall (for my 21st birthday) my dad taking me to Elgar's house in Malvern, i remember on his shelves, there was the complete works of Shakespeare alongside an amateur chemisty kit..:)

I feel like science is what i should become entwined up in, the direction i should take my artwork. After all, painting is like alchemy, it is definitely chemistry, and when we apply it to canvas the shapes we make and the attempts we have to express ourselves, or to copy life, or to give impressions of life, that is closer to science than anything else. So i don't understand why artists feel they need to ignore it. Art spans out like a web, making connections between science, poetry, philosophy, love and memory. It span out to encompass anything, but these i think are my choices.

and i wonder, i do

Trying like a nursery rhyme sung by a soprano, a stick man by an old master. mixturing excellence with incompetence, with the good marks. The good points, exploited.

two sides

I made a painting a while back, around about the time of 'Pleasure Hands', which is the last female portrait i did (a woman in green). I don't think it's very good, but technically i suppose it shows a sort of skillfulness in depicting a specific scene. A house, some trees. An insignificant scene, bestowed with colour and fit in to a structured composition. I tried anyway.

I do quite like it. The colours are nice, the application of paint works for me. But that's all it seems to be about. It's kind of banal, possibly hinting at something, i mean if you focus on something long enough to paint it it's ultimately going to be suspected that it 'means' something. Even if it really doesn't.

Today i made my second Feather painting. I like it very much, though the picture i took of it does not do it justice, it does not reveal the many different shifts of colour, the two different yellows in the background, the much worked into feather itself. It works, it's an ordinary, unimportant feather, also bestowed with some sort of meaning, epicness, feeling, spirituality, while hopefully retaining that humble origin. The yellow, i enjoy, i enjoy painting patterns that are seemingly abstract, this was based on the pattern of stitching on the canvas, the different yellows were responses to the dappled light of the sun filtered through some leaves playing over the whole scene. Though you'd never know it to look at it. But hopefully there is enough there to see, without prompts from me.

What do i want?

I must know what i want because i'm quick to decide on what i don't want. There is a guide, even if i don't know what it is.

I want a place of my own.

I want the freedom to travel.

I want the money to live comfortably, and free from money oriented worries.

I want good friendships.

I want a loving, kind and humour-filled relationship.

I want to be able to work in art, film, animation... and be appreciated for that work.

hmmm.. for all my pretentious posing, and faux teen angst, my desires are remarkably ordinary and simple.

But then paint applied to a canvas is quite a simple act isn't it, while at the same time being a very difficult task, to do it well anyway.

Game theory

It's tiring weaving a pattern of nothingness.

Punctuating that nothingness with a certain peculiar language.

Which attempts to inspire in you, your own stories.

Yet they are based within me, within my past, within something which is both completely separate from you, in time, space and culture.

And yet which is ultimately a slice of life which we all have experienced, and contained in our memory.

Sweet Little Reminder

of how, as it's been so long, you forget how good things can be. The reminder is sweeter still when been forgotten for a long time. When you're in forced contentment with less than ideal circumstances. It only takes a word, a sentence from a stranger or a look or a song, and things conspire to jog your memory. Kinda kick starts everything, which is a blessing if it's your emotions, a pain in the arse if it's your imagination.