No snakes.

The kind of loneliness you can only feel on a Summer day

I made a postcard/drawing today based on an old diary entry and an ink sketch that I had made around that time. They weren't made to be shown to people; the writing existed in a word document on my computer amongst an infinite number of unorganised files and the drawing was shuffled between piles of other drawings until it was eventually put in a suitcase and stacked away.

I wanted to create a study of these past written and drawn moments and process them into an unsent card of image and text. I copied out the text in small capital letters and spent today drawing the image in fineliner pen using a shading technique that I used a lot a few years ago. This work will be sent over to America to be displayed at a friend's house show early next year.

I felt unsettled trying to recreate the original ink drawing; a reaction I was not expecting. I thought that re-creating this past work would be a peaceful and meditative process. I don't feel like I have been drawing enough lately so I thought that it would be opportunity to quietly work on something small and detailed. I didn't think I would feel emotionally involved as these are moments from the past. Instead, I have had waves of loneliness, regret, yearning, nostalgia, a sense of loss...No wonder I have been trying to avoid this work all day! I was aware that the drawing was causing me to feel this way (and the heatwave to some extent) but I couldn't help travelling through these emotions throughout the process. I am curious to take this emotional awareness with me into new works. Can you be in control of your emotions in artmaking? Should you only create things that make you feel good? Does re-creating a past work have the same meaning as it may have had when it was originally made? I wonder if in this instance I was picking up on feelings that I had when I made the original work or if I was reflecting on the time between that work and the present?

Studied, posted.

A small section of sky

Yesterday I went to Rosslynd Piggott's exhibition at Sutton, Last light / in vapour. I walked around the installation and quietly took in details of cut-out fabrics and paintings that softly transition in tone, intervened by small square shifts of shade. I left the gallery and started walking up Brunswick street with my friend, choosing to interrupt our shared silence by asking, "Did you like it? Thoughts?" She replied, "I liked it. No thoughts....Yourself?" I liked it too and I didn't feel like there was anything I had to say. My friend wisely replied "That's what makes it good..."

Seeing a show like this reminds me that words aren't necessary in the experience of visual art. I liked the text that Rosslynd had written to accompany the exhibition; text can enhance but it shouldn't have to explain. Within myself I felt re-affirmed that I need to keep working in ways and worlds that most speak to me; I need to trust my interests and instincts. Lying on my bed for just a little too much this week, I've realised that doubt is one of my worst enemies, "Hello Doubt, my old friend, I've come to lie with you again..."

It feels nice to be riding my bike again though. I'm looking forward to hiking and camping over the Christmas/New Year period. Feeling a connection with nature is really important to my mental health and thus how I work and operate in life. I've been enjoying working in the garden more over the last few months and was excited yesterday to see some of the love-in-the-mist seeds I sprinkled over a back section of the garden bed begin to spring up. I planted a few seedlings around yesterday evening including amaranthus, zinnias and dahlias (at least I think they are dahlias - they are possibly gomphrenas - the labels on my seed trays all washed off and I couldn't be certain which seeds had sprung up and which hadn't).

Days pass very quickly.

Candy

Next Door

Of a folder. The search is over.
Find it at home two minutes later.
Infinite Hangover.
A printed 1cm grid on the outer.

Entering the world of colour...
There's lipstick on the milk carton
In the midnight hour
At Cataract Gorge, Launceston.

Distance Education Dance
Youths doing BBC drama marathons.
Art as penance.
Cat Among the Pigeons
Fair weather supporter since 1990.

City of the One Night Stands

Some thoughts on the experience of art

I like this time of year; it's nice to have the free headspace to read novels again.
I've been thinking lately that I find books more accessible than art at times. I can read a book in the comfort of my own home (so often I end up missing exhibitions because it becomes 'too hard' to get to the gallery space).

I'm trying to be creative in my studio practice at the moment and not just focus on one thing. It's a bit of a shift from the periods of extreme focus that I have worked in for much of this year. Personally, I find that I have the best ideas when I don't have deadlines. I strive to be self-disciplined amongst my 'free-time' and I am quite good at this; I am happiest when I am my own boss. It feels like there are lots of possibilities on the horizon and I am happy to be quietly working away and building myself some grounding before I embark on the next series of hurdles.

I always feel like I should be doing more though.
Whatever I do is never enough.
I suppose that is good in that it makes me feel like I need to keep working and aim higher. But then I wonder how does one ever really judge their own creation?
Something that concerns me about going back to art school is the intense discussion of my work and other people's work. I have never felt confident at these sorts of verbal discussions; words become slippery and I don't know what I am meant to say or what I want to say.
I usually base my 'judgement' of a work on my personal experience of it. Does it make me feel something? Can I see/appreciate the work that has gone into it (physically or conceptually)? Does it have a sense of honesty to it? These are the most important elements of art to me and I find it hard to discuss work that doesn't respond to these questions.
I've quite often gone to an exhibition and thought "I feel nothing".
It is the worst response you can have to art.
I feel guilty that I have missed what the artist is trying to convey. I feel dumb that I have missed an obvious point. I wonder if I missed that week's lecture at art school...I constantly blame my feelings of 'nothing' on myself. And I reflect that if I, someone who has studied art at tertiary level and labels themself an artist, feels this way, then how do other people outside of the art world feel?
I want to make work that is honest to myself, a form for my ideas, created in my own language. I hope that it will speak to a range of people on different levels, not just a select few.

Diary of a Mad Old Man

The house is undeniably in decline.