PAINTING Even the thought of painting makes my brain begin to seek refuge in a whole host of escapist distractive strategies. I just need another coffee, to check my email again, change the music walk the dog... bloody hell! anything,to avoid another wrestle before a blank canvas and an unyielding easel.
Because, my brain knows only too well, that once started, a new painting will obsess me, it will dominate every moment of both my waking and sleep. It will never even come close to satisfying my pedantic need for a balance of spontaneity and detail. there will be tears and elation as my intense focus is frustrated by lack of technical ability to deliver.
THE PROBLEM IS: I don’t have the confidence to break free and daub and lunge at a canvas the way I wish I could, I've tried but a day later, I suddenly realise I am lost agin, obsessing over some tangential detail. Believe me I've tried.to break free, I’ve tried it drunk, chemically enhanced and even stone cold sober (is that an oxymoron?)
BUT... I love doing it… J love the confrontation, challenge, the obsessive thought, the purpose, the rightness of it all...
But I know, IF I finally begin to like it, I'll never sell it, because each time I do, it breaks my heart.
What I’ve learnt from painting… If I temper a little of the self doubt and just keep going, it will probably work out in the end... OR NOT! and IF NOT that's why god gave us rubbish bins.
Colour and texture, when it works, if it works, is one of the greater mental highs you can have.
It's perfectly O.K. for me to get lost in detail, IT'S MY PAINTING.
It only works for me, when I finaly find the right combination of humour, insightful observation, detail and colour. The problem is, I never know how the bloody hell I am going to achieve it and how long it will take.
It becomes my un-yielding master, I become it's subservient minion, mixing and pushing paint around until it begrudgingly releases me.