Well, we can’t all be Monet. I’m not talking about being able to paint water lilies, haystacks or steam engine steam (although what I’d give to be able to paint like that)—I’m talking about that barn he used to have to work in. Right now, about the only dream I have left in life (for, as Eugenie says, life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes) is to have a huge studio. Or well, even just an okay studio will do—just enough space to house all my junk (and the junk I make my junk with) and hopefully for me to make even more junk in. I don’t need an entire barn (although that would be AWESOME); I'd be happy with even just a good-sized room. Buuut like I said, we can’t all be Monet, and most of us have to make do with what we’ve got. And right now all I’ve got is more or less half a room about oh… eight feet square (a little less than two and a half metres)? My sister has the other eight feet, which I try my best not to encroach on even if she has a place of her own near where she works and is hardly ever here.
14 Comments
Deogratias, ‘Aviary’ opened as smoothly as may be expected given the circumstances, and my warmest thanks go out to everyone who went to the opening and to the show since. I also want to thank everyone who’s expressed a genuine interest in my work, and by that I mean those who took the time to find out the how’s and why’s behind it. That said, it rather struck me how I’ve been asked ‘what’s your process’ for making the pieces in the show. Having spoken about how I go about planning for an exhibit on the jillablog before, this post talks about the process behind the creation of the canvases for ‘Aviary’, in particular. ‘What am doing this for, anyway?’ This is the kind of question that crops up in the back of one’s mind unbidden as one moves through the end stages of preparing for what could very well be one’s last show for a long, long time. During those long hours of arranging scales-cum-feathers and replacing feet with talons, one tends to wonder how this crazy, caffeine-fuelled ride got started in the first place. The answer lies in the swirling mists of time some 40 odd years ago, haha—I mean you know how ‘not enough hugs as a child’ has been given as a reason for (overly) aggressive behaviour in adulthood? It’s like that, lol. (Oh dear, someone’s been watching that Sherlock-Sigmund film again.) Call it mid-life crisis, I suppose. As I write this, I’m in the middle of a forcible removal of myself from, well, everything, going on at the moment, which has given me a little time to think about where I am, where I’ve been and where I’m going next. And seeing that this is what I project to be the first in a series of, ‘scribbles’ for anybody who might be interested in my work, or might be into (or planning to get into) art as a career (or as something to do because bungee-jumping wasn’t exactly their thing), well, I thought I might do a little ‘scribbling out loud’ on the subject. I mean about why anybody might choose to do what a lot of people consider quite useless or impractical or just plain weird. Why anybody might choose to do something that doesn’t always lead to fame or fortune (although when it does, boy does it ever) and has most everyone you know looking at you funny because you don’t go to work in a high-rise in a suit. Nobody likes to be looked at funny (well, generally, anyway), and I reckon everybody likes to be, well, accepted and to have people have a good opinion of them. 'Oh, he’s got a good job' or 'Oh, he’s vice president now' or 'Oh, she’s got a lovely three-year-old.' People who do what I do don’t always get that. More often than not, we don’t, and derision (polite or otherwise) is just something we have to live with (unless you’re one of us who hits the big time and buys a car or a condo with every painting sold). So why do we. Why would you? Are we masochists? Maybe. |
Categories
All
Archives
April 2024
|