Back to Paint

Making the most of being landlocked in green while on a very rural and quiet dog-sit in Central Scotland far from the sea so returning to PAINT. My favourite medium which I ignored while doing the Masters. Am exploring brushes, textures, layers and being more deliberate, less habitual to step out of the safe zone. Helped by looking through the stacks of art books in this house - from Turner to Hitchens to Keifer. 

Skimming through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way which I'd heard of but never looked at - interesting ideas about what creativity is, why we avoid it and how to tap into it.

The danger of The Virtue Trap  We strive to be good, to be nice, to be helpful, to be unselfish...generous, of service to the world but our true self has gone to ground. What's left is a shell of our whole self...like a circus animal...our artist has checked out. Our life is now an out-of-body experience.

On the need for solitude: For an artist, withdrawal is necessary. Without it the artist feels vexed, angry, out of sorts...sullen, depressed, hostile. An artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude. An artist requires the healing of time alone.

Fragments of poetry swirling in my mind.

The trees are coming into leaf
like something almost being said.
The recent buds relax and spread
Their greeness a kind of grief.
(Larkin, The Trees)

And always hovering is Dickinson:
721
Behind me dips Eternity -
Before me Immortality -
Myself the Term Between.

'Tis Miracle before me - then
'Tis Miracle behind - between
A Crescent in the Sea
With Midnight to the North of Her
and Midnight to the South of Her
And Maelstrom - in the Sky.