Post 39 - Preparation for summer seminar 2024
“And Sharkey Says: all of nature talks to me. If I could just figure out what it was trying to tell me…” 1
thought forms
Before I start this next few days Seminar and then painting for the next few months I want to lead with one of my last paintings for my end of year show and reconsider the thoughts that led to making it.
Beyond the Garden
2023
Oil, Ink and flower on canvas
Pre-painting - this is important to me and it takes a long time to collect ‘enriched drawings’, memory notes, etc then prepare the ground. Acrylic, oil, ink spray, marks
there are 2 types or rather times in my painting - speed and motion and other slower layers.
Prior acts of making - instead of being obsessed with having a narrative to paint, I now see my painting as a narrative in itself.
‘world-building’ - A. Part of the painting process that sets up where your story takes place
B. building and destroying (as per Kirkby puts it “building on ruins”)2, story telling, layers of meaning, this can be endless, and poses a new dimension of practicality for me - how can I scrape back and re - build?, sanding? bleach? weathering?
OBSERVATION, JUDGEMENT, ACTION
There are 3 stages to Painting in terms of decision making
1. Alchemical - pouring, mixing with gamsol,turps etc where anything can happen.
2. Tools mark making - intuitive
3. Assessing and acting on this
There is a buildup of experience of layers, sometimes consciously doing ’wrong’
Proximities 1,2,3 beginning, middle, end - gestalt concept - shapes group together if they are close. marking is echoed in the looking
Thinking reading and writing - and music! eg Virginia Woolf “the Waves” corresponding ideas in our lives and work that resonates. her perspectives on feminism and creativity as a lens.
contemporary texts on historical painting.
little works =head and big works=body - new moves = habits reinforced -found objects
I touch nothing
I see nothing
We may sink and settle on the waves
The sea will drum in my ears
The white petals will be darkened with sea water
they will float for a moment and then sink
Rolling over the waves will shoulder me under
Everything falls away in a tremendous shower, dissolving me 3
Footnote/Endnote Citation:
Anderson, Laurie. Mister Heartbreak. Warner Bros. Records, 1984.
"Per Kirkeby Interview: We Build Upon Ruins." YouTube video, 10:28. Louisiana Channel, June 1, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyiqw-7wlBg.
Woolf, Virginia. The Waves. 1931.
