I know that there are some artists who are absolutely intimidated by a blank, white canvas and feel compelled to wash over it with some kind of colour before they can make any kind of beginning. This has always seemed to me to be a strange situation, partly (I suppose) because often I start by creating a faint grid of lines on the surface in order to guide the development of the work. Perhaps that has a similar function. Although I have always dismissed this idea, quite suddenly I find myself in a comparable situation.
My wife and I have begun the process of thinking about moving house. The place in which we live is wonderful, but it is not very congenial as a home for very elderly people. That description doesn’t fit us yet, but once I reach 80 I can imagine that the effort of moving house will be very intimidating indeed. The thought fills me with horror, as I have become very attached indeed to this place, and it did strike me as sensible to seek some advice. Somebody I know at the South Square Centre is actually a professional counsellor in order to talk things through.
A curious part of our first meeting was that she advised me to get a notebook and write down, from day to day, my thought on the matter. Visiting Bradford today I bought myself a lovely new notebook and a pen …. but what to write? I’m half temped to scribble over the first page, just in order to break the intimidation of all those beautiful while sheets of paper, which surely do not merit defacement by my trivial thoughts. We’ll see.
Hi John, whenever I am looking for somewhere new to live I make myself a table with all the different things I am looking for in a new home so I can score each house I see against it. I find this really works for me.
Thanks for that, Lynrose. Actually we have already done that. It isn’t the practicalities of making a move that give me problems, but the emotional ones.