A good friend of mine who is an actor tells me that when actors are not actually in work they describe their situation os “resting”. I rather like that. It describes my situation at the moment. I am available immediately too sporing into action …. but right now there are no direct calls upon my talent. Should I be worried about that?
Actually, I have lined up three opportunities to put work into exhibitions, one of which I will be responding to tomorrow, but I don’t think that this addresses my question. It is some time since I completed a picture. There are some ideas on file, but right now nothing really impels me to develop it. A part of my condition of stasis has to do with the temporary problem of my health, which has been pretty disastrous during the last week. (I am recovered enough to enjoy my weekly climbing session today.) This doesn’t account for the longer-term situation.
I think that what is going on is a sense that I need a careful reappraisal of priorities. This was brought home to me yesterday, when I asked my wife’s advice about what I might put into a competition mounted every two years by the city’s main gallery. To my surprise I was greeted with a fluent and insightful and well-informed analysis of the choices I had offered her. (Surprised, that is, not be the quality of her remarks but by the vociferous way in which they were expressed.) She was able to give voice to ideas that I had never formulated as clearly for myself, although they were dimly present on the fringes of consciousness. At least I have now a kind of measuring-rod against which it will be useful to begin to assess the several possible lines of development that have been lurking in the background.