There are lots of folk sayings about the way in which small things can have large consequences. I’ve quoted before the old rhyme about “For the want of a nail the shoe was lost”. Then there is the one about the last straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m sure you can think of your own examples. It is true. As regular readers will be aware, I’ve been rather derailed recently….beached…. unable to make progress and feeling very gloomy about that. The other night, however, having been toying with the idea for some time that I might try my hand at a portrait, I sat down and drew my wife (as I recounted in a recent post.) I have been amazed at the extent of the difference that small experience has made.
For some reason my morale has switched quite dramatically. I have begun corresponding with galleries again, and today I started the revision of this website that I have put off for far too long. It feels that my artistic life has started moving once more. There is no serious attempt at a picture on the easel as yet, but the chances of this happening have improved quite dramatically. Ideas are beginning to twinkle.
It is notable that small disappointments don’t weigh me down. At last night’s life-drawing session the instructor had us attempting to adopt the style of Henry Moore in those famous drawings he did during the war, in the underground stations used as air-raid shelters. For the life of me I couldn’t get into it, and only one of my drawings seemed to have anything about it at all. Nevertheless, I simply felt that I had choices, and decided it isn’t for me, rather than experiencing it as a failure. Is it possible that my change of mood has to do with the fact that I haver started going to yoga classes again? I have no idea. Even so, I am aware that the small experience of sketching my wife does seem to have been some kind of turning point in my morale.