I’m deeply engaged these days with a series of pictures on which I’m working, revolving around the subject of creation/creativity. These combine in a variety of ways images drawn from the ancient creation myths in the book of Genesis, pictures of contemporary people engaged in one kind of creative activity or another, and very personal associations and experiences. I’m quite pleased so far with the way things are working out, but recognise that I am some way from completion.
Yesterday I began to think seriously about one idea that has been hovering on the edge of awareness for a little while. It has to do with painting, and for some reason I am unable to fathom my attention was drawn to a picture of a small child experimenting with coloured pencils. At the moment my idea is that the child will be surrounded by a variety of other images suggesting the development of pictorial art. I’m making a list, and it is already clear that I am going to face problems both of selection (I have too much material) and composition.
As I was doodling with possibilities of how the final product might be arranged, one idea asserted itself very strongly, and there is now no question that it will feature in there somewhere. There has to be a childish drawing of a rabbit. Why on earth so? The reason for this is strongly autobiographical. For some time I have been aware that my earliest memory of art is an experience of myself as a small boy (probably five or six years old) seated on the floor in front of the fire in the small cottage in which we liked in Norfolk, shortly after the war. My mother and grandmother were sewing. and singing together, while I drew. I have the clearest recollection that I drew rabbits, and the result was received with great acclaim. I have always receded this as the first seed of my development towards being an artist. Whatever else this picture contains, it must recapture this moment.
However grand or formal or abstract the material on which artists work I do believe that the springs of art are always as deeply personal as my rabbits.