This week has been one of incredible frustration …. until today. My computer has been playing up in several ways, and I have not been able to get a specialist to look at it before not Wednesday. The most annoying thing has been that, having set aside this week to update and overhaul thoroughly this website, I have been prevented from doing many of the tasks I felt were more urgent in that respect, especially uploading new illustrations. I have been forced to take a step sideways and get stuck into another job I had been intending to do rather later, namely, reorganising a part of the garden.
As I was working out there this afternoon I was struck by a sudden thought that I believe is really rather important. I seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking (well, almost) that the purpose of my activities is to run a website, instead of thinking that the website is an ancillary and supporting part of my activity as an artist. It is annoying that I have not been able to do something I wanted to do, but I do need to acknowledge that the real business of my art has not actually been affected. In fact, the opening of my exhibition at the week-end went very well, including the sale of a piece, and I am looking forward over the next couple of days to visiting some good exhibitions in London. I really do need to get a grip on the difference between means and ends, and especially where the means in question are well and truly secondary to the main purpose of my activity.
I fear that I may have fallen into a common trap in the contemporary world, of prioritising the means of communication over the substance of what is boing communicated.