Many years ago I was lucky to be awarded a mentorship, working under Graeme Willson for a year. It was an experience I have valued greatly ever since. Not all of it was easy to cope with. He tried hard, and with little success, to persuade me to experiment with more abstract compositions. His acute, diagnostic comment after this session was that he believed I was “Afraid to fail”. I was unwilling to relinquish ways of working that had stood me in good stead. In many ways I fear that I am still wrestling with that conservative disposition.
Certainly this describes my predicament at the moment …. although not in the way Graeme had in mind. I do believe that I am technically more adventurous than I was then. My current problem has rather to do with a fear of failing to do justice to specific subjects. There are two ideas prowling around in the back of my mind at the moment, howling to be let out. One is an image from my childhood in Norfolk. I have almost committed myself to start something on this one. I will need a model, and now that we are permitted to work in proximity with other people I have identified somebody who is willing to do the job. I still find it a scary prospect, however, and in some respects I have to admit that I’m still dragging my heels.
The second idea struck me between the eyes while sorting through my box of old photographic slides over the past couple of days. One image leaped out at me, demanding to be turned into a portrait. Why not? I spent the time of the recent snooker world championships experimenting with portraits. Metaphorically speaking, at the moment, I’m cowering behind the back of the sofa. There are, I’m afraid to say, no technical obstacles such as the availability of a model, standing in the way of this one.
I do keep inventing excuses, such as my coming across some canvas in the cellar today, and thinking that this would be a great opportunity to do what I have sometimes done in the past, which is to make my own canvases. Oh dear! What a pity I don’t have any stretchers to hand! Come off it!
There is a curious and novel aspect to my prevarication in this situation. Whereas my heel-dragging in the case of my work with Graeme had to do with my reluctance to experiment with novel techniques, here I am well aware that the obstacle to progress is an emotional one, and a feeling that I can’t actually do justice to the emotional depth of the theme. I know! I know! There is only one way to find out.