Yesterday I got to grips (at last!) with the task of clearing out old files relating to my art work. Auguste Comte used to advise “mental hygiene”: well, I’m practicing “artistic hygiene”. The disposal of old, irrelevant documents has extended today into the disposal of old images. It happened by accident. I needed a portfolio … Read more
I’ve decided that this is what I’m doing at the moment. At one time I thought that if I wasn’t actually painting I wasn’t “doing art”. Now I have come to realise that it is possible to be processing material almost beneath the level of consciousness–perhaps even completely so. At the moment there is something … Read more
I’ve often asked myself that question, visiting galleries there when staying with family north of the border. We were taken to the Kinblethmont Gallery (located in a rather grand country house, not far from Arbroath). Although my response to the several artists currently on show there was very diverse, in each case I was glad … Read more
I’ve been aware since shortly after I began working as an artist that a great deal of what I paint has had to with time, in one form or another. (This is something I discuss briefly in my website.) I have been interested by the different time-scales that affect the world in which we live–geological, … Read more
I think I am the point with my design of windows for the Defence Academy, to submit them to the Academy, and to the glass technician for him to fall about laughing. (“You think I can do that? You must be joking!”) Even now I am having second thoughts about bits and pieces, but I … Read more
I’m sure we all have them …. when one project reaches a natural pause, if not completion, and a state of exhaustion suddenly sets in. There is only one thing to do, and entirely without self-reproach, and that is to stop and do the garden. At least, that is what I have convinced myself.
I’m trying a new method of assessing whether I’m satisfied or not with my work. Instead of sitting in front of it for a long time and staring at it, I have hung it up in a place where I pass frequently. The idea is that I catch sight of it out of the corner … Read more
This afternoon, on the way back from our weekly Italian language class in Harrogate, we called in at the Square and Compass in North Rigton. I suppose its best description is a “gastropub”: very nice anyway, especially when you can sit out on the terrace in the sunshine, as you could today. I guess it … Read more
The windows project has made unexpected progress partly thanks to a surprising discovery. I have been wondering which medium to use in colouring the developing design. The book I got on stained glass techniques advised the use of pastels, but using these in the initial sketches I found it difficult to keep everything clean, even … Read more