I had my hair cut today. Probably I don’t do this as frequently as I ought, and I have to admit that I do start to look quite scruffy by the time I do get around to it. Usually my visits to the hairdresser are governed, not by the length of my hair, but by a general feeling that life is getting out of control, the pace of things is becoming uncomfortably frenetic, and I have an urgent need to put on the brakes. In fact, having my hair done is simply an ordering ritual.
There is something comfortable and reassuring about having my hair cut. Somebody is actually spending time attending to me, and exercising infinite care and skill to make sure that my needs are met. As an experience it is not driven by the demands of the calendar or the market. It is an event that deliberately is positioned outside of any normal timetable. Time stops …. and on my behalf. The occasion bears disturbing resemblance to a therapy session. Conversation meanders gently onwards, and ideas are permitted to receive expression as they rise to the surface. Come to think of it, conversation with one’s hairdresser resembles quite closely a session with a psychotherapist.
Then it struck me, quite suddenly, after dinner this evening: does it feel like this to be a picture? Is the artist a kind of therapist for images, that need to be coaxed, encouraged into existence, and given a quiet space in which they can gradually just be? It gives a new slant on what it means to be an artist, looking at things in this way. Instead of being the master of the image, imposing a vision on it, and disciplining it into some kind of acceptable order, the artist should aim simply to facilitate its existence. Certainly it is the case that, like my visits to the hairdresser, the emergence of images follows no timetable and responds to some obscure inner need.
Will I ever be able to look at my work in the same way again?